Recently, I published a blog article about making Use Of Chrome's Ozone-GBM Intel Graphics Support On The Linux Desktop. This is about using ChromeOS graphics stack for a regular Linux system. This article was also mentioned in Phoronix.
Originally, my old colleague started working on this a long time ago, but it has been broken since then. So I have been trying to enable ozone-gbm on a Linux system because this solution would be useful for embedded systems. I'm making a Yocto recipe for this and will open it soon.
Thursday, July 12, 2018
Thursday, May 24, 2018
Rust & DRM
I was surprised that there are many low-level graphics projects written in Rust and I started looking into one of them: drm-rs. Then, I added an example for handling page-flip event.
drm-rs is a subproject of Smithay that is a wayland compositor written in Rust. It allows Rust applications to access the Direct Rendering Manger(DRM), a subsystem of the Linux Kernel. So, we could directly paint something into a frame buffer and render it on the display using DRM APIs.
drm-rs is a subproject of Smithay that is a wayland compositor written in Rust. It allows Rust applications to access the Direct Rendering Manger(DRM), a subsystem of the Linux Kernel. So, we could directly paint something into a frame buffer and render it on the display using DRM APIs.
Friday, May 04, 2018
BlinkOn9
I attended BlinkOn9 from April 18 to 19, 2019. Here is the official page: bit.ly/blinkon9-info, presentations, and Lightning Talks.
At this conference, I talked about acelerating graphics performance with ozone-gbm on Intel based Linux desktop systems: explained what kind of hardware accelerations have been applied to Intel -based Chromebook and how we can use them on a Linux desktop.
Here is a demo video on Youtube:
At this conference, I talked about acelerating graphics performance with ozone-gbm on Intel based Linux desktop systems: explained what kind of hardware accelerations have been applied to Intel -based Chromebook and how we can use them on a Linux desktop.
Here is a demo video on Youtube:
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Setting up NFS in OpenStep
If your server or host PC supports NFS, you can set up shared directories for OpenStep. For example, if the shared folder is nfs://192.168.1.19/nfs/ftp, you can add the imported directory in NFSManager.app as follows:
Run mount command in OpenStep to mount a remote directory as follows:
Run mount command in OpenStep to mount a remote directory as follows:
$ mount -t 192.168.8.16:/mnt/openstep /coreonionReference
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Installing OpenStep 4.2 on Parallels
NextStep is one of the advanced operating systems in 90s. You may understand why it is by watching this video:
Every features Steve Jobs introduced in this video was possible in 1992, which is amazing. So I've dreamed of using NextStep since I was aware of it, but I've never seen a running demo and just saw a NexTCube. By chance, I found instructions how to install OpenStep 4.2 on Parallels. Finally, NexStep(OpenStep4.2) started running on my machine. o/
If you want to run OpenStep 4.2, follow this instruction. The only problem is that network doesn't work so it needs to install a network driver. I found the solution by googling, but the link of NE2000 disk image(http://www-teaching.physics.ox.ac.uk/NextStep/NE2K_driver.fdd) was broken. Fortunately, I was able to recover the link from https://archive.org/ so you can download it.
Network setting:
1) Install the NE2K driver;
2) Shut down. Under Boot Order, make sure the hard drive is the first device, and add "devices.net.force_adapter_type=rtl"; in the boot flags.
3) Set the shared network. Reboot.
5) Open HostManager.app. Under Local choose "use local domain only".
6) Assigned one of available IPs in your local network. Let the machine Reboot;
7) Add a name server in /etc/resolv.conf
Installing developer tools: there is a good video on Youtube:
The next step is to write some Objective-C code with this book and download some applications from http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/
References:
Every features Steve Jobs introduced in this video was possible in 1992, which is amazing. So I've dreamed of using NextStep since I was aware of it, but I've never seen a running demo and just saw a NexTCube. By chance, I found instructions how to install OpenStep 4.2 on Parallels. Finally, NexStep(OpenStep4.2) started running on my machine. o/
If you want to run OpenStep 4.2, follow this instruction. The only problem is that network doesn't work so it needs to install a network driver. I found the solution by googling, but the link of NE2000 disk image(http://www-teaching.physics.ox.ac.uk/NextStep/NE2K_driver.fdd) was broken. Fortunately, I was able to recover the link from https://archive.org/ so you can download it.
Network setting:
1) Install the NE2K driver;
2) Shut down. Under Boot Order, make sure the hard drive is the first device, and add "devices.net.force_adapter_type=rtl"; in the boot flags.
3) Set the shared network. Reboot.
5) Open HostManager.app. Under Local choose "use local domain only".
6) Assigned one of available IPs in your local network. Let the machine Reboot;
7) Add a name server in /etc/resolv.conf
Installing developer tools: there is a good video on Youtube:
The next step is to write some Objective-C code with this book and download some applications from http://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/
References:
- http://openstep.bfx.re/
- http://www.nextcomputers.org/docs/FAQ-OpenStepOnEmulators.pdf
- https://forum.parallels.com/threads/openstep-4-2-driver-thread.3408/
- http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2992
- https://forum.parallels.com/threads/older-nic-emulation-before-gigabit.110324/
Thursday, August 24, 2017
Working on the Servo project
I began to work on the Servo project. Actually, my first open source project was Mozilla and also I was involved in the Korea Mozilla community. During the time, I contributed to Fennec browser by fixing bugs and localization. Anyway, this blog article motivated me work on Mozilla again.
I landed a simple patch and am working on adding the ellipse API to Canvas API. I see many missing features so it looks like the blue ocean for me compared to the Chromium project.
I landed a simple patch and am working on adding the ellipse API to Canvas API. I see many missing features so it looks like the blue ocean for me compared to the Chromium project.
Wednesday, March 01, 2017
Enable to open multiple file-pickers in Chromium for Linux
Sometimes, we don't know exact requirements or expect user behaviors while developing or fix something. I fixed the file-picker modal issue in Chromium for Linux last year. At that time, the reviewer and I thought that there would be no case to pop-up multiple file-pickers, but it happened since M55 when you follow the following steps:
1) Enable "Ask where to save" in settings.
2) Open 2 tabs of e.g.: https://sourceforge.net/projects/azureus/files/latest/download
3) Wait for 2 downloader windows, and close/cancel/etc both
4) Freeze or crash
Here is a video to reproduce the problem.
When file-picker is opened, it disables event listening of the main host window. Then, the user closes the file-picker, it enables the event listening. Now, the host widow has a counter to check the number of the open file-pickers and it doesn't disable the event listening if there are any open file-picker. The event listening can be enabled when the last file-picker is closed. Here is the fix.
Anyway, you may see the fix in M58(Apr 25th, 2017)
1) Enable "Ask where to save" in settings.
2) Open 2 tabs of e.g.: https://sourceforge.net/projects/azureus/files/latest/download
3) Wait for 2 downloader windows, and close/cancel/etc both
4) Freeze or crash
Here is a video to reproduce the problem.
When file-picker is opened, it disables event listening of the main host window. Then, the user closes the file-picker, it enables the event listening. Now, the host widow has a counter to check the number of the open file-pickers and it doesn't disable the event listening if there are any open file-picker. The event listening can be enabled when the last file-picker is closed. Here is the fix.
Anyway, you may see the fix in M58(Apr 25th, 2017)
Friday, February 17, 2017
Apple-style-span class was fully removed from Blink
Finally, Apple-style-span class was fully removed from Blink(commit).
Apple-style-span has not been produced since 2011: https://webkit.org/blog/1737/apple-style-span-is-gone, but there were still some legacy code to handle Apple-style-span class because old WebKit engines has produced it, but now the usage is quite low(<=0.0001%). So, we decided to remove it from Blink at BlinkOn7. The code was executed whenever the users copy a text or run Editing APIs(document.execCommand) to keep the styles when pasting it. Other non-standard CSS classes(Apple-interchange-newline, Apple-converted-space, Apple-paste-as-quotation) will be also removed soon if possible.
Anyway, I feel that editing in Chromium is a bit faster :P
Apple-style-span has not been produced since 2011: https://webkit.org/blog/1737/apple-style-span-is-gone, but there were still some legacy code to handle Apple-style-span class because old WebKit engines has produced it, but now the usage is quite low(<=0.0001%). So, we decided to remove it from Blink at BlinkOn7. The code was executed whenever the users copy a text or run Editing APIs(document.execCommand) to keep the styles when pasting it. Other non-standard CSS classes(Apple-interchange-newline, Apple-converted-space, Apple-paste-as-quotation) will be also removed soon if possible.
Anyway, I feel that editing in Chromium is a bit faster :P
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Make file-picker modal in Chromium for Linux
When I stared working on Chromium, I found a bug in Chromium for Linux: the file-picker was not modal. So, while opening a file-picker, the users could control the main window. Sometimes, it caused mis-behaviors such as we were able to send an email while attaching a file.
There was already a bug and it seemed easy to fix it, but, it took 2 years to fully fix the problem.
The root cause is as follows:
Chromium for Linux uses GtkFileChooserDialog to open a file-picker, but it is not modal to the X11 host window because GtkFileChooserDialog can be modal only to the parent GtkWindow. So I tried to allow the X11 host window to disable input event handling to make a file-picker modal: Here is the details:
DisableEventListening() disables event listening for the host window using aura::ScopedWindowTargeter, which allows to temporarily replace the event-targeter with ui::NullEventTargeter. It returns a scope handle that is used to call |destroy_callback| when closing the file-picker.
In addition, we also set another destroy callback(OnFilePickerDestroy) to the GtkFileChooserDialog that can be called when the file-picker is closed.
As you can see, OnFilePickerDestroy deletes scoped_handle.
Then, |destroy_callback| of ScopedHandle below is automatically called.
You can find more details and discussion at here.
There was already a bug and it seemed easy to fix it, but, it took 2 years to fully fix the problem.
The root cause is as follows:
Chromium for Linux uses GtkFileChooserDialog to open a file-picker, but it is not modal to the X11 host window because GtkFileChooserDialog can be modal only to the parent GtkWindow. So I tried to allow the X11 host window to disable input event handling to make a file-picker modal: Here is the details:
Opening a file-picker
DisableEventListening() disables event listening for the host window using aura::ScopedWindowTargeter, which allows to temporarily replace the event-targeter with ui::NullEventTargeter. It returns a scope handle that is used to call |destroy_callback| when closing the file-picker.
class ScopedHandle {
public:
explicit ScopedHandle(const base::Closure& destroy_callback);
~ScopedHandle();
void CancelCallback();
private:
base::Closure destroy_callback_;
DISALLOW_COPY_AND_ASSIGN(ScopedHandle);
};
public:
explicit ScopedHandle(const base::Closure& destroy_callback);
~ScopedHandle();
void CancelCallback();
private:
base::Closure destroy_callback_;
DISALLOW_COPY_AND_ASSIGN(ScopedHandle);
};
In addition, we also set another destroy callback(OnFilePickerDestroy) to the GtkFileChooserDialog that can be called when the file-picker is closed.
Close the file-picker
As you can see, OnFilePickerDestroy deletes scoped_handle.
void OnFilePickerDestroy(views::DesktopWindowTreeHostX11::ScopedHandle*
scoped_handle) {
delete scoped_handle;
}
Then, |destroy_callback| of ScopedHandle below is automatically called.
void DesktopWindowTreeHostX11::EnableEventListening() {
DCHECK(modal_dialog_xid_);
modal_dialog_xid_ = 0;
targeter_for_modal_.reset();
}
You can find more details and discussion at here.
The first change list was reverted due to the UI freezing problem that happens when the users open a file-picker from a child window of the X11 host window. The second change list finally fixed this issue(BUG 408481, 579408). I also added a test case for the fix: BrowserSelectFileDialogTest.ModalTest.
Monday, November 14, 2016
My major contributions to Chromium project
I have been working on Chromium project since 2013 and fixed many bugs and implemented some features. Here are my major contributions:
Blink Editing
- [Issue 584939] document.queryCommandState returns true for bold, italic, underline, and strikethrough after selecting image
- [issue 232188] Caret color issue in content editable element
Aura and Wayland support:
- [Issue 473228] Make *::ShowWithWindowState(minimized, maximized, fullscreen) consistent across platforms
- Issue 578890 upstream wayland backend for ozone
- Issue 50485 Korean Hangul typing issue
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
OSCON 2014
I attended OSCON 2014 held in Portland, Oregon. I think Portland is the Mecca of Open Source because OSCON is held there every year and Intel Open Source Technology center is also in Hillsboro near Portland. In addition, Linus Torvalds is based in Portland.
I wanted to attend some sessions this year, but I didn't see many topics related to my job. There are more high-level topics above system level. Anyway, it's great to hear voices from web developers as a web engine developer.
OSCON is a bit different from other F/OSS conferences, which is aimed at the Web development, clouds, database, language, and hardware like Raspberry Pi and Arduino. So, there are no Linux kernel, GNOME/KDE, and other system-level topics. I think that Guadec or FOSDEM is well suited for me.
Anyway, I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the F/OSS conference. I saw many hackers and geeks who were hacking around session rooms. There were many BoFs until 10PM.
Many companies that have open source solutions joined the Expo. They showed their solutions and services to visitors. Intel also showed a Crosswalk demo video with a web application running on Crosswalk controlling a drone remotely, which shows Crosswalk can talk to the device using JavaScript to communicate with each other over wireless networks. It was cool.
I had an opportunity to use Firefox OS. The device looks cheap, but the UI responsiveness is really good. I heard that it's just 150$, but it was released in some developing countries. I hope to see a Firefox OS phone in the major markets. I got lots of information from the Firefox OS session. The speakers introduced ways on how to develop Firefox OS applications and to use the development tools. It's quite interesting to know that Firefox OS applications can run in Firefox for Android.
I need to learn other areas to enjoy talks more in OSCON next year. :-)
Wednesday, April 02, 2014
Ozone-Wayland
Ozone-Wayland is an Ozone implementation of Chromium, which allows to run Crosswalk and Chromium browser natively on Wayland without any X11 dependence[1].
I have been working on Ozone-Wayland recently. There were two releases since I was involved in the development. In the latest release, I contributed the virtual keyboard support to Ozone-Wayland. You can find how it works in the following video:
The ozone-wayland team has been focusing on graphics accelerations such as WebGL, Canvas 2D, Accelerated Compositing on Wayland. WebGL and Canvas 2D accelerations can be accelerated by off-screen Rendering in GPU process. In the latest release, we started supporting multi-touch and virtual keyboard, which work fine on Tizen IVI as you can the above video.
What is Ozone?
Ozone is an abstraction layer used by Chromium browsers to separate out the different windowing systems and also abstract surface acceleration for Aura UI framework, input handling, event handling, and other UI-related matters[4]. Ozone-Wayland provides Wayland support for Ozone[2].
Reference
I have been working on Ozone-Wayland recently. There were two releases since I was involved in the development. In the latest release, I contributed the virtual keyboard support to Ozone-Wayland. You can find how it works in the following video:
The ozone-wayland team has been focusing on graphics accelerations such as WebGL, Canvas 2D, Accelerated Compositing on Wayland. WebGL and Canvas 2D accelerations can be accelerated by off-screen Rendering in GPU process. In the latest release, we started supporting multi-touch and virtual keyboard, which work fine on Tizen IVI as you can the above video.
What is Ozone?
Ozone is an abstraction layer used by Chromium browsers to separate out the different windowing systems and also abstract surface acceleration for Aura UI framework, input handling, event handling, and other UI-related matters[4]. Ozone-Wayland provides Wayland support for Ozone[2].
Reference
- Project Homepage: https://github.com/01org/ozone-wayland
- https://01.org/ozone-wayland/blogs/kalyankondapally/2014/beta-channel-updated-m35
- Ozone-Wayland Release Adds Virtual Keyboard, Touch Support, Mar. 26, 2014
- Chromium On Wayland "Ozone" Continues, Oct. 07, 2013
- Wayland-Based Chromium Browser Released, Nov. 11, 2013
- Chromium Ported To Wayland, Now Working, Sep. 18, 2013
Monday, December 30, 2013
What I learned about American holidays
This year, I experienced Halloween, Thanksgiving day, and Christmas with my family for the first time since I moved to the US. There were many new things I learned about these holidays, so I’d like to share them with you.
Many Koreans know about Halloween because the young Korean people who had studied in the US started bringing Halloween customs back to South Korea and enjoying Halloween there since the 2000s and the majority of kindergartens have a Halloween costume party these days, but Halloween is still not commonly celebrated in Korea, so it’s very hard to find a person wearing a Halloween costume on the streets on Halloween.
I didn’t know that Halloween started in the US at first. From reading Wikipedia, I learned that Irish immigrants brought their Halloween into the new land and then it has been developed into what we see today. Actually, I didn’t know Halloween is such a big holiday like Christmas, until I saw every big market start to sell big pumpkins at the end of September. Moreover, a Korean also suggested to me that I visit a pumpkin farm near Portland together. I didn’t think I would buy a pumpkin at that time. Anyway, I took my family there in early October.
I was surprised to see many pumpkins in the field. The pumpkin farm was very fun to walk around. I got on a small train with my daughter lead by a tractor. There were many kinds of farm animals such as ponies, pigs, cows, sheep, and chickens, so my daughter saw them very closely, which made her excited. Every family, including the Korean family, bought pumpkins. Finally, I bought a pumpkin for my daughter and it still rolls around on the living room floor.
On Halloween, my daughter wore a vampire dress and went out with me to get candies and chocolates. I saw many children and their parents wore various costumes walking around. They really enjoyed the day, even some who were adults, so I considered wearing a costume for the next Halloween day. My daughter is also prepared for next Halloween: I already bought her another costume for 50% off!
After Halloween, I noticed that many people started getting ready for Thanksgiving. I I became aware that, like Halloween, Thanksgiving Day also started in the U.S. I thought every Western person enjoyed Thanksgiving day, similar to how Korean people sometimes think all western people are American.
Fortunately, an older Korean couple who have been living in the U.S. for many years invited me to their Thanksgiving dinner. If it wasn't for my friendly daughter, I might not have had the chance to participate in a Thanksgiving feast. While my wife was grocery shopping with my daughter near our apartment one day, she smiled at an elderly Korean couple. They started chatting, and my wife found out that they had lived in the U.S. for many years. They ended up inviting me to their house for Thanksgiving dinner. They prepared a turkey, sweet potatoes, cranberry jam and kimchi and soybean stew. The turkey was really good. I heard that it takes a lot of time to cook a turkey, from marinating to roasting. I would like to thank the couple and hope everything is great with them.
Christmas Day in the U.S. is a bit different although it is also a holiday in Korea. It seemed that every family really enjoyed Christmas day: I saw many houses decked out with lights for Christmas and my colleagues brought Christmas cookies to the office. I also decorated a Christmas tree with ornaments and lights for my daughter, which was my first time to have a Christmas tree at home. My tree is a fake one, but many families seem to buy a real tree. As you may know, it’s very hard to find a real Christmas tree and houses decked with lights in Korea. Usually, churches and department stores are decked with lights, but not private homes. Decorating a Christmas tree is also not common, even for Christians. I also attended the Portland Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Pioneer Square, which is one of my best memories of Portland. An interesting thing was that nobody around me had attended this ceremony, which for me was like many Seoul citizens never having gone up to the observation deck of the 63 building in Yeouido.
Through experiencing these holidays in Oregon for the first time, I realized that we just know superficial things about how other people live in their countries, and I have resolved to try to learn as much as possible about America and Americans while I live in the U.S.
Many Koreans know about Halloween because the young Korean people who had studied in the US started bringing Halloween customs back to South Korea and enjoying Halloween there since the 2000s and the majority of kindergartens have a Halloween costume party these days, but Halloween is still not commonly celebrated in Korea, so it’s very hard to find a person wearing a Halloween costume on the streets on Halloween.
I didn’t know that Halloween started in the US at first. From reading Wikipedia, I learned that Irish immigrants brought their Halloween into the new land and then it has been developed into what we see today. Actually, I didn’t know Halloween is such a big holiday like Christmas, until I saw every big market start to sell big pumpkins at the end of September. Moreover, a Korean also suggested to me that I visit a pumpkin farm near Portland together. I didn’t think I would buy a pumpkin at that time. Anyway, I took my family there in early October.
I was surprised to see many pumpkins in the field. The pumpkin farm was very fun to walk around. I got on a small train with my daughter lead by a tractor. There were many kinds of farm animals such as ponies, pigs, cows, sheep, and chickens, so my daughter saw them very closely, which made her excited. Every family, including the Korean family, bought pumpkins. Finally, I bought a pumpkin for my daughter and it still rolls around on the living room floor.
On Halloween, my daughter wore a vampire dress and went out with me to get candies and chocolates. I saw many children and their parents wore various costumes walking around. They really enjoyed the day, even some who were adults, so I considered wearing a costume for the next Halloween day. My daughter is also prepared for next Halloween: I already bought her another costume for 50% off!
After Halloween, I noticed that many people started getting ready for Thanksgiving. I I became aware that, like Halloween, Thanksgiving Day also started in the U.S. I thought every Western person enjoyed Thanksgiving day, similar to how Korean people sometimes think all western people are American.
Fortunately, an older Korean couple who have been living in the U.S. for many years invited me to their Thanksgiving dinner. If it wasn't for my friendly daughter, I might not have had the chance to participate in a Thanksgiving feast. While my wife was grocery shopping with my daughter near our apartment one day, she smiled at an elderly Korean couple. They started chatting, and my wife found out that they had lived in the U.S. for many years. They ended up inviting me to their house for Thanksgiving dinner. They prepared a turkey, sweet potatoes, cranberry jam and kimchi and soybean stew. The turkey was really good. I heard that it takes a lot of time to cook a turkey, from marinating to roasting. I would like to thank the couple and hope everything is great with them.
Christmas Day in the U.S. is a bit different although it is also a holiday in Korea. It seemed that every family really enjoyed Christmas day: I saw many houses decked out with lights for Christmas and my colleagues brought Christmas cookies to the office. I also decorated a Christmas tree with ornaments and lights for my daughter, which was my first time to have a Christmas tree at home. My tree is a fake one, but many families seem to buy a real tree. As you may know, it’s very hard to find a real Christmas tree and houses decked with lights in Korea. Usually, churches and department stores are decked with lights, but not private homes. Decorating a Christmas tree is also not common, even for Christians. I also attended the Portland Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Pioneer Square, which is one of my best memories of Portland. An interesting thing was that nobody around me had attended this ceremony, which for me was like many Seoul citizens never having gone up to the observation deck of the 63 building in Yeouido.
Through experiencing these holidays in Oregon for the first time, I realized that we just know superficial things about how other people live in their countries, and I have resolved to try to learn as much as possible about America and Americans while I live in the U.S.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Why Gangnam style became more popular than other typical Kpop idol songs
Can you believe that a Kpop song reached no.1 on iTunes in 31 countries?, even though this Kpop song is not an English song, but a Korean song that is called “Gangnam style” by PSY. Actually, nobody expected that this song could become a great hit wordwide, but this song has been spread all over the world very quickly due to Youtube. In this article, I am going to talk about why “Gangnam style” became more popular than other typical Kpop idol songs.
Recently, Kpop has been popular in Asia and has had some fan groups in the western countries, but Kpop itself refers to songs for the younger generation, which have been performed by girl and boy groups so far. However, Psy’s “Gangnam style” showed a different side of Kpop songs because he didn’t imitate the pop idols and created his own style that nobody had performed before.
Psy is so unique, even in Korea. He has kept his own character since he debuted in 2001, which is a cheap and comic image. This means that he enjoys performing in his own style.
During the time from his debut until now, he has released 5 albums and has 6 number 1 hit songs in Korea. His music is always cheerful and makes us excited because he has produced his songs by himself in order to pursue his own style. The interesting thing is that his style has gained in popularity because his songs give comfort to people who are suffering from a long recession.
Why did “Gangnam style” became popular? The contract with Justin Bieber’s manager, Scooter Braun played an important role, but without Youtube, all things might have never happened. Currently, Psy’s Gangnam style has racked up over 400 million views on YouTube and becoming the most-liked video in the site’s history. Actually, he didn’t make any effort to make people know about his song except by making the comic music video. I think Youtube changed the way of promoting music, which means that there are no barriers to find music. A few years ago, one Indian song was popular in Korea because of its comic style. Psy’s song is the same case.
Psy’s success is not by chance, because he has been developing his own music style for 10 years. “Gangnam style” is just the first of his songs to show his character and music to the world. I’m sure again that creating one’s own style is always better than imitating others in many areas. Furthermore, anyone can be a star through Youtube if they have any special talents which other stars haven’t shown.
References:
Recently, Kpop has been popular in Asia and has had some fan groups in the western countries, but Kpop itself refers to songs for the younger generation, which have been performed by girl and boy groups so far. However, Psy’s “Gangnam style” showed a different side of Kpop songs because he didn’t imitate the pop idols and created his own style that nobody had performed before.
Psy is so unique, even in Korea. He has kept his own character since he debuted in 2001, which is a cheap and comic image. This means that he enjoys performing in his own style.
During the time from his debut until now, he has released 5 albums and has 6 number 1 hit songs in Korea. His music is always cheerful and makes us excited because he has produced his songs by himself in order to pursue his own style. The interesting thing is that his style has gained in popularity because his songs give comfort to people who are suffering from a long recession.
Why did “Gangnam style” became popular? The contract with Justin Bieber’s manager, Scooter Braun played an important role, but without Youtube, all things might have never happened. Currently, Psy’s Gangnam style has racked up over 400 million views on YouTube and becoming the most-liked video in the site’s history. Actually, he didn’t make any effort to make people know about his song except by making the comic music video. I think Youtube changed the way of promoting music, which means that there are no barriers to find music. A few years ago, one Indian song was popular in Korea because of its comic style. Psy’s song is the same case.
Psy’s success is not by chance, because he has been developing his own music style for 10 years. “Gangnam style” is just the first of his songs to show his character and music to the world. I’m sure again that creating one’s own style is always better than imitating others in many areas. Furthermore, anyone can be a star through Youtube if they have any special talents which other stars haven’t shown.
References:
Monday, March 26, 2012
Using Nokia N9 in Korea
It’s been almost 3 months since I started using a Nokia N9 as my secondary phone, which is a Linux based smart phone released by Nokia on October 2011. In this post, I will introduce what Nokia N9 is and how to use it in Korea, because it adopts an open source mobile platform which means that anyone can be involved with the project.
Nokia N9
Unfortunately, N9 is the first and last MeeGo phone, but it seems to be close to the Maemo platform, because it uses Qt as the UI framework and the Debian package system. In addition, N9 is the first mobile phone to embrace WebKit2 which supports the multi-process model, so you can build WebKit for Nokia N9.
Korean Support
Nokia N9
Unfortunately, N9 is the first and last MeeGo phone, but it seems to be close to the Maemo platform, because it uses Qt as the UI framework and the Debian package system. In addition, N9 is the first mobile phone to embrace WebKit2 which supports the multi-process model, so you can build WebKit for Nokia N9.
Korean Support
Actually, I had been having trouble with using N9 because it doesn’t support Korean language officially, so there is no Korean keyboard and Korean fonts by default. Fortunately, a Nokia Korean engineer developed a Hangul keyboard and its debian package with Korean fonts. I think he might have worked on this in his free time. I am very grateful for his efforts. You can find the source code of the Korean keyboard from Gitorious.
N9 User Group in Korea
In addition, there is a small N9 user group in Korea, so I got some information on how to register N9 with Korean wireless telecommunication operators such as SK Telecom and KT. Interestingly, the saleswoman in the phone shop was able to set it up without asking any questions while registering it, which shows that N9 UI is very intuitive to use.
Developer Support
It’s quite easy to install developer packages in N9. You can run an X-terminal and browse the directories to check which system libraries are installed. Furthermore, if you want to develop a QT application, you can even install the QT SDK and developer tools in your Linux, Windows, and Mac.
Installing Gtk+
Gtk+ had been used as the default UI widget until Maemo Fremantle, but N9 started using Qt by default. Fortunately, a hacker did the porting of Gtk+ for Maemo Fremantle to N9, so, you can install the same Gtk2.14.7+ on N9.
What about the next model of N9?
I think that Nokia didn’t give up their generic Linux platform although they chose the Window phone platform instead of MeeGo. I expect that Nokia will continue on releasing Qt based smart phones in the future because a true Linux platform will be their hidden key someday.
Anyway, if you want to make your own mobile platform or test its component software, N9 would be a good test bed for you.
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