webOS port of Xorg in the works, OpenOffice support the inevitable result
By Chris Ziegler 
posted April 9th 2010 1:59PM
posted April 9th 2010 1:59PM
posted April 9th 2010 1:59PM
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badass. I used to love Xorg.
@Mekkakat Me too. I bought a Pre to use as a phone, and N900 to use as a tinkering phone. It seems I'm tinkering around far more with my Pre. The webOS community support seems to be FAR more then Maemo.
@Mekkakat
Please Google BUY WebOS NOW
Need a high resolution webos phone.
"Hey all. I'm the one that took the video and have OpenOffice running on my Pre. I'd like to point a few things out: First, after making this video I installed the lighter weight Word editor abiword. Editing documents was incredibly quicker in abiword and I plan on making a video to show that soon. Second, By showing OpenOffice actually running on a 500mhz Pre I was basically demonstrating that "if the biggest and most bloated Linux app (short of gimp) runs on the Pre, everything else should be a breeze". Finally, although OpenOffice runs slow I want to reiterate that *not all apps run poorly*. In fact the IM client Pidgin works so well for me I use it over the built in one.
- phil_bw -"
From precentral article's comments.
@cursive
Why did you post twice... from two different accounts?
I call fake!!!! On one of you...
Hey guys, I am the that took the video. A few notes: The X11 server can run in both portrait and landscape modes. The video was just easier to take in portrait. The "Windows 95" theme on the window manager is the default theme. I am working to strip that all out. Also, after making the video I installed the lighter weight "abiword" client and it runs *phenomenal*. Loads in 30 seconds the first time, 5 seconds every time after that. Check out our thread at PreCentral.
- phil_bw -
@philbw
My respects for you, I have always wanted linux to triumph. I have an Android phone (Nexus One) and I love it, I think it would be great if Google Android and WebOs could merge, oh and they should hire you as a developer.
@Beatnik
By the way I have to ask you: Any chances to port this as an app for AndroidOS? I would be very thankful.
@Beatnik Umm, first of all the "hard work" was done by a guy named Will Dietz (known as dtzWill). He's the guy that got the XOrg server running with SDL drivers on the Palm Pre. I know *nothing* about Android but if it uses SDL for it's games and what-not I'm sure it could be done.
@philbw
Oh, thanks I read too fast, you filmed the video not made the hacking, anyway my respects for you and your friend.
@Beatnik
Regarding X on Android:
I've looked at what it would take to get our existing solution to work on Android, and it does look possible, but since I don't have a device not something I'm launched myself.
Long story short (I'm trimming out the super technical talk) we only use SDL for a few things that could be easily replaced with equivalent API's on Android--and the Java barrier handled through their NDK. There also would be quite an engineering effort involved since the Android isn't as linux friendly, at least not by default (libc, dynamic libraries).
So someone who wanted to definitely could, and I'd happily help them. And finally my comments above are from the 10' distance I've looked into it, I haven't investigated this fully, so don't hold me to it :).
You need to learn to edit your video 2 min of the screen loading would of been nice to not watch!
@angermeans Still very cool tho thanks for the video
@angermeans I'm sorry, I was throwing it together in a hurry on some awful video editing software. The "abiword" video will be better.
@philbw
Don't worry man. You rock. If you had shortened it someone would have said you were being deceptive about loading times or something. Also, Engadget should update this article to reflect philbw's statement (see above).
The potential of the webOS is crazy, we just need the dev support to unlock it...
It really is the most polished & user friendly of all the OS's... Including 4.0 for iPhone...
@mrkalel The potential of WebOS is crazy, because in many aspects it is a true Linux and all Linux APIs are available. Android has a Linux kernel, but the Linux APIs are not available to developers.
Cool. Now if someone would only make OpenOffice run on Android the universe will be perfect.
@kenjennings
That's what I was thinking.
@kenjennings
Agreed 100%
Oh look, it's the greatest OS on the market doing more amazing magical things. Just another day in the life of a Pre!
I think my next video will simply be me running abiword and pidgin in X11 while browsing and texting in webos. "Multitasking while multitasking." :)
@philbw Yo dawg, I heard you like multitasking so we put Xorg in your WebOS so you can multitask while you multitask!
Two words. WebOS tablet. Up-rank me at your leisure, folks.
... or one word: iPad.
@alphacrumb
Go comment on the 100 other Apple posts Engadget posted today.
@da Black Anarch
Wow, GREAT IDEA my friend, upranking you right now. WebOSpad the iPass KILLER, I like that idea. Please Google buy WebOS and release that Tablet NOW
@Big Wizz A WebOSpad would be interesting, but wishing for what is essentially a pipedream when it already exists with the iPad must be too bitter a pill for you to swallow.
@alphacrumb
You'll be able to do cool things like this with the iPad? Since when?
As a geek I can appreciate the achievement. However, is running something like OpenOffice on the Pre really going to be a great solution? OpenOffice and other X11 apps are not exactly designed with the Pre in mind. So, yeah, it would be fun to play with, but I'm not sure X11 apps are exactly what the Pre needs.
@crunc This was really intended to be a proof of concept. More of "if one of the biggest and most bloated apps for linux will run on the Pre, the possibilities are endless." For document editing abiword functions much better.
@philbw Let me be upfront, because I'm not trying to rain on the Pre at all, but I don't have a Pre, and do have an iPhone and I've recently been called a fanboy on Engadget, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt. :) I do think the Pre does some nice stuff (I'm especially envious of the tethering ability, though that I think is probably AT&T's fault in the case of the iPhone, but I don't know.)
Anyway, what I was trying to say is that your getting apps that weren't designed with a small screen, finger-based input scheme in mind might not be terribly useful. So being able to run them is going to be entertaining, sure, but how many such apps are actually going to be usable? On the other hand the Pre does have a physical keyboard, so maybe that helps to make them more usable. I still have my doubts that the translation is going to be all that useful. Perhaps in your AbiWord video you can show how it functions in a practical sense. Actually using it.
@crunc Oh I agree completely with most cases of X11 apps. I will say, though, that Pidgin works quite well since I just have all IMs in tabs in one window. I guess if the built in IM client didn't suck I wouldn't have to but that's another argument! All in all my real motivation for doing this? I love to tinker so this was "fun" to accomplish.
@philbw totally agree with that motivation and I think it's a pretty awesome accomplishment.
Come on Google, buy Palm! You know you want to!
So i'm thinking X11 + Some modifications +
Wine = Windows apps on the Pre, ya?
@Mthomas730
If that is possible that would be scary lol
@Mthomas730 prolly not. WINE is not an emulator. The pre is rockin ARM, not x86. So I think you would need an x86 emulator (which would not be slooow)
Reading this and all the reaction about how this shows the strength of Linux, got me wondering how Maemo is doing on this front (Kinda surprised I didn't get the thought earlier). Maemo is even more «traditional» Linux than webOS by using a lot of the default Linux desktop stack.
And well turns out, it's not only possible to run OpenOffice on the N900 (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=33228), but there is even an dedicated version of Abiword for Maemo (http://my-maemo.com/software/applications.php?name=AbiWord&faq=39&fldAuto=1138). Oh and apperently there is a version of Gnumeric for the N900 as well (http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=490201&postcount=1).
Sorry if this is already old news, just felt like sharing. Well still quite surprised that this is all availabe. Now off to go install it and test it out.
Why OO.org 2.4? 3.0 doesn't work?
@soren121
No good reason, just what was available to the debian chroot we used. If OOo 3.0 works on ARM, then it should work for this.
If only Verizon would discount the data plan cost on their Palm two-fer deal... Does this hack also work on the Pixi?