iRex DR1000 Software Development website

[vwinstead]

I got the software development platform put together on my computer and I wanted to show other people how to do the same. I have started compiling a record of my results into a website so other people can get started coding on the iRex DR1000 a little faster. It's sort of a steep learning curve since there's so many different open-source tools involved in the process so I hope this helps some people.

http://getupanddiy.com/projects/irex_dr1000/

Please feel free to submit suggestions for additional content on that page and I'll add it. I'm in the process of cleaning up the page and making it easier to read but at least the info is out there.

[keng2000]

very nice

[Adam B.]

Agreed. Excellent, well documented tutorial.

I still intend on setting up a VMWare image with everything ready to go. This would definitely help the learning curve and allow people to get setup and go.

[vwinstead]

Originally Posted by Adam B.

Agreed. Excellent, well documented tutorial.

I still intend on setting up a VMWare image with everything ready to go. This would definitely help the learning curve and allow people to get setup and go.

That would be great! Incidentally, I also did this tutorial on an Ubuntu 8.04 VMware image running on a windows XP platform. It seems to work pretty well. I guess I should mention that. If you get a ready-made image done and would like to put it on the site let me know and I'll add a link to it.

[RobbieClarken]

Thanks vwinstead! I started preparing a linux installation for developing DR1000 software but it all appeared too complicated so I put the project on hand. You tutorial will be very handy!

One question: I'm using the Intrepid Ibex distribution of Ubuntu. Will I have to do anything differently? Would it be best to uninstall Intrepid and use Hardy Herron instead?

[wallcraft]

I'm probably not going to do any development for the DR, but I would be very interested in trying a DR emulator. I guess the MOBI Reader isn't available, but does this enable a DR screen emulator capable of running FBReader for ebooks and displaying PDFs? If so, please add a screenshot of this in action. This would be very useful for anyone thinking about buying a DR1000, although AdamB's VMware image would be needed to make it available without a lot of work.

[vwinstead]

Originally Posted by epiphany

Thanks vwinstead! I started preparing a linux installation for developing DR1000 software but it all appeared too complicated so I put the project on hand. You tutorial will be very handy!

One question: I'm using the Intrepid Ibex distribution of Ubuntu. Will I have to do anything differently? Would it be best to uninstall Intrepid and use Hardy Herron instead?

Using the newest release, Intrepid Ibex, should not be a problem. One thing I have to input regarding this is that iRex says that it doesn't work well with VMware images, but if you're using a linux installation on a real machine you should be fine. When you get to the point where you are adding the apt source line to the sources.list file, check at http://debian.o-hand.com/ to see if there's is a new entry for "Intrepid". If not, then just use "Hardy" - there shouldn't be much difference.

Just remember - when in doubt....fiddle around until it works.

[vwinstead]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

I'm probably not going to do any development for the DR, but I would be very interested in trying a DR emulator. I guess the MOBI Reader isn't available, but does this enable a DR screen emulator capable of running FBReader for ebooks and displaying PDFs? If so, please add a screenshot of this in action. This would be very useful for anyone thinking about buying a DR1000, although AdamB's VMware image would be needed to make it available without a lot of work.

Hmm, that's a good question about FBReader. I'll look into that tomorrow. I will say that FBReader has worked really well for me and PDFs are viewable from the device even without FBReader and with surprisingly good detail. I'll include a screenshot when I get it figured out.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by vwinstead

PDFs are viewable from the device even without FBReader

My word order may have been misleading. FBReader does not do PDFs, but I assume the emulator can include the DR's PDF viewer even if it does not include the proprietary MobiPocket viewer. In other words, can the emulator illustrate the DR's PDF handling for those of us without a DR1000?

[vwinstead]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

My word order may have been misleading. FBReader does not do PDFs, but I assume the emulator can include the DR's PDF viewer even if it does not include the proprietary MobiPocket viewer. In other words, can the emulator illustrate the DR's PDF handling for those of us without a DR1000?

I understand now - you just want to see the emulator's view of a pdf document. I'm looking into this right now. In order to answer it I'll have to advance a couple stages into my research but in the end I'll have more content for the tutorial page so that's good. I know it's possible to push a pdf onto the emulator from your hard drive using it's IP address so it's "just" a matter of time.

[andiskater]

Wow, this seems really complicated... Honestly: Despite your nice tutorial, I won't even try it. Why? Even in your tutorial you experience several problems and I expect that there will be even more problems, because of different versions and my lack of Linux knowledge. I have already spend too many hours finding, compiling and installing various Linux applications, and most of the time I did not reach my goal...

It world be a really great help if someone could setup a complete development environment for the DR1000S and provide it as a vmware image (seed it as a torrent).

[Adam B.]

Originally Posted by andiskater

Wow, this seems really complicated... Honestly: Despite your nice tutorial, I won't even try it. Why? Even in your tutorial you experience several problems and I expect that there will be even more problems, because of different versions and my lack of Linux knowledge. I have already spend too many hours finding, compiling and installing various Linux applications, and most of the time I did not reach my goal...

It world be a really great help if someone could setup a complete development environment for the DR1000S and provide it as a vmware image (seed it as a torrent).

Pardon my ignorance (I'm a linux geek first, iRex hacker/porter second ), but if you're going to develop for the DR1000, shouldn't you already have a firm understanding of Linux in order to be successful?

Maybe it's because I'm not a programmer, but I just assumed that programmers need to understand the environment they're working in, in order to develop the applications.

It's mostly because of my "if you can't setup the dev package, you won't be successful at developing" theory that I haven't been in a rush to make a similar tutorial or vmware image. Maybe my assumptions are incorrect.

[Gertjan]

Nice tutorial! You may have noticed iRex recently added an iOn development manual to the public SDK folder, which explains how to set up and use the works:

http://developer.irexnet.com/pub/iOn...nvironment.pdf

[vwinstead]

Originally Posted by andiskater

Wow, this seems really complicated... Honestly: Despite your nice tutorial, I won't even try it. Why? Even in your tutorial you experience several problems and I expect that there will be even more problems, because of different versions and my lack of Linux knowledge. I have already spend too many hours finding, compiling and installing various Linux applications, and most of the time I did not reach my goal...

It world be a really great help if someone could setup a complete development environment for the DR1000S and provide it as a vmware image (seed it as a torrent).

It looks a lot worse than it really is. Since I've documented all the pitfalls and problems I saw it looks a little messy and I'm thinking of ways to clean that up. I just wanted to include as much info as possible in what I saw and what I did to fix it - that way if people see the same problems then they'll know why.

That said, though - if you had no intention of setting up the development environment then you probably still won't after looking at the tutorial - if you DID plan on setting up the environment, then this will help you and I hope I haven't discouraged you.

As for complications with different versions - are you talking about the Linux distribution? If you want a VMware image it will have a specified distro on there already, and if you want to install your own I would say you should stick to the versions in the tutorial to make things easier. The project versions from iRex are always evolving along with the device, so even if you don't setup the environment at least you can use the project installation and upgrade parts of the tutorial.

[vwinstead]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

My word order may have been misleading. FBReader does not do PDFs, but I assume the emulator can include the DR's PDF viewer even if it does not include the proprietary MobiPocket viewer. In other words, can the emulator illustrate the DR's PDF handling for those of us without a DR1000?

Done! I just put a screenshot of what a pdf looks like on the emulator. It's the cover of a linux eBook so you can get an idea of the image quality on the device. Just go to the webpage and it's towards the bottom before the links section. (click on the thumbnail)