Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Weird, there should be at least SOME parts open as they claim to be using the Linux kernel in some builds, which, I'm sure they have touched in one some ways. Oh well.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Hi, I would be interested in the source of that number. Never seen it before.

Thanks

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

That's just the kernel Bada sits on top of--and it doesn't necessarily have to be Linux either. Samsung HAVE written a custom RTOS for Bada to sit on top of on some devices.

From the wikipedia article:
bada, as Samsung defines it, is not an operating system, but platform with a kernel configurable architecture, which allows the use of either the Linux kernel, or another Real-time operating system (RTOS) kernel. The Linux kernel is the preferred choice for high-end smartphones, while RTOS is used for affordable smartphones, due to its smaller memory footprint.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

I did say "some builds" :) The point is there has to be some glue between the custom userspace and the kernel (plus, no vendor uses just a plain kernel - some tweaks are necessary). The bottom line being there has to be SOMETHING that is open and available, otherwise they are violating the kernel licensing.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Yeah...the kernel itself could be open--and none of the drivers or apps have to be open. Remember that GPLv2 permitted tivoization and closed-source driver modules, and thus all they would have to open and make available is just the plain old Linux kernel.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

While I'm not exactly the most technical-minded in terms of development, this thread has changed my views on the Galaxy S. I'm currently awaiting my network to get the HTC Desire in stock, however the wait is becoming stupidly long (been waiting 2 months already with no sign of stock in the near future), and the Galaxy S is the only phone available from Orange that seems to come close. I've been put off by Samsung from the lack of support and general lack of depth with their phones. My current Tocco can barely use Java applications, and has one incredibly sluggish processor. Forgetting about the N900 for a second (as much as it hurts to say it), could any of you guys give me a more under-the-bonnet comparison between these two Android handsets?

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

You could just google for "Samsung Captivate" like I did.
Here's a pretty good review, methinks:
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/...tivate-review/

Getting back to Samsung's open-sourcing, though, this was an interesting read for the details:
http://briefmobile.com/samsung-open-...aptivates-code

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Thanks, but I know how to Google, and that isn't really what I'm looking for. I want to know honest views on the usability and most importantly futureproof-ness of the phone, and after using my N800 for two years I'd like the input from the guys here on the forum on how the platform performs when used for tasks I would once do on my tablet. The main thing putting me off is my current Samsung phone from two years ago that is absolutely terrible at any kind of internet usage, and never got any support from Samsung after it was on the market. I just keep feeling that it's too "phone" and not enough "internet device".

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Screw it... I'll have a Captivate by tomorrow.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Didja get it? Didja didja didja?? ;)

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Yes I did. So far, loving it. Gotta get used to the differences in workflow. But seriously... love it.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

I got mine (galaxy s i9000) a week ago. So far I have mixed feelings.

1. Galaxy S is much easier to use in portrait mode, is much smoother in terms of transitions and is better integrated with a better GUI and more apps.

on the other hand...

I can't find an app to play all internet radio stations like I do with the N900.

I can't zoom properly into my photos of the photo gallery. It downsizes the images and when you zoom it just zooms into the dwonsized photo, making storing 10mp photos useless.

There is no equivalent "battery-eye" app. Not sure why!

No decent emulators! No mame, no dosbox.

No decent task manager.

No root without invalidating the waranty.

Sorry for piggybacking on this thread, I had no idea where to post this.

It is a very good phone none the less.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

PSXDroid, and other emulators exist for Android. You'd probably be better off looking at sideloading via Sideloading Wonder Machine.

I've root my machine already - you can unroot or reset and unlike the Apple iPhone, nobody will be any wiser. I'm also running TigerArcade for Neo Geo games... there's NESoid, GameBoid, Gensoid, Mojo GBA... among others - Android Arcade Emulator included. So emulators are all over man. I do admit that the loss of dosbox is a bummer, but it's coming along... slowly.

I'm still learning, but so far the ability to root, install whatever I wish, what not feels like I am indeed a level or two higher than the N900, but it's not too uncomfortable for me - it's a lot closer to being in control than say the iPhone.

I'm not too big into internet Radio, so I've no clues how to answer that past my like of Pandora. Search around... I'm sure you'll find a lot of alternatives that fit your past likes/dislikes more closely. I'm still in "replace the iPhone" mode, and loving the fact that I don't have to use it any more.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Well... http://www.pandora.com/android I'm finding Android has very serious support, with nearly all major apps now being available in iOS and Android form.

I've gone for the HTC Desire, Orange finally got some stock, and reports of dodgy GPS on the Samsung put me off. That and the build quality.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Getting the i9000 too, PSX is really ahead of us as far as android goes.

Played a lot with it today @ the store and I have to admit the OS is kinda clumsy... I mostly miss the gesture of "tapping outside the screen". It relies so much on back button and multitasking is just like symbian.

The "recent" apps is such a nuisance, I don't ever know what's running and can't close it without diggig for the task manager that's deep in settings.

Have you guys found a decent task manager?

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Thanks gerbick

I have tried every little app re internet radio but nothing comes close to the stock media player of N900 (i am listening to sports so pandora won't work for me I think).

I rooted my phone today in order to run titanium backup as it seems to be the only backup that works properly.

For some reason I am experiencing a lot of lag so I am about to do a hard reset once the backup finishes.

The web browser is kinda basic too. I wish I had the N900 browser on this phone. I installed opera mini but that too is not as good or fast as microb. I guess when froyo comes out it won't be that bad.

Also on a positive note... swype typing = love!!! :)

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

I am using the Advanced Task Killer Free version

It is ok for a free app

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Try getting "Advanced Task Killer" (the one with the green robot holding a blue X), it's mainly a good housekeeping app but it also lets you manage multitasking VERY well and lets you switch to and properly close apps straight from the status bar.

There's actually quite a LOT of good streaming radios. My two personal favorites are "XiiaLive Lite [DroidLive]" (it's free--and faaaar better than the N900's streaming player... PLUS it lets me search for stations, even commercial stations... I use it a lot to listen to a few AM talk stations I like to listen to) and the other is "Scanner Radio" (available as free-with-ads or paid-without-ads) to listen to police/fire/EMS scanners (it also lets me search--it even lets me use my GPS to auto-located the scanner channels near me... bet the N900 apps aren't doing that).

I don't much care for the default browser either---I recommend downloading "Dolphin Browser" (Firefox for Android). It's based on the Gecko engine and so renders and works like Firefox... PLUS you can set the agent string so you can fool websites into thinking you're on a desktop PC or even iPhone, in addition to the Android agent string.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Also, if you haven't gotten it yet... my God!... go download "Wifi Analyzer" IMMEDIATELY. :) I loooove that app.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

This is going to sound petty... but I'm not a fan of the Advanced Task Killer notification icon. Seen a way to change that? Petty, I know... but it's bothering the OCD in me.

Oh, and people saying that the Samsung is having a GPS issue, it's nothing as bad as the slow lock as the N900. It's put me right on the spot, each time. Just once it glitched, but I was inside. Second I back outside, right on spot.

For the Captivate, people are saying get/use the AT&T Mark The Spot app, which is free and not installed by default. It seems to remedy a lot of the probs that others were having. XDA has a couple of threads about that.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

That might be true of the Captivate, I've no idea how its GPS performs, but the Galaxy S' is apparently so bad that it's not practically usable.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Good question--I don't know of a way to change the icon but if you send an email to rechild.support@gmail.com (the developer's email address, according to the Android Market) I'll bet they'll take care of that. They've been excellent about responding to feature requests. (Their website is http://rechild.mobi in case you're interested in looking at their FAQ.)

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

So how the story about open-source drivers ended up ?

Also did you guys try Firefox mobile ?

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Not sure--last thing I got was that they opened up some more stuff, apparently, and STSKeeps was looking for source code that might make it handy to port MeeGo over onto the hardware but didn't hear anything more. I know the Android people are having a field day over it, though.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Hey danramos... read this about using a task killer? It's not "that advisable" - http://bit.ly/bwyaPt

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

I haven't tried any newer androids... but my biggest problem with Android:

Try keeping an SSH connection, an IRC connection, Pandora Streaming, Browse the web and check email/IM.

Don't check on your IRC connection for at least 30 minutes... go back and see if it's still connected. (I was using AndChat).

If it is.. good. It may have been the low resources of the G1 being my problem. If it isn't... I still think Android's "rule-based" auto-closing/sleeping of apps is the worst thing to happen to multi-tasking short of not allowing it at all :rolleyes:.

I never could maintain constant open connections like that when browsing around or running other apps on the phone. Android would see my connection apps were "dormant" and decide to cut them off as they obviously weren't needed :eek:.

That's why I used a task manager. But I never left it running all day.. that drains batteries. Once I killed what I wanted I then killed the Task Manager with itself :D. I also didn't randomly close things that I couldn't tell what it was for or what it did (which seems to be the #1 problem/complaint I see about Android with task killers: Users killing whatever the hell they want and then deciding it sucked because they stopped getting SMS messages..)

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

I found some tutorial on xda. Seems an easy fix: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=727279

What annoys me is that I don't know what updating to froyo will do to this...

Isn't it possible to set an app manager by default from the middle button?

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Nice find! I'm not experiencing any of these problems but.. YMMV and all that jazz.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

I've stopped using Advanced Task Killer and have switched to Watchdog. Just went 16 hours on one charge where I went 6 hours the day prior. That's with wifi, e-mail, bluetooth, some web surfing, Seesmic in the background.

A few other small tweaks and I think I've found my total replacement.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Good news everyone!

If I'm reading this right, they DID release all the source (including the video drivers) for the Samsung Captivate on their open-source site!

http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...739823&page=10

I guess they just didn't put it in the same single tarball. YAY!!!
Once again, something Nokia didn't even bother to do in all these years with Maemo.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

All negativity aside.. I do think it's cool Samsung released their code. Definitely a step forward for the Mobile market in general.. no need to single anybody out.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Yes yes, negativity aside. So then... MeeGo on Samsung? ;)

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

I could live a long time with android if it'd multitask like N900...

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

OBJECTION, your honor! RELEVANCE!

MeeGo on Samsung is still the new topic here! :)

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Actually.. theoretically wouldn't that be possible??? Interesting idea... When it would actually be *worth* porting anyway... MeeGo doesn't do much ATM :).

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

If the architecure is open, I don't see why it wouldn't be worth doing. Question is, who has the know-how and willingness? :)

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Hm, wouldn't that be pretty much a sort of Mer with working drivers (okay, okay, I'm exaggerating :) ) ? Would people really be interested in something without all the Nokia sauce added (like Flash, Maps, Skype, Exchange, Ovi stuff, etc...), and without most of the things in Extras ?

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

...wouldn't that BE MeeGo?

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

I mean.. I thought MeeGo is 100% open source, with Nokia only adding that binary closed crapware in the image THEY prep for their own device ONLY. MeeGo on other platforms wouldn't have it anyway.