GNOKII FAQ

What is gnokii ?

Generally, what is gnokii (G from GNU, NOKII from Nokia) ?

It is a name of project. The aim of it is to develop tools and drivers for Nokia mobile phones. Of course, I think in this moment about really different tools - for example, modem drivers, console tools, etc. All created here software is released under the GNU General Public License. Please see COPYING for more details on license/copying issues, the lack of warranty and where to send a postcard if you like gnokii :). Anyway, our software works on many software (Linux, Free BSD, etc.) and hardware (Intel, etc.) platforms...

What software applications are created in gnokii project ?

The first application, gnokii, is a command line utility that was originally provided to assist developers and interested users in working with the low level API functions that were being developed.
From these rather humble beginnings, it has evolved into a the main command line tool of the suite. Many people now use it for reading/writing phone book entries, sending and receiving SMS messages etc. Ultimately it is intended that it will become a utility that communicates with gnokiid to provide a command line interface to the functionality provided by the gnokiid daemon.
The second application provided is xgnokii which as the name suggests is a X-windows based application that provides a graphical interface to your phone. Amongst other things, xgnokii allows you to read and write phone book entries, read, write and send SMS messages, monitor battery and received signal strength.
At present xgnokii works directly with the phone, however in the future it will more likely use the "side" interface of gnokiid.
The main author of it is Jan Derfinak
The third part of the suite is gnokiid. gnokiid provides a virtual modem interface, /dev/gnokii that looks like a regular Hayes-AT compatible modem with the ETSI defined extensions for GSM phones. What this means in practical terms is that you can treat the /dev/gnokii device like an ordinary modem and use it to make data calls from pppd or a terminal application like minicom.
gnokiid is still under development, it's ultimate aim being to act as a "master" daemon that interfaces with your phone on one side and gnokii or xgnokii on the other. This "side" code is still under discussion, particularly with respect to the most appropriate choice of communication method (IPC, TCP/IP etc.)
The last application provided with the suite is mgnokiidev which is used by gnokiid to create on demand a symbolic link between /dev/gnokii and the pseudo tty used by gnokiid for the virtual modem interface. It's operation is transparent under normal usage as gnokiid takes care of calling it when required.

This project also inspired some people to write other software for Nokia. For example:

There is a perlmodule available for gnokii. It gives access to all the routines that are defined in gsm-common.h from a perl-program. It is intended for application developers who want to use their favorite language in interfacing the phone data with databases, ldap-directories and (in the future) different calendar applications. It is written by Konstantin Agouros and support starts with revision 0.2.6-pre3 of gnokii.
The homepage of this module is http://www.agouros.de/gnokii
http://anders.fix.no/software/gnokline-1.0.tgz and http://alamin.sourceforge.net - software, which interprets received by connected Nokia phone SMSes and makes some things

Which phones are supported ?

You can also ask, what phones are supported ? All, you want :-) Really !

At first, we were making in gnokii project modules for Nokia 3810/8110 and 51x0/61x0 phones. Later users started to write parts for other Nokia phones. And we hope to extend it to another models: 7110, etc. Remember: it's even possible to write modules for other than Nokia phones too (just imagine: support for the most popular phones in one software !)...

Here is more detailed table with supported phones info...

You can also look into registered gnokii users database too see used by them phones...

What is compatibility with hardware ?

Generally, gnokii can work with all computers, which have serial port (over cable).

If you want to use infrared, sometimes are small problems, because some IrDa connectors are not compatible with some standards...

How can I get support for it ?

We our only people and we sometimes make mistakes. But don't worry: support for gnokii is really great. At first, you can tell your problem to all gnokii users (in May 2000 on the list there were subscribed about 1000 people).

The most often it's enough. If not, contact with authors:

When problem is connected with module for concrete phone, write to people listed in answer for question Which phones are supported ?. For other parts: Jan Derfinak is responsible for xgnokii.

How to contact with gnokii users ?

Thanks to the efforts of Martin Hamilton we have a Majordomo based mailing list gnokii@net.lut.ac.uk.

You can subscribe by sending email to gnokii-request@net.lut.ac.uk with the word subscribe in the body of the text.

Note that the list is not a forum for discussion on how to obtain copies of Nokia's proprietary software. It is the primary discussion forum for the project.

Archive of the list

Does Nokia sponsors/supports this work ?

In the early stages of the project there were indications that Nokia would provide some support for the project. Regrettably, these negotiations stalled over the issue of binary versus open source releases and the project has proceeded without official or unofficial assistance.

How can I help with creating it ?

There are some things, you can do you gnokii:

Tell us that you're interested, or that you would use the resulting software or that you would be happy to test it out.
The best method to make it is to adding yourself to the user database at http://gnokii.org/users.
Give your input in discussions about the design and development of the suite now that we are at that stage. In particular the best model of driver interface will need to be discussed broadly to get the best result. We've only had limited driver writing experience so if you've more, let us know!
Help examining the protocol and its differences between phone models.
Port the software to a new platform. Please tell us before you do so to ensure that the port will integrate nicely into the source code tree.
Help us in writing our software or preparing help into it.

Where to get latest versions ?

The source of gnokii aplications is in the CSV server.

We want to thank to Andrew Tridgell, Samba team for it... and Czech Linux Users Group for hosting the original CVS repository at cvs.linux.cz.

The server's address is pserver.samba.org. If you are already familiar with CVS, set the CVSROOT to

:pserver:cvs@pserver.samba.org:/cvsroot

and use the password cvs for checking out the repository with the name gnokii.

If you are not familiar with cvs, don't worry. It's very simple. First, you need some of older gnokii releases (sources) - see for example links in the end of this question. Unpack them to some directory. Then:

For Unix/Linux just install the cvs package for your distribution and follow these steps:
- set your environmental variable CVSROOT. If you have bash (Bourne Again Shell):
  export CVSROOT=:pserver:cvs@pserver.samba.org:/cvsroot
  If you have different shell, use different command (e.g. setenv).
- Log in to the CVS server as anonymous reader by typing
  cvs login
  Use cvs as your password.
- If you are logged in you are ready to checkout the latest sources:
  cvs co gnokii
for win32 and (WinCVS):
- Go to the Admin/Preferences window
- In the "general" tab set CVSROOT to the cvs@pserver.samba.org:/cvsroot and local mounted directory to the "passwd" file on the server
- Go to the Admin/Login window
- Enter cvs as the password
- Go to the Admin/Create/Checkout module
- Enter gnokii as module name and directory where have gnokii source (WinCVS will create a directory called gnokii under the one you specify)

If you prefer, there is a WWW interface to the CVS server at http://samba.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/gnokii/.

Now you are on your own - you have the current sources on your disk in the directory gnokii. If you are going to make substantial changes and feel that they should be included into gnokii please mention it on the list first to avoid duplicated effort.

If you would like to receive email when updates are made to the CVS repository, just send email to Hugh Blemings email to that effect and you'll be added to the recipients list.

Another way to get almost latest (x)gnokii tools is to download it from pages of authors:

ftp://ftp.upjs.sk/pub/users/ja/xgnokii/ - here are really latest versions of xgnokii (site of Jan Derfinak - main author of XGNOKII).
ftp://ftp.linux.cz/pub/linux/people/pavel_janik/Gnokii/ (site of Pavel Janik).
http://linuxcare.com.au/download/gnokii/pre/ (site of Hugh Blemings).

Remember: it's still work in progress. It means, that we very often change it, add new functions and correct our bugs (sometimes once a day :-))... So, it's good to check it often...