Choosing an application framework
for
Mobile Linux Devices

TM
The story of the Simputer

Drawing was simple

Open Alchemy
http://openalchemy.org

Times be changing

ARM Twisting
(This is good thing!)

Summer of X86
Winter of XScale

Embedded Graphics

OpenGL, OpenVG

Changing user expectations

Getting X off the hardware
All hail Keith Packard!

The Contenders

Gnome/ Gtk

Kde/Qt

Enlightenment/ E

Clutter/ Tidy

Android

Utopian application framework

Timeline and animation support

Simple rotate, alpha and transition

Experiments with Cairo
CPU goes Waaaah!

Hardware wants to be *used*
Under assumption than marvin hasn't been created yet!

Re­write our birth right:
This time we use hardware

Benchmarking frame rate

Tesselated texture on Intel Mobile

Simple polygon drawing

Hardware support Rendering to
Name Animation api (Opengl/gles) Ofscreen Pixmap
Gtk/Gnome No No No
Qt/Kde Yes Opengl Yes
EFL/E Yes Opengl Yes
Clutter/ Tidy Yes Opengl/ gles Yes
Android Yes Opengles No Idea!

Multi language bindings

Name Languages
Gtk/Gnome C,C++,python, java, c#
QT/KDE C++,Python, Java
Clutter/Tidy C, Python
EFL/E C,Python (C#)
Android Java

Email and HTML libraries

Name Email Browser
Gtk/Gnome Camel GtkMozembed,
GtkWebkit
Kde/Qt Akonadi, Kmail Khtml, QtWebKit
Clutter/ Tidy Clutter Webkit
EFL/ E
Android Webkit

Inter Process Communication

Name Platform
Dbus Gnome, QT, EFL, Clutter
Android.os Android
(Its called Ibinder amazingly,
no relation to the Iphone i swear)

Possible Scenarios

Scenario 1

Hardware:
GPU/ FPU
GLES support
Supported Driver
Eg: Freescale I.MX31
Omap 2430, 3430

Best Bet: Clutter, Gtk

Hardware:
GPU/ FPU
GL2.0 support
Supported Driver
Eg: Menlow
Amd mobile processor

Best Bet: QT, Clutter, EFL, Gtk
(In that order)

Hardware:
No GPU/ FPU
Eg: Xscale

Best Bet: EFL, Gtk, QT

Challenges going forward

Multi core architecture:
Do we have a strategy?

New Input handling?

Predicting next wave of display
technologies
* E­Ink
* Projection

Building a linux­based mobile device
has never been easier

Building a worthy device continues
to be an exciting journey

Questions?
shreyas@geodesic.com
IRC: shres (irc.freenode.net, irc.gimpnet.org)
IM: sshreyas@gmail.com