openAOS

Hello all.

I’ve been wanting to make angstrom more user friendly for some time, so I decided to start working on an e17 Illume build.  There were a bunch things I didn’t like about the current gpe build — the xkbd being too small, midori web browser being too chunky, the lack of overall user friendliness of the UI, amongst other small issues mostly revolving around functionality of Angstrom.

This image that I’ve compiled addresses these issues as well as others such as:

• A more user friendly interface (Illume)
• Increased size of buttons and fonts (Scaling)
• Removal of misc. programs (broken programs and programs incompatible with e17)
• An increased file system of 1Gb
• Selection of 3 web browsers – Fennec, Woosh and Dillo (warning: fennec is still a WIP and will crash when loading larger pages due to RAM restrictions on Gen6 devices)
• OptimSMS2 keyboard layout
• Quasar Media Player (Mplayer frontend)
• ePDFviewer
• Abiword Word Processor
• Numpty Physics (Neat little physics game)

This image is base on Kevin’s build of the revision 199 of openAOS Ångström overlay. All additional packages have been installed from the regular Ångström package feeds with the exception of Dillo, Woosh, NumptyPhysics and Quasar (which I modified together with some help from Thomas, dm8tbr [thanks m8!!]) and for which sources and bitbake recipe are available here.

Some screenshots (desktop will look different on the downloaded image due to additional software installation):

Main Desktop

Archos gen6 running e17 - main view

Illumes “Top-Shelf” (note: Vkeyboard button is located in the top-right corner “qwerty“)

OptimSMS2 Keyboard (Switch between kbd layouts by hitting “ABC” [above letter"P"])

Archos gen6 running e17 - OptimSMS2 on-screen keyboard

Quasar UI

Archos gen6 running e17 – running Quasar

OptimSMS keyboard still needs a bit more work, it’s a bit too large right now, but still very usable.  I may get around to finding a way to reduce the size of the container.  Look for that update.  I also kept the “transparent keyboard” active for use, and I have my custom xkbd layout defaulted (mimics OptimSMS2 layout).

There is also a known issue with the Battery Meter being broken.  Hopefully we can fix that soon.  If anyone wants to try, go right ahead. 

This image should need minimal adjusting, as we have worked to import all my custom e17′s settings into your home.img, so you should not have to go through the initialization process.  However, if you with to do so, goto “Settings->Settings->Profiles” and select the “Default” profile to run through the initialization process.  I would also suggest increasing the Terminal font size (click the “Look and Feel” icon, goto the “Terminal” tab and increase to the desired font size).  You will have to restart in order for those changes to take effect.

Grab your copy of the E17 Image HERE.**

**updated to beta2 build as described HERE

[ If you wish to run this along side your current build, rename image to "illume.img" and make the appropriate entry in "menu.lst" Otherwise just overwrite your "rootfs.img" and your good to go.]

~Cheers

Spz0.