Lua on Maemo (Nokia N810 and friends)

[Gerhard Sittig <Gerhard.Sittig@...>]

I'm considering to get me a Nokia N810 and noticed that Lua is not (yet)
available for that device (in prepackaged or standalone form, that is).
The device runs OS 2008, aka Maemo 4.0, a Linux based system with a GTK
based UI.  The hardware platform is an XScale processor with quite a lot
of RAM (some hundred megabytes) and Flash mass storage (several
gigabytes).  It has WLAN b/g, BT, USB (no IR?), and builtin GPS.  The
display is rather huge (800x480 in 4.1") and there's a touch screen as
well as a real keyboard.  In fact it's quite a heavy yet mobile
computing machine, the kind of what we had on our desk a few years ago.

Lua seems to not be bundled with the OS.  The maemo.org download area
does have Python and Ruby, but not Lua.  A search on luaforge.net for
"maemo", "gtk", "hildon" (the UI framework), "nokia" or "nit" (Nokia
coined the "Nokia Internet Tablet" term) doesn't reveal related projects
("nokia" hits for a bit manipulation library since that one supports one
of Nokia's formats, it seems).

I understand that "porting" the standalone interpreter and the runtime
library is a no-brainer, given that we're on a regular Linux system with
quite a lot of default stuff available (yes, the gadget has a terminal
to reveal the full power of a UNIX workstation to those who want it).

The actual work is in creating bindings to the Maemo / Hildon / GTK
framework and the PDA's features (contacts etc databases, peripherals,
communication, UI stuff).  This then makes the difference between "I can
run computational stuff, manipulating files or outputting to the screen"
and "I can control the gadget with Lua, interacting with the user".

I've searched the ML back to 2006, but apart from some occasional
mentions by Asko, Ralph, Andre and Norman about "would be nice to have"
I've not seen any "more involved" statements.  Did I miss some already
existing project, maybe hosted on other OSS sites?  Or should we (do we
want to?) start another LuaForge project?  Is it actually a NIT&Lua
specific task or would it be more generic and should be a maemo.org
project?

Opinions, comments, suggestions, references to existing work?


virtually yours
Gerhard Sittig
-- 
     If you don't understand or are scared by any of the above
             ask your parents or an adult to help you.