Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

I think once we have the gps working with maemo mapper and sound we can start using Mer more day to day. I know I will. I don't care much about the camera so, that can wait.

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

Let me begin by saying that I am very impressed and now have renewed hope for the future of the N8x0 tablets.

My first install attempt would not boot for some reason. Whenever I selected Mer from the boot menu, it would still boot into Diablo. I finally had to do a clean re-flash of Diablo to get it to work. Something funky with my N800, I guess.

I had a little trouble getting connected to my Wi-Fi (hidden) and my bluetooth keyboard, but after a bit of searching around the forums I got them working.

Kudos to everybody involved with the project. Makes me wish I had stayed on the programming path in my younger days.

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

Wow, this is really getting there! Tear actually performs better on Mer than on Maemo to my opinion. The scroll is much smoother. I was able to install and run Fennec, GPE-Calendar and it all runs smoothly.

Kudus!

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

Probably not the place to ask such a basic question, but I cannot really find anywhere else to ask it (is there a Mer forum?).

I'm wanting to try a dual boot Mer/Diablo setup, so I've been studying and researching the installation process and the rest of the Wiki off and on for past couple of weeks. I'm confused by:

"When prompted for the URL= you can point it to any rootfs image you want. Check at Mer/Releases or ask at #mer. "

There's nothing about rootfs at the Mer/Releases link and I have no idea what #mer is. Where do I get a rootfs image, and how would I know which one I should want?

I am admittedly not much of a Linux person, but I have been stumbling my way around my N810 for over a month now without too many problems. I've installed and used Ubuntu on a couple of notebook computers several times now, as well as installed NetBSD on an old WindowsCE based NEC MobilePro 750c. I found installing NetBSD and (especially) Ubuntu relatively painless, but I do not feel anywhere near as comfortable installing Mer. I'm feeling pretty stupid that I can't even seem to grasp the "easy install" (even after RTFB'ing)....haha.

-- Chris

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

after you select which installation you want and where to install it the installer brings up an address bar of the url to stskeeps repository where mer is suppose to be downloaded from. That address is always the same except for version of mer that you want to install will be different. if you don't want mer0.15, you can just change it to 0.14, etc. The url will be there already, all you have to do is make sure it has the correct version that you want to install.

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

Okay, thank goodness it was something relatively painless. I was just worried about going through with the install without knowing everything I would need to know.

Hopefully, the "easy install" will be easy afterall! I'll report back. My feedback I provide after attempting the install should definitely tell those working on Mer how stupid-proof the install is. Haha. ;)

-- Chris

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

Just remember to use http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer/Documentat...#The_Installer and it should be fairly easy.

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

still not better than debian
i would like it to look like a real computer with real desktop

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

easy debian?

btw, have easy mer been bumped to 0.15 yet?

or maybe this is the wrong place to ask...

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

You can try lxde (I didn't personally try it yet with 0.15)

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

OMG, no. Keep Mer as a sort of community edition of Maemo - to give continuing life to N8x0 and allow similar handheld experience on other devices.

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

Oops! Somehow as I was poking around in the control panel, I managed to turn off the main applications menu. The one in the top-left corner, with the Mer icon. Now I only have these icons across the top of the screen:
- Home menu (now where Mer icon was)
- Network Settings (w/ no settings)
- Advanced Power Settings
- Advanced Backlight

Anybody know how I can get that icon & menu back without starting over?

************
Nevermind. I got it going again by running CP from a remote terminal.

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

I've not had any luck with LXDE on Mer 0.15, it might be something to do with Xomap instead of Xorg, system boots after installation but hang's before gdm. I've had quite a few re-installs of 0.15, I get the progress bar hanging a lot.:rolleyes: Time to re read the release notes.

I'm still using Mer 0.14 with LXDE which works great.

Just as a side note, the LXDE faq ( http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer/Documentation/LXDE ) does not mention the setup of libgtkstylus.so to enable right mouse click, I followed an old post (cannot find it at the moment)

"create file /etc/X11/Xsession.d/98x11-gtk_stylus and write there simply

export GTK_MODULES=libgtkstylus.so

Can Mer 0.15 be set to verbose boot/no splash? Or anyone any idea how to get LXDE installed?


Thanks,

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

I think it can be both: providing hildon libraries for the 10% of hildonized application and a real desktop for the remaining 90%.
Best of both worlds.

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

Too bad. Notwithstanding the problems with the virtual keyboard (I have an n800) I prefer it to the plain hildon desktop and the matchbox windows manager. I like the ability to move my windows around ;)

It's a wiki, you can edit it yourself.

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

That got me thinking and googling and I'm wondering if libgtkinput would work with mer.

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

After a small time with this new release, I have to say that I'm much more impressed and hopeful about this being a more day-to-day update.

Some of the things that I notice still, but aren't game breakers:
- setup is now much faster off a fresh install; not really digging all of the steps still, but I guess its cool (maybe consolidate them on one screen perhaps)
- the "app close" hit area is too small for finger use still
- Tear is great; scroll bars being too small aren't
- applications load a good deal faster
- as a whole the system just feels more stable
- with the N810, the on-screen keyboard keeps popping up when the keyboard is extended. This wasn't the case in one of the previous releases, but seems to have made its way back.

Suggestion
- disconnecting from a network needs to be as seamless as connecting to it; possibly make a UI change so that when you are connected and tap on the connection applet and then the first item is to disconnect from that network - in addition to what is already there in terms of connecting to other networks

I'll hopefully get some more time this week to play. Depending on how well this feels on the N810 that I'm using, I may just go ahead and play on the N800 and see what kinds of differences I can note.

Keep up the great work.

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

Beginners questions . . ( N810 )

EDIT : Swap question solved ; Install mer -> swap: mmcblk1p4 -> boot mer -> now: mmcblk0p4 !!
( the known confusion of the numbering of mmc cards in maemo ?)

How do I enable swap in mer ?
My swap partition mmcblk1p4 does not show up in /dev .
( Adv. install, mer >mmcblk0p3 , swap >mmcblk1p4 .)

Is there a way to make the onscreen keyboard not always appear ?
In tear it can be a nuisance : In talk.maemo.org when I open a search panel and click in it to position the cursor,
the onscreen keaboard appears and the search panel disappears. ?.


In mer (known issues but not in the list?) :

In the settings app.:
Every time I open the panel organizer and close it, one of the statusbar icons disappears. (After a reboot they are there again.)

Wifi connections :
If I close one by going into offline mode (without first unchecking wireless connections in the connections menu),
and then go into normal mode again,
I can't connect to the same wifi connection again.
( Happened three times in a row with rebooting between.)
( It was a saved connection with auto unchecked.)

Playing around, I installed mer three times, and each time it seemed that the settings app was more unreliable on first boot than after one or two reboots. ?.


It is great to see mer growing !
Now it starts getting usable even for (linux) beginners !

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

After you install mer, during the first boot setup it should show you your swap partition and ask you if you want to enable it.

When you are re-installing mer after some trials and errors, I find it better to reformat the partition instead of re-running the installation without formatting for a clean start. For that also you want to make sure all of your data files are on a separate partition where you can always retrieve them once you are setup again.

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

Thanks for the quick answer !

Swap :
I did not notice any question about enabling swap during first boot of mer after install.
Of course, I can always start afresh, but :
Is there a way to enable swap without reinstallng ?

Mer is on mmcblk0p3
Maemo is on mmcblk0p2
This maemo uses mmcblk1p4 for swap, and it works still, so I guess it is still formatted.

Perhaps I can't use the same swap partition for maemo and mer ?
Does mer format swap differently from maemo ?

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

I use my swap partition for both maemo and mer. You might have forgot to select the swap partition during the installation. Mer ask you twice about swap. First during installation when you were selecting what partition to install mer it also ask you what partition you want to use for swap. So then after the installation is done and you have rebooted your device to mer booting for the first time, it will show you your swap partition that you had selected and ask you to enable it. After that it will be set.

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

Thanks again !

Well my mer (.15) asked only once, (I'm fairly sure).

BUT : Swap problem solved, I guess.
It seems to have been the known confusion about the numbering of mmc cards in maemo.
When installing mer, I designated mmcblk1p4 for swap.
In mer this same partition seems to be called mmcblk0p4. !!.

So sudo swapon mmcblk0p4 worked, with 0 instead of 1.

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

This is the first time I've tried Mer, so forgive my newbie excitement, but WOW. That's really nice. Given the original write-up saying not to expect much, I guess I wasn't expecting it to look and work so good/well.

Unfortunately, coming from a relative Linux rookie, it's not ready for day-to-day use, since it's still missing a lot, especially for those less technical with Linux. In dinking around with it, I also frequently reached some dead ends, where I couldn't do anything, couldn't exit, or couldn't figure out how.

I'll keep messing with it, and provide feedback (wherever I can). I think that even though I'm not extremely technical (when it comes to Linux), the feedback I provide should be able to help Mer reach the "fluffiness" level that it will need to be in order to be used on a day-to-day basis.

Oh, and the install....painless. I chose the easy auto method, installing it to my internal memory card, and despite all my fretting, it was for nothing. It was just as easy to install Ubuntu on my notebook PC.

Thanks to everyone working on this! Great work!

-- Chris

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

Install the Mer kernel before install and that should help. :)

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

Hi All

I have just installed Mer 0.15 on my 770. Crash on first boot. Second boot did work perfectly. Wifi (WPA) works fine.

Overall, this WIP is pretty impressive, I must say. Keep going!

Some bugs (I did not see them in the issues list):

Brightness control does not work
(Del-)Selecting shift on the virtual keyboard is very slow.

Screen rotate is broken: one is left with the nice mer background.

And it seems that the orientation of the screen is saved somewhere: when I reboot, I am stuck now at this point. Where can I change this setting (by mounting the partition from maemo)?

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

Thanks Stskeeps ! , but I (new to linux) am not following you.

Mer installer runs in maemo, so how can it's mmc numbering be influenced by a mer kernel being installed outside of maemo ?

Mer inst. guide did not help, I found a kernel there (mer-armel-n8x0-standard-v0.15.zImage), is that the one ?
( Do I just extract it to a fresh ext2 partition, or how do I install it ? )

( Remembering different mmc numbers in maemo/mer is no problem now that I realized it,)
but does your method make other differences ?


( My other question (#58) , can the onscreen keyboard (N810) be prevented from automatically popping up ? )


EDIT :
Comment on mer .
In the settings app, where you can change the ordering of the icons in the top bar,
I once moved the "mer" icon (which gives the apps menu-window) to the right end (bottom in the list).
>> I could not open any apps as only the left half of the apps menu-window showed up at the right end of the screen. Same after reboot.
Could I have avoided a reinstall ?

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

I did something similar. See post #52 above.

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

GPEsummary crash my install for the second time. Bummer! After I installed it took forever to finish installing and then give the error message that it couldn't find the todo folder and hang my n810. Does the same thing after reboot and then hangs the device at boot with the blue background. Is anyone else having problems with the gpe apps, todo, calender, summary, etc? I am trying to figure out which one of them is causing the problem. The last time I thought it was the todo app but, I didn't install it this time.

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

Some boring post from me ;)
Open hald-addon-bme is really nice, but that package name leads to confusion, so I propose to name it hald-addon-bme-free
So there will be no need to resolve some package conflicts/confusion, because Nokia's hald-addon-bme is not the same thing as Mer's one.

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

can we install that network-manager applet to maemo?

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

Not sure how helpful this is for bootable Mer, but when using Mer in a chroot, GTK+ apps are properly themed by putting a small text file in your home directory:

~/.gtkrc-2.0

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

could not find selection for 0.15 in bugzilla. My filed bug (4838) now linked with 0.10

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

I guess this is because Droid Sans isn't installed in Maemo. Should theme properly if it's installed. Correct me if I'm wrong though :)

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

Removed the misleading font line. The important line is the 'include' one.

Thanks for the Droid font tip, added to my dependencies.

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

Skype on Mer 0.15 (n810)

Installation is tricky and fails to login (It thinks there's no connection..) but at least it runs :)

http://trac.tspre.org/meiz/screenshots/skype/

http://trac.tspre.org/meiz/screensho...reenshot02.png

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

0.16 release has been postponed to 31 August with testing 17-30 august to make sure we get rid of bugs :)

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

Any chance in the next version of having an onscreen keyboard layout closer to the english one in diablo.

It's probably me, but although the current one works, I find the keys a bit small, and the whole thing a bit "busy"..

Thanks

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

One more bug I forgot to write about.
Russian layout for HIM has wrong encoding.

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

You can help fix those, see Crowdsourcing for on screen keyboard layouts.

Re: [Mer] 0.15 released - another month + a week gone by
 

Heh... I'm the author of Russian layout for HIM :)
And layout posted in that thread had right (UTF-8) encoding.