fonosfera

If you have tried our Beta2, you are already familiar with our Dashboard and know the features that the La Fonera 2.0 will ship with its final firmware. But well, let’s list them anyway:

FON Feature: Private WiFi signal for your own use and Public one for Foneros (CoovaChilli). Join the world’s largest WiFi network, connect for free on all FON Spots worldwide and make money from the passes you sell.

WiFi Signal Repeater: Rather than connecting your La Fonera 2.0 to the internet using a network cable, connect to an existing wireless signal! The La Fonera 2.0 will still be broadcasting your Private and Public SSID.

3G UMTS Connexion: Plug your USB HSDPA modem to La Fonera 2.0 and it will instantaneously spread it’s internet access in the form of WiFi!

Router Features: Feeds internet in a secure way (WPA2) to as many computers as you want through WiFi and to a computer plugged into the La Fonera 2.0 LAN port. Distribute IPs by DHCP, Forward ports, etc.

Storage Sharing: Plug a USB storage device (pen-drive, hard drive, card reader, etc) and browse content from any computer in your home network (samba), from La Fonera 2.0 Dashbord (LuCI) or FTP

Printer Sharing: Plug your USB printer and use it from any computer in your home network. MAC OS, Linux or Windows, it works with any operating system.

Webcam Sharing: Plug a webcam and stream its video flux from any computer in your network or save regular snapshots to your attached pen-drive.

Plug-In Support: Install new apps from La Fonera 2.0 Dashboard in just one click. Third party developers, as well as FON ones, will be able to add new features to the La Fonera 2.0

That will be the base of the La Fonera 2.0 firmware - it might change slightly from now to the final release. We are already working on these Plug Ins:

- Youtube Uploader
- Azureus BitTorrent client
- OLPC Feature
- Music Streaming (based on pm2036’s work)
- Bluetooth (with the help of rwhitby)

More will come later on. If you have other ideas and want to implement them, feel free to join us, we can help you!

Hello!

This is it, our little kitten. Sylvester, the firmware for la Fonera 2.0, fon-ng beta2 is out! Here you have its picture ;)

And what is this little cat bringing us?

• Improved structure: for a better plugin integration and programming
• Completely new web interface (both visually and logically!)
• Many bugfixes: including the well known 1Mbps WAN limitation. It’s now faster thant he fonera+
• I nice bed… it’s a cat, its bed is all tidy. We will show you the buildroot in a few days now. The code is coming today as well
• Ehr… I think I’m repeating what I already said…

Want some pictures? Here we go… but I warn you, after seeing them you will not be able to resist buying one. We’re getting closer and closer to the final release. And more plugins are coming so soon:

 This is the Dashboard

The new interface is based on the concept of a Dashboard. We wanted to remove any similarities with traditional router management consoles. They’re ugly, not stylish, difficult and not useful at all. This Dashboard is not final, but you can get the concept. There’s a summary area, which is secondary to the 2 main frames: the “Action icons” which have 3 fixed buttons (”Services” for samba, ftp etc, “Plugins” to manage your plugins and “Settings” to change the router configuration) and the icons for each plugin that is installed in the future so they are easy to access. The second frame is the devices/events frame. It will let the user know which supported devices are currently connected and configured in the Fonera 2.0. It is quite 2.0-ish…seamless autoupdates etc.

This is the File Browser

The File Browser is again a beta application. But it now detects different MIME-Types and tells the browser what to do when clicking on them. The look and feel is much nicer and soon will include other interesting information, such as the file size, creation data etc.

The links to the firmware are here, don’t panic:

• Image - md5sum:  264a9303b38db5073da845e8fbdc4b9e
• .fon package - md5sum: 41a0927c0c8f641b59f996ce873be336
• Source tarball is here - md5sum: 1fe36db183dd3e826bd5691d89b55c4f

Well, this should be enough for you guys to start willing to have one… Or are you one of these guys waiting for the BitTorrent plugin? Hmmm who knows… maybe soon… ;)

The Firmware Team

Hello all!

Here it comes, it’s the Beta2 firmware for the fonera2.0. Yes, yes, it’s a beta, I know… the neverending story again… but no, this time it’s a realistic roadmap. We promised to have this beta for today and it’s ready, only that we want to do some more testing till monday, plus we want to be in the office to get your feedback.

So, whats new in the beta2?

• Improved stability
• New web interface: new design (much cooler :P) and new usage concept (forget about the “router management page” look… this is something cool
• New web technology: Based on LuCI that will make it easier to add custom pages for plugins or edit the existing ones.
• Improved event detection system. The fonera will automatically detect and display the connection of new known device types to the fonera
• 3G support! Finally, it’s here! We couldn’t test it with many devices, but they will be added with your help. For now, we know it works with Huawei H200 and some Sierra modems.
• Lots and lots of rework in the background… You will just feel it, no need to explain ;)

Is this not enough? OK, then wait and see the next firmware: Fonera2.0 Stable Release. It will rock!

Now, we will get the development environment up. Expect to see it running in a few days, we’ve been testing different alternatives but unfortunatelly none of the new convinced us so trac+svn will be the final option.

Ok, here you have a small goody to forecast what’s coming up on monday…

pm2036, from FrancoFON, made the first community contribution’s to the La Fonera 2.0 firmaware. He bought the cheapest USB audio sound card he could find (US $1.00 on ebay) and made it work on the La Fonera 2.0 !

If your La Fonera 2.0 is in your living room, it can play on your stereo your favorite internet radio and MP3’s from your computer:

You will find an how-to and the needed files to install it on Pierre-Emmanuel’s page.

John will use pm2036 work and integrate it into a larger Audio Plugin. It will be the example plugin; the one on which will be based the how-to’s that explains how developers can integrate their work into the La Fonera 2.0