YES! I can and YES! it is :)
I know because I tried it :)
The goal of eBrainPool is to be able to use software from any device around you. This could be a Desktop,Laptop, Mobile phone or tablet or any other device with a computer in it. This could be running any Operating System on any Architecture and you should still be able to USE it on your device. Software hosted on any device, Run from any device but Used on the one you have in front of you at that time :)
This weekend, while taking a break from writing the libssh based ssh server for eBrainPool, I decide to see how the premise of eBrainPool would actually look and feel. We've tied up software from our debian laptops,netbooks and other desktops into one big software pool and used software off each other. We've also got bits and pieces of the code working on the N900 as the Moving towards the N900 post shows. What we've not yet done is actually run software from a our debian based desktop/laptops across form factors onto a small screen device like the N900 or Android - and I was very curious :)
While our current code is not yet ready for the N900, I didn't really need the mesh network or any of the other fringe features we plan. For now all I wanted to do was "SEE IT WORK" :)
A simple ad-hoc network between my debian system and the N900, the SSH tunnel setup and X forwarding had Xeyes running from my deb system on the N900. I slide my hands over the touch screen and the eyes follow me around and it feels awesome :)
Next I try gedit...and yes it works...and yes it was fairly usable :)...I type a note to myself and save it.
Next Anjuta :)....and yes it works...and while it is more congested because the user interface is definitely designed for a larger screen size....I could definitely go through the eBrainPool code in Anjuta and compile it no problems whatsoever :)
Then I got cocky and decided to try an OpenGL game....and this of course bombed...the N900 may not have the GLX extensions and probably a hardware that supports it. This was expected since the way X works is that it uses the graphics hardware on the device to which the display is actually connected to render unlike screen sharing software (as demonstrated in the post X rendering, measured using gtkperf )....but we shall see what we can do about this too sometime in the future ;)
Now back to some code... :)
Additional note: I want to clarify that what this also demonstrated was code compiled and built for the amd64 architecture being used on an A8-cortex RISC based processor in the N900.
3 Comments
Good work ;)
Submitted by erle on
Comment:
Great work dude, nice to see the cross architecture stuff.
A note for future reference, we were discussing the possibly or using mesa somehow to make platforms for which OpenGL fails..work by routing specific extensions to the originating platform instead of the remote. Wild thoughts yes, but since when has that stopped us. Maybe something we can look into sometime later. Would be interesting to see if it is possible at all.
If you get excited over something like this...
Submitted by Artur Sowiński (not verified) on
Comment:
Heh.. If you get excited over something like this then i guess I should mention that about 7 years ago i ran a gltron over compressed ssh on comp in uni, and display at my home, about 10km away, and it run OK :)
X is quite snazzy tool, too bad people bitch these days about its networking capabilities and want it to behave in host-local manner, or create new systems that only have host-local stuff, kinda step backwards :/
I hope you'll like my Gaia System, which is kinda similiar to what you have, the clever use of network, the uni-wide deployment of diskless linux on all desktops :) - http://pleasanthacking.com/2010/09/29/gaia-system/ :)
Cheers
Re. If you get excited over something like this...
Submitted by jeetu on
Comment:
Artur, I couldn't agree with you more, X is so fantastic and I'm absolutely bedazzled with the vision it's devleopers had and the effort they've put in. The sad part as you said is that very few people understand it's true potential and are much to happy to rip it out or use it only locally.
It's great to know that this was usable over a 10km distance :) What bandwidth were you using this on both at the university end and your home? We've done tests using X clients between me in India with just a 128kbps link and Erle in Australia with a much higher speed connection :)....while we could make out the lag more because of the slow speed connection at my end, however it was still far far more usable than screen sharing techs like VNC. What we would like to do someday is test using the various X optimization and caching techniques that exist.
The Gaia System seems very nice and thanks for sharing the link :) We seem to have similar interests with regards ensuring that the least damage is caused by software related failures and mismanagement :)
One of the major goals of eBrainPool, apart from allowing software to be used from any device around you regardless of the differences in operating system and hardware architecture while you use data on your own device, is that this pool of devices offers a natural level of redundancy. Since you can use software from multiple sources around you, you will be more immune to failures of the software system on the local system or even software up on a central server.
Given your interest in this sphere and experience with the Gaia system any help and feedback is sincerely appreciated :)
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