Does the OS support multitasking?

[Reggie]

I was wondering what kind of multitasking does the OS support (preemptive, cooperative, or no support)? Can two or more programs run at the same time? Can it run a cron job at the background, while say watching a video or surfing the web?

Thanks.

[Mike Cane]

I have no idea what a cron job is. Sounds obscene and icky.

[Reggie]

LOL. Cron:
http://www.unixgeeks.org/security/newbie/unix/cron-1.html

[FoulPlay]

Yes, the deivce fully supports multi-tasking. I've tested it's multi-tasking abilities a number of times running up to 10 applications at once.

As far a Cron goes, the mailbox auto-retrieval feature is a version of Cron I suppose. :confused:

[philmcneal]

you know cron is good ;)

[fermunky]

I was hoping Cron was Tron 2! Not sure what use an actual cron job could give ya on the 770...?? All I know is my web server allows cron jobs, which I guess batches server jobs.

[andymulhearn]

Cron is just scheduled tasks. Alarms perhaps...

[putkowski]

I have no idea what a cron job is. Sounds obscene and icky.

cron is a daemon (service if you're from Redmond) that runs jobs at particular dates/times. think of it as the windows scheduler.

the "output" of a cron job is put in the email folder of the user account that runs the job.

[Wooky]

cron is a daemon (service if you're from Redmond) that runs jobs at particular dates/times. think of it as the windows scheduler.

the "output" of a cron job is put in the email folder of the user account that runs the job.
Pardon, I resent that "service if you're from Redmond". :( In my Mandriva box (and most RH derived distros, AFAIK) you can type
#service crond start|stop
for example, so calling it a service is not Redmon-centric. I would personally define a daemon as a manager of service(s); so that the crond daemon manages the cron service; the xinetd daemon may manage a lot of services, and so on. A bit OT, I guess, sorry. :rolleyes:

[putkowski]

Pardon, I resent that "service if you're from Redmond". :( In my Mandriva box (and most RH derived distros, AFAIK) you can type
#service crond start|stop
for example, so calling it a service is not Redmon-centric. I would personally define a daemon as a manager of service(s); so that the crond daemon manages the cron service; the xinetd daemon may manage a lot of services, and so on. A bit OT, I guess, sorry. :rolleyes:

Actually, they're services in linux as well as given in redhatgo:

service <service name> [start][stop][restart]

You are not in the audience I addressed.

sorry.

[putkowski]

I was wondering what kind of multitasking does the OS support (preemptive, cooperative, or no support)? Can two or more programs run at the same time? Can it run a cron job at the background, while say watching a video or surfing the web?

Thanks.

Slightly OT, but it's also multi-user.. (as in at the same time.)

[Mike Cane]

LVBTKB:

None of you will convince me the OS on this 770 can do more than one thing at once. Not until Opera stops going *poof* on me. Not until bloody Notes stops freezing and stuttering. Multi? It's taxed at *single*! Sorry, Nokia! My experience so far!

[putkowski]

LVBTKB:

None of you will convince me the OS on this 770 can do more than one thing at once. Not until Opera stops going *poof* on me. Not until bloody Notes stops freezing and stuttering. Multi? It's taxed at *single*! Sorry, Nokia! My experience so far!

Actually,

I use WinSCP to browse and change configuration files while I am also logged-in as root via ssh from a debian machine and my newsreader (tied to news.google.com rss feeds) updates.

The only inconvenience so far is having to open (ONE OF THE TWO) connection manager icons to start a WLAN connection.. if I don't, the first time all "browser" windows close, the connection is dropped.

Sorry about Notes.

P

I am not sarcastic in congratulating your being Live Via Blue Tooth Keyboard.

[Mike Cane]

LVTT:

You see, the average user is not only not going to be able to do what you're doing, they won't understand what you've just written. I barely do!

[j.pickens]

For me, Opera stopped locking up,for the most part, with the now OS flash.
I normally am browsing two Opera windows while streaming mp3s over slimserver. Thats multitasking, in my book. Now, I find that the memory bar stays a little less in the red if I only have slimserver running from the Internet Radio link, and keep Audio Player closed.
Anyone know why that would be?

[putkowski]

LVTT:

You see, the average user is not only not going to be able to do what you're doing, they won't understand what you've just written. I barely do!

My point is that the average user probably wouldn't have a reason to do the more complicated things the 770 is capable of, but even an average user can make the device more useful by understanding something of Xterm commands and the fact that they can change some simple text files to make the 770 more practical.

Some people just seem to feel soiled if they have to type a command instead of clicking an icon but I think it's worth the effort: I can easily browse and edit the configuration files on the 770 from the comfort of a graphical program running on my XP pc. (or from linux.) This only took installing three packages and entering four commands in Xterm (and one of them was that dogged "sudo gainroot")

P

[Mike Cane]

This only took installing three packages and entering four commands in Xterm (and one of them was that dogged "sudo gainroot")

"Only."

It is to laugh.

[aflegg]

Perhaps, Mike, you could list some detailed requirements which you think you need to be able to do some of the complicated stuff?

An Application Installer packaged GUI tool, but to do what?

Enabling swap, playing around with gconf - at the moment, this is techies determining the limits of the device and what potential user-friendly, user-interesting things might be in there.

If we can identify those, third party developers could perhaps start meeting those requirements...

Cheers,

Andrew

[Mike Cane]

LVTT:

Andrew:

Before moving onto special stuff, the 770 still needs to get the basics fixed^(a):

1) No freezes in Notes

2) ebay browsing with multiple windows from an open Favorites page

3) Opera not going *poof* (as it just did when I first tried to reply!)

All you Linux weightlifters can have your XTerm fun. I'm happy for you. I want the GUIed side to be as much fun. Without weightlifting.

--edited to add:

(a) These are just 3, not the whole list, which also includes better keyboard support, etc.

[aflegg]

Yeah, but we can't fix (1), (2) or (3). Nokia can, but they know these things already (assuming they've been reported through the proper channels, e.g. http://bugs.maemo.org/).

Nothing really wrong with keyboard support, AFAICS. However, I mean what can *we* - as third party developers do?

For example, someone mentions doing something techy through XTerm and you explain how this isn't suitable for end-users. Correct - as I said, it's techy exploration. The GUI side will never be as much "fun", for the same reason playing Elite or watching Apollo 13 isn't as much fun as actually going into space ;-)

However, if you've seen something described techily which you think a non-XTerm-using person would like to use, let's get down to some specifics and see if we can't make them more user-friendly.

[Mike Cane]

LVTT:

Apparently, even things taken for granted on a PC -- like changing the wallpaper -- requires root. I don't see what devs can do about that. Too much is still up to Nokia.

Keyboard support OK? Are you not reading? Repeating characters make all keyboards a pain to use. Someone else said this was a Debian issue but I find that impossible to believe. What, people using Debian on desktops don't use keyboards?

[Milhouse]

LVTT:

Apparently, even things taken for granted on a PC -- like changing the wallpaper -- requires root. I don't see what devs can do about that. Too much is still up to Nokia.

Keyboard support OK? Are you not reading? Repeating characters make all keyboards a pain to use. Someone else said this was a Debian issue but I find that impossible to believe. What, people using Debian on desktops don't use keyboards?

Create a bug in bugzilla and get people to vote for it would be my advice - that would be far more constructive than whinging on here.

Here's (https://maemo.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=368) an enhancement request for USB mode as a control panel applet, vote for it if it floats your boat.

[aflegg]

Apparently, even things taken for granted on a PC -- like changing the wallpaper -- requires root.

I've changed the wallpaper on mine from the GUI. No problems. No root. In fact, it's so trivial it's almost as if you're trolling!


Bring up the Home screen.
Click on the titlebar to bring up its menu (or press the hardware Menu key).
Select Screen > Set background image....
Select the image you want and click OK.


Keyboard support OK? Are you not reading? Repeating characters make all keyboards a pain to use.

As in you can't get them to repeat, or they repeat too often? I've certainly seen keys get stuck with a USB keyboard on various operating systems, but I'm not convinced it's not my KVM.

As Millhouse says, make sure there's a bug open for it in Bugzilla - it may not appear to get acted on, but they are reading them.

Cheers,

Andrew

[fpp]

Keyboard support OK? Are you not reading? Repeating characters make all keyboards a pain to use. Someone else said this was a Debian issue but I find that impossible to believe. What, people using Debian on desktops don't use keyboards?
Here's something strange. When I was hacking together my USB kit to connect the keyboard, the "does it work" testing I did showed the occasional repeating/stuttering, which I reported.

Yesterday I started working on an xmodmap file that would map keys to the actual layout of my keyboard... this is another level of strangeness altogether, and I don't claim to understand any of it ; but the thing is, this entailed several lenghty "where's-my-key" testing sessions, and during the entire process, I don't think there was *one* repeated keystroke...

Dunno if it's anything to do with xmodmap itself, or if it's one of those phase-of-the-moon-type coincidences, though.

[bhima]

On my ThinkOutside bluetooth keyboard, depending on the moon phase, it will randomly decide to do lots of key repeats. I'm not sure what's going on, but it is a bit frustrating at times. Other times the keyboard's just perfect. It only does this on the 770.

[Mike Cane]

@ desktop:

aflegg: Yes. Noted that in the "blog." I never got back here to update. See screensnaps I posted in the Gallery.

Those of you with keyboards: Have you also installed that *keyboard driver* Roger mentions somewhere else around here? I haven't yet. Maybe that would stop some of the repeats I'm having.

[fpp]

No, I haven't, as I thought it was only for BT keyboards. I saw in another thread that it could also benefit USB keyboards by preventing screen blanking, so I'll give it a try...