From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1N9DZZ-0006pU-RC for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Sat, 14 Nov 2009 08:01:30 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 6B457E084C for ; Sat, 14 Nov 2009 08:01:29 +0000 (UTC) Received: from crowfix.com (crowfix.com [216.240.38.154]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0D23AE0808 for ; Sat, 14 Nov 2009 06:21:15 +0000 (UTC) Received: (qmail 23114 invoked by uid 1000); 14 Nov 2009 06:21:06 -0000 Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:21:06 -0800 From: felix@crowfix.com To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Quoting style on HTC Dream Message-ID: <20091114062106.GA9888@crowfix.com> References: <200911130125.31766.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> <1258100143.464518.3.camel@centar> <200911131036.29268.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) X-Archives-Salt: b6e735ff-76b8-40e7-973e-77eea9d44cb7 X-Archives-Hash: 60028c12c137d371f9476a3121d2756b On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 04:29:49PM +0000, James wrote: > My son wants a droid phone. I'm pushing him towards the HTC droid > as I think we can customize it, if not eventually run embedded > Gentoo on this phone. I have a G1, normal model, not flashed. I too wanted it because of its physical keyboard, but then someone developed a pay program ($5 I think, well worth it) called Better Keyboard which has been so good that I don't use the physical keyboard any more and no longer consider it a necessity, at least for Android. Friends who have an iPhone say this Better Keyboard is better than the iPhone's soft keyboard. I would also look at Nokia's open source phone, Maeomo I believe, which actually runs Debian, much much closer to true open source. Android apps HAVE to be written in their subset of Java, at least on the normal phone -- I don't know about jail broken ones. The Maemo can take programs from anything -- perl, python, etc, no doubt plain old C and even assembler if you want to. No doubt you could put gentoo on it. One problem with the G1 is its small memory, making it possible that it won't be able to use the 2.0 features. It can take humonguous SD chips, but the internal program flash is just too small. Plus it does not have multitouch like the iPhone or the new Motorola Droid, which would be a big improvement. I have not looked into these new phones much because my G1 is only a year old, still runs fine, and still has a year to go on the danged contract. But if I were looking for a new phone today, I would start by investigating the Maemo, then look at other Androids which don't have a physical keyboard but do have multitouch, and finally at the Droid. The physical keyboard adds complexity and cost and bulk and weight, and Better Keyboard is so good that I don't use mine any more. (for the record :-) Here are some of the things I like about Better Keyboard: Vibrate feedback on each keystroke. Long press on a key pops up a small window with all the extra chars on that key, such as accented keys. Side swipe brings up alternate keyboards, such as 2 chars per key like a cross between standard num pad texting and a real keyboard, or a numbers-only keyboard, or symbols-only. Lots of different themes which are useful, making it easier to find one that your eyes are happy with. Easy to invoke -- just tap in any text area and it comes up. Switches horizontal and vertical layouts as you switch the phone. Provides a list of possible words as you type, and you can build up your own local dictionary. All of these are configurable, near as I can tell. If you have a chance to try Better Keyboard on someone else's phone, you might find it so good that you won't insist on the physical keyboard. The biggest problem I have with the physical keyboard is that since it is half depth on the G1, the very right side keys are hard to get sometimes, with my fingers banging into the right side of the G1 which is full height. This may not be so on other Androids. And don't forget that the physical keyboard does not rotate 90 degrees as you rotate the phone, unlike the cirtual keyboards. I find Better Keyboard almost as easy to use when crammed into the vertical position as when horizontal. -- ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._. Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E 6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933 I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o