IMHO: Smartphone hell

Today i wanted to write some thoughts about the current smartphone situation out there. First i have to say i really get crazy, there is no phone available that meets all my requirements. Why the hell is no manufacturer capable of producing a good phone. Here are some topics a smartphone needs to have:

– a good battery to do not have to recharge it every day.
– a good case as the HTC phones, Samsung and all the others are plastic bombers.
– a simple software for Windows, MAC OS and Linux to sync and manage the phone. I do not want to use the cloud.
– a warranty to have updates longer than only some months.
– an unlocked phone OS.
– a secure app store.

Having a look on the different phone OS now. First i did not like the WP7 look and feel, but now i really like it. The task based navigation is really great, instead the app based navigation of iOS and Android looks like from yesterday. If the availability of updates is one of the most required topic i think iOS is your friend. If you still want to have updates for it in 1 1/2 years, then Apple seems to be the best choice of all. OK, for Android you can install custom ROMs, but really, do you want to install some firmware from insecure sources? You have paid really much money for the smartphone, so i wanted to have some official support not only until the next smartphone has been released. Also i simply want to use a smartphone and do not want to waste my time with installing custom firmwares. In this point it is really sad that MeeGo does not have a choice to become popular. From the point of updates this seems to be the best solution. Sadly it will get rip before it was born. Android is really the worst here. The fragmentation of all that different versions out there makes me crazy. Why is it not possible to implement a f**king simple package management to update only pieces of the phone OS? I do not think that it is necessary to install a kernel or drivers on a smartphone ever. So why only these monolithic firmwares crap? Why is it not possible to split the kernel and the drivers from the rest of the OS/userland? Maybe the stupid user should by a new phone each year? That is a really great cash cow. Respect.

Finally, why the hell is it necessary to release a new smartphone every four weeks with only minimal differences to the previous one (e.g. HTC)? Do the manufacturer think this will make the marketplace more clear and will help the customer to decide?

Currently i tend to Apple with all its cons like closed and locked OS, but in summary this seems to be the best and future-proof product.

What is OpenMediaVault?

I think it is time to clarify what OpenMediaVault is for. After reading many posts and requests to implement feature x and y i have to clarify where OMV is classified. The main reason i have started implementing OpenMediaVault is to have a small and simple NAS solution for home environments. This means, OMV is no router, firewall or storage solution for hundred of users (i think about Samba PDC, AD, …), there are other solutions like Zentyal, OSNexus, OpenFiler, Open-E, … that will fulfill this. Such solutions are too big for home scenarios and i hope OMV will fill this gap, but it will not be a replacement for these products.
In summary: OMV is a NAS (Network Attached Storage) solution for home environments administrated by novices, nothing more.
Hopefully this will help you all to understand some of my answers and decissions concerning OpenMediaVault.

P.S.: OMV is enhanceable, so if you feel feature x is a must have, you are free to implement it as plugin and contribute it to the project and its community after OMV has been released.

Apple Filing (AFP) plugin finished

This weekend i’ve implemented the Apple Filing (AFP) plugin for OpenMediaVault. Due to the fact that i do not have a MAC i am not able to test it. Hopefully it does not have too much bugs 🙂 I’ve reduced the number of options in the share configuration page to a minimum number, but it can be enhanced if necessary (feature request). TimeMachine support has been added based on howtos and docs i’ve found in the net.

Please note the following taken from the official Debian netatalk package:

OpenSSL support is currently disabled, because of licensing issues: The Free
Software Foundation and Debian consider the GNU General Public License (GPL)
under which Netatalk is licensed to be incompatible with the OpenSSL license.

Thanks to gcrypt support (introduced in netatalk 2.0.4beta2) the DHX2 UAM provides encrypted access for MacOS X 10.4 and newer, but older releases of MacOS X and MacOS Classic can only connect unencrypted as both of the UAMs DHX and Randnum requires OpenSSL support.

You can build locally with OpenSSL using the following commands:

sudo aptitude install devscripts
sudo aptitude build-dep netatalk
apt-get source netatalk
cd netatalk-*
dch -l +ssl -D local –force-distribution “Local build with OpenSSL.”
DEB_AUTO_UPDATE_DEBIAN_CONTROL=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=openssl debuild -us -uc
sudo debi

You my need additional build-dependencies not resolved automatically.

Alternatively you can subscribe to unofficial(!) precompiled packages by adding the following to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://debian.jones.dk/ $DIST netatalk

UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) plugin finished

One of the last issues for OMV has been finished today. The UPS plugin enables you to define how to act on power loss, e.g. immediatelly force a shutdown after a given time range (the UPS may come back during this time, so no shutdown is necessary) or if the battery reaches its lower limit. If notification is enabled you’ll get an email for every changed state, also messages will be written to syslog.

You are also able to get various details about your UPS via the WebGUI, e.g battery charge or temperature graphs.

The developers dream editor

Today i became frustrated about my favourite editor kate. It’s a great tool, but it is still missing tools that a developer really needs everyday (e.g. replace in files). Also searching in opened files is a pain because the search text has to be entered for each file seperately. Why is it not possible to define the search text once and press F3 in each document tab?

Years ago i used PSPad on Windows, but sadly there is no Linux port available (using Wine is no option). So i began to search for a useful Linux GUI text editor and came across Komodo Editor.

It is enhanceable via plugins and seems to have all features i’m missing till now. The only feature i’m missing is the ‘block’ editing mode.

The fiollowing plugins seems to be useful:

P.S.: Emacs and vi are no options, i want to have a GUI 🙂