Mucking About
with Symbian Series 60
and Linux
Sirtaj Singh Kang <taj@kde.org>
May 2005

What's Series 60?
A Nokia­customized version of Symbian OS

optimised for handheld devices
(smartphones)
Current devices are xScale/ARM systems

running at 110Mhz upwards
From Nokia 7650 and Ngage upwards,

licensed to other phone manufacturers too
(Siemens, Sendo and others)

Status of Linux support
Bluetooth, IRDA works

PPP out (GPRS)

OBEX send/receive

PPP in – “Bluetooth AP”

Uses free Gnubox software

NFS mount support (p3nfsd)

Sync (SyncML­based) is sadly lacking



Dev option on Linux
C++

GCC ARM support

Headers etc used from Windows development

toolkit
Device Simulator not ported to Linux

Mobile Java (MIDP 2.0)

Series 60 Python – my favourite!


Series 60 Python
Port of the interpreter

Many of the std. Libraries available

Some UI controls – list, form, graphic etc

Some networking/system utilities

Third­party stuff from PDIS

Most python modules work unmodified

UI based on cooperative multitasking

required)
Threads also work and recommended.

No speed demon


Dev Environment on Linux
Python console via Bluetooth or TCP/IP

Use minicom or uucp cu to access it

Transfer code via OBEX or p3nfs

SIS­builder is provided by Nokia, but only

works on Windows
Since simulator is not available, need

emulator of API on Linux

Spy60 API Emulator
A wxpython­based emulation kit available

from PDIS
I have implemented that and more using

PyQt and PySqlite
First­look release in a few days (end May

'05)

Useful Links
Main Nokia S60 Python Page

http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/0,,034­821,00.html

Matt Croydon's Wiki

http://www.postneo.com/postwiki/moin.cgi/PythonForS

Spy60 Home

http://sirtaj.net/projects/spy60/
