Re: [tuxdroid-user] Hello; Working with svn ; several questions & suggestions

[David B. <da...@ja...>]

On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 03:07:06 +0100, Florent THIERY <ft...@gm...>  
wrote:

> Hi everybody. I'm a proud owner of a tuxdroid (recieved today); after
> an update, everything works fine :) A little bit surprised by the
> sound made by motors, but happy enough.

Hi Florent,
Mechanics and motors are what they use in standard toy factories. We  
worked on reducing the noise and the result is satisfactory I think. It's  
not 'silent' but quite good for a toy. Using more high tech components  
would have improved that indeed but at a much higher cost so we had to  
make a choice.

> I synced the svn in order to get the latest version, but i have a
> problem: when you want to use svn versions of user programs, the call
> to the api is static ( /opt/tuxdroid/api/python ) whereas the actual
> svn version is in the trunk subdir ( /opt/tuxdroid/api/python/trunk );
> i modified the path in the sample programs (gtui, alarm clock...)

I hope someone good enough will be able to clean up that folder hierarchy  
and come up with a proposal for a new structure. The python api should  
probably be packaged with distutils so should move from there.

> - what will happen upon update? what's the "correct" way to do it?
> Copy it at the root dir?

For now, I would do a checkout of the api trunk only:
svn co https://svn.kysoh.com/api/python/trunk /opt/tuxdroid/api/python

> - what about a python egg (easy_install) ?

Unfortunaltely I missed the presentation of Olivier Grizel on packaging  
python products so I've no idea but Olivier is on this list, maybe he can  
give us some hints on what to do here, Olivier?

> - about the sound capabilities, is the capacity permanently limited? I
> guess real time transcoding do the job? (i tried listening some music
> with xmms, heared nothing but crap...), but if i was to plug tux on
> "real" speakers, would the quality still be very limited?

The sound format we can send through the RF is 8 bits 8kHz, no matter what  
speaker you use. That's not a lot but should still give you much better  
results than 'crap' ;-) Do you use the firmware update for the dongle? The  
sound quality has significantly improved there. Using speakers will  
improve the low-end response (bass) as the small internal speaker has a  
limited bandwidth there.

> - about the waker, does the computer need to be ON ? Or is tux  
> autonomous?

The computer needs to be ON. Though it may be possible to hack the  
firmware to add a poor-man RTC maybe (real time clock) which, with some  
calibration, could keep trig some functions at certain time events. But I  
have no idea of the precision we could get and I wouldn't rely on that for  
an alarm clock. So yes, you need the computer.

> - about waking the host computer up: do you think it would be feasible
> to add usb keyboard emulation to the usb dongle? If we managed to
> simulate a keypress, we could wake the computer up (but i guess the
> dongle needs power; then why should an usb keyboard do the job?)

Interesting question. As we can reprogram the dongle and if that's  
possible, that may be a good idea to implement.

> - what are the line out quality capabilities?

Line out is 8 bits 8kHz mono

> - would it be possible to detect motors forcing? I'm thinking of the
> rotation motors: if we (slightly) force tux to turn, can we detect it?
> That would add 2 more "switches", ideal for volume adjustment

The clutch will trigger if you force the gearbox so it won't work probably.

>
> Sorry for this bunch of random questions :)
>
> I'm willing to help developing the waker functionnality (i really need
> a good waker), thinking of webradios, rss headlines reading, X10 &
> randomization of "unlocking" sequence.
>
> I'll also consider using a NSLU2 or comparable for always-on operation
> (i'm very reluctant in regard of letting my main desktop on all the
> time...).

Yep, that's the way to go I think, I bought one but it's still in the box  
since 1 month now, don't have enough time to do all what I want to ...

>
> Anyway, this device looks like a fun toy for grown ups :) I'll try to
> bring my stone.
>
> Florent

We certainly need developments before getting something really usefull.  
Thanks to join the group.
david