[iPAQ] Announcement: framebuffer VNC server port for the iPAQ

Hello everybody,

After many requests for an iPAQ port of the Zaurus framebuffer
VNC server, I finally took some time and did it.

The release is here :

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/zaurus/ipaq-fbvncserver_0.0.9-9_arm.ipk

and it looks like this :

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/zaurus/iPAQ_over_VNC2.jpg

(if you know a good home for it by the way, I'd be happy to
move it out of the Zaurus archive).

This VNC server is a low-level raw framebuffer server : it
basically grabs the content of the framebuffer periodically,
looks for changes, and send those changes to the remote VNC
clients. The clients can also send it keystroke events and
mouse pointer events, and in turn the server will converted
them into sequences of keyboard scancodes and touchscreen
events and send them to whatever environment happens to be
running.

In short, it allows you to remote-control your iPAQ, quite
accurately, regardless of whether you use Qtopia, Opie,
X11 or the raw framebuffer.

The polling method used to capture the content of the
framebuffer allows the server to be environment-agnostic,
but the flip-side is that the server has to run constantly
and use up some CPU. To alleviate the problem, all the speed
critical sections of the server are coded in optimized
assembler, so that even when the server is running, the
slowdown is barely perceptible. It works really well with
the Zaurus, and it seems to work just as well with the iPAQ,
if not better.

I don't actually own an iPAQ, someone lent one to me for
the weekend to do the port, so I wasn't sure what the kosher
way of adding icons in the various X environments was, therefore
I decided to leave that job to the user (i.e. under X, you'll
have to start the server by hand or add icons yourself). The
package does provide basic Opie/Qtopia icons and scripts
however.

There are detailed instructions on how to setup and use the
server here :

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/zaurus/README.1ST

Again, I tried to make this as accurate as I could without
knowing much about Familiar. I believe most of it is self-
explanatory though.

If you have any trouble with it, please let me know.

                ////\
                (@ @)
------------oOOo-(_)-oOOo-------------
Pierre-Philippe Coupard
Email : pierre@lineo.com
Phone : (801) 426-5001 x 208
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About the only thing on a farm that has an easy time is the dog.
Received on Sun Feb 17 16:24:30 2002