Updated documents for the Server XR

Hello everyone,

We just updated some docs for the Server XR specially regarding package handling, you can find them at: http://sites.google.com/a/aircable.net/aircable/Home/Server-XR/Package-Handling


Last month we were in Chicago in the Chicago Sensor's Expo showing some of our stuff. Among the things we were showing one was a new server targeting industrial uses. This is just a Linux based obex server using the Server XR, one of the reason why this thing hasn't reached the public yet was instability of obex-data-server but with release 0.3.3 of ODS things had really changed. So expect this new package to be in our servers soon.

This new project is intended for remote sensor networks where you put a main server getting messages from all your bluetooth sensors and then making some stuff in that server like committing to a web server, showing on a screen, or what ever you can imagine. The other part of the server, which we will start working soon will be an SPP server so your sensors can connect to the server over a wireless cable and exchange data between them, this way you can implement stuff as a remote interactive screen.

All this new server code is been developed together with our new Development Kit for the AIRcable SMD which will be available soon, if you want any more information don't doubt about reaching us.

And as always you will be able to find all our code in our google code site.

Thanks,
Manuel

How to install packages into Server XR, a real example of how to get mplayer running.

Hello everyone,

Now that we have the new repository running you all can install packages in a quite easy way.

For example, suppose you want to install mplayer then you do:


root@Aquiles:~/kpkg install mplayer
...
Done (install) mplayer.


As the Server XR is not a full Kwort 2.4 there might be chances it is missing some packages, specially libraries. So we check for that:

root@Aquiles:~/ldd /usr/bin/mplayer | grep not
libtheora.so.0 => not found
libogg.so.0 => not found
libxvidcore.so.4 => not found
libfaac.so.0 => not found
libspeex.so.1 => not found


So now we have a list of missing libraries, we need to install lots of packages, but which package includes each library? Well that's easy to tell thanks to kpkg, for example let's suppose we want to find out who provides faac:

root@Aquiles:~/kpkg search faac
Package found: faac
....
* mirror: kwort.aircable.net


As you can see there's a package called faac, so it's quite provable this is the one, then we install it:

root@Aquiles:~/kpkg install faac
....
Done (install) faac.


Now we can check for missing libraries again:

root@Aquiles:~/ldd /usr/bin/mplayer | grep not
libtheora.so.0 => not found
libogg.so.0 => not found
libxvidcore.so.4 => not found
libspeex.so.1 => not found


You can see that libfaac has been removed from the list, so then it has been installed.

The other packages you will need to install are:
* speex
* libogg
* xvidcode
* libtheora

You will need to call kpkg install for each of this items.

That's all now you can run mplayer without any problems.

This has been an ready to use guide on how to install a certain package, hope it helps.

Thanks,
Manuel

New repository and updates for Server XR

Hello everyone,

We've been working on a new repository for our Kwort 2.4 based distribution included in the ServerXR.

Well this new repository is finally ready and online.

Thing is that moving to this new repository isn't so easy, so we created a little script to make your life easier (and ours too, as that means less support requests).

So please do:

wget http://kwort.aircable.net/updates/update01.sh
bash update01.sh


If you have any non Spanish keyboard you might want to temporary load the keymap for your country, for example for US you can use:
loadkeys us
(Just replace us with your keyboard layout).

That will not only get your system ready to use the new repository, but also update all your packages. It might take some minutes to do all it's work.

Thanks,
Manuel

New ServerXR image

For all those that have all ready bought a Server XR, we're glad to announce that during the week we launched out a new image (file system) for our ServerXR.

You can follow this guide: http://sites.google.com/a/aircable.net/aircable/Home/Server-XR/image-recovery to get the update done.

There are 2 known bugs on this new version, that are all ready fixed, and solutions will be published during the week:
* BlueZ plugin services fails to load, this is a known bug in the bluez original package, related to the way things get compiled, we all ready have our package fixed, and will be in our repository during the week.
* KPKG fails to install standalone packages, we're including a pre-release version of kpkg, kwort package manager, this new version includes support for multiple repositories, but one of our users has been able to find a bug on it, even before us. We told the kpkg team (I'm a new member of it by the way) and they fixed it. This new version has some fascinating new things for the ServerXR, for example you can safely pull upgrades from the main kwort repository without worrying those updates will breake your ServerXR as ServerXR specific packages are been maintained by us, in our own repositories.

Well that's all by now, stay tuned, we'll let you know as soon as the new packages are there.

Thanks,
Manuel

Kwort 2.4 is out

Hello everyone,

I'm glad to say that Kwort 2.4 is finally out. For those who don't know what Kwort is, or haven't ever used, Kwort is the Linux distribution we are providing with the Server XR.

When we started to deliver the Server XR Kwort was delivering 2.4 beta 2 or 3, I can't remember actually. In a few days we are going to make a huge update to the Server XR so stay tuned.

I want to wish best luck to David Cortarello with this new release, he's a really good friend and deserves to get the best results on his projects. In behalf of the company we want to keep the perfect relationship we have, providing patches, fixing bug and providing new ideas. The Kwort users that aren't using the Server XR can expect to get bluetooth support for Kwort soon.

For more information check:

• Kwort Web Page
  
• Kwort 2.4 Official Announce
• AIRcable Web Page
  

Thanks everyone for reading,
Manuel Naranjo
Wireless Cables Inc.

New Packages for Server XR

Hello everyone,

We just finished uploading some new packages for the Server XR. This post will be rather short telling which packages had been upgraded and how to install them, a more detailed post will be made soon.

Updated packages:

• Recommended to update:
• Bluez-libs: Updated to version 3.28
• Bluez-utils: Updated to version 3.28, compiling all the dbus services now.
• Obex-Data-Server: Updated to version 0.3.
• OpenProximity: Updated to version 0.1.1.
  
• Optional:
  
• Bluez-hcidump: Updated to version 1.41

Check this little guide on how to upgrade packages, take special atention to the note in the end.

Packaging software is a very interesting experience, only that it's quite repetitive and can become REALLY boring, so now we are going to use scripts to package, you can check our scripts and see how we make our packages here.

Thanks a lot,
Manuel Naranjo
Wireless Cables Inc.

First images of kwort running in the ebox

Hello everyone,

It's me again. It's amazing we were not expecting so many people been exited about getting kwort running on the ebox. Not only people interested on Bluetooth, and our products. But also people that bought and ebox and wanted a nice, stable and good looking distro running.

We've been working hard on it, so you don't have to mess with much with distribution internals and all that. But I expect that the first release for testing will be ready in a day or two.

In the meantime here's a picture of kwort running OpenBox and wbar at my home, in a brand new LCD TV from Philips. You can see xterm running, along with xclock and wbar at the bottom. Wbar has LOTS of icons, most of them (actually all except for one are invalid and doesn't work at all). But you can see the nice eye candy from it.

Take into account I took the picture with my cellphone that's why it looks so blurry.





Cheers,
Manuel

Happy new year everyone!, How small Linux can go?

Wow it's been a long since my last post. I promise I will start making posts more regularly! This will be my present for this brand new year.

From our side we had been very very busy, and we have a lot of exiting new ideas and projects. Right now we are working on getting Kwort Linux ( www.kwort.org ) an Slackware based Linux distribution, into a machine based on the Vortex86 processor. This is a pc compatible computer, with about 10 * 10 * 4 cm with all the things you could imagine you can find on your desktop pc. Except of a monitor off course. It has RAM, a CF reader so you can use CF cards as hard drives, a VGA board, Ethernet and even a sound system, all integrated for quite a little price. Here you can find the machine if you want to know how it looks like: http://www.embeddedpc.net/Default.aspx?tabid=110

Anyway, the thing is that we got Linux working on it (Thaks David, AKA Nomius, for your help and the great work you have done with Kwort). And we are working on some packages so others can use it too, without the need to waste time like we did.

So stay tuned, and I promise you will hear from us more frequently,

Manuel