Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

http://maemo.org/news/announcements/...rm_developers/

Thanks to yerga for the heads up on IRC.

Re: "First Maemo 5 SDK release targeting platform developers"
 

Looks like I have some software to install this evening. :D

Re: "First Maemo 5 SDK release targeting platform developers"
 

Oh, and it looks like it's now official: no Maemo 5 for the current tablets.

Re: "First Maemo 5 SDK release targeting platform developers"
 

Some interesting screenshots (nothing really important yet as explained in the announcement for the UI part).

Just say that it's possible move around the desktop the boxes to set the bg and add applets.

Re: "First Maemo 5 SDK release targeting platform developers"
 

Is that more than 800x480 or is it just the small title font that confuses me?

Re: "First Maemo 5 SDK release targeting platform developers"
 

It's the small font in the window titles. I am running it in a 800x480 Xephyr window, In the device could be different :)

Another hints: the dialogs are movable, and have a small close button in the window manager (no cancel buttons in them).

Also the package gstreamer-plugins-camera has some possibles features for the HD camera. And it's opensource. I could list them, but if I am wrong...

Re: "First Maemo 5 SDK release targeting platform developers"
 

Now, that said, let's just jump right past the "whining and complain" stage and move straight to the "let's do something about it" stage, shall we? :)

Say whatever you will about there not being official support for current tablets with Fremantle (I'd, personally, prefer it if you took your complaints to customer care where it's more likely to get to the ears of the people who make these decisions), but Fremantle is more more open than previous releases, which means the community is significantly more enabled (and encouraged) to see to providing their own support this time around.

This early release comes with an invitation to build variants based on Maemo 5 compatible with existing hardware like the N800 and N810. Maemo SW can't promise commercial quality for such configurations but through maemo.org we are able to collaborate at a community level with technical support, license changes and code.

Re: "First Maemo 5 SDK release targeting platform developers"
 

all for that, as long as we dont get a "resources" split down the road...

Re: "First Maemo 5 SDK release targeting platform developers"
 

Given that a competent staff working full time on it has basically given up with omap2 (they say due to the difficulty of maintaining compatibility) I'm skeptical that a yet-not-so-big community can fill the void.
I'd be delighted to be proven wrong.

Re: "First Maemo 5 SDK release targeting platform developers"
 

You say that like they've got unlimited resources and free time. . . .

Re: "First Maemo 5 SDK release targeting platform developers"
 

I hope we don't stick with Diablo on the N810, at least change the name, Glad that there will be some collaborations to allow further development on current devivecs

Re: "First Maemo 5 SDK release targeting platform developers"
 

"Elephantia" is available.

Re: "First Maemo 5 SDK release targeting platform developers"
 

No, I said it like the community (the part of it able to do it, so I'm not included) is very small and it has even less resources and free time (which maybe could be better used to improve the debian port and tap into an immensely bigger community).
I've said it then and I'll say it again: I'd be delighted to be proven wrong.

Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

Re: "First Maemo 5 SDK release targeting platform developers"
 

Nokia decided not to push an official backport for a variety of reasons, most of them business related, but none of which include "completely impossible". Your argument seems to be that Nokia simply doesn't have enough resources to do it, but the reality is more "it doesn't make good business sense to devote the amount of resources it would require (and thus take them away from Fremantle proper) to develop an official backport".

The community has a number of advantages over Nokia in pushing their own backport. First, they're not hindered by any of Nokia's "quality" or "support" requirements, so they're free to make shortcuts and implement hacks where necessary that Nokia isn't. Second, they're crippled by long release pipelines. Third, and finally, they can dedicate their free time to whatever they want to and don't need to focus on Fremantle.

All of this makes the community faster, more agile, and more capable of getting the job done than Nokia.

Debian is a dead end for a mobile platform. You'll never see battery life on the same level as Maemo, and it really doesn't provide the answers and solutions you think it does.

Mer is the direction to work towards, not trying to shoehorn a server- and desktop-oriented distribution into a mobile device it was never intended for.

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

For good measure..
"A new revamped UI and a new media application framework dubbed "Ohm" "

It's not a media application framework. It's Open Hardware Manager (http://ohm.freedesktop.org/wiki/).

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

i am really sorry nokia decided to break api and support for (older) hardware once more, despite their promises.

i'm afraid i am not able to trust them, that maemo5 and the next device will be supported for at least 2 years.

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

Also note that there's no new UI in this release. :)

API breaks have little to do with hardware support here.

Was 2 years the promise? No. It was 2 releases.

Re: "First Maemo 5 SDK release targeting platform developers"
 

Hey, it's not my argument (I'm not knowledgeable enough on the low level details to have an opinion), it's their announcement that says so: The revamped UI relying on graphics acceleration and the new functionality built around the new supported hardware made it too complex to keep the compatibility between both architectures.


For the rest of your comment I just hope you are right (regarding maemo, not debian)

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

Things like that could not be well understand by many people ...

.... i can just hope ....

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

Corrected. Thanks!

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

I'd also like to emphasise, again, that this release is not intended for consumption by users or even application developers. It is targeted at platform developers only. So please keep that in mind when making judgements about it. :)

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

Oh really?

We expect an API break between Maemo 4 and Maemo 5, mainly due to the OMAP3 support, the hardware-based graphics acceleration and the changes in the Desktop UI and the Realtime Communication framework.

OMAP3 would be hardware, hardware-based graphics acceleration would again be hardware. The other two would seem to be software. 50% > little in my opinion.

Frank

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

1. i know the promise was for 2 releases. however, there were no 2 releases (i do not consider fix as release) (and main reason for diablo was to ease updates - unfortunately, there will be none except for critical fixes).

2. i consider 2 years as standard time for support of software release.

Re: "First Maemo 5 SDK release targeting platform developers"
 

For Nokia, but, like I've said, the community isn't bound by the same limitations as Nokia. So the complexity involved is reduced—we don't need to support everything they'd have to support, and our support level in certain areas doesn't have to be up to Nokia's level. We can ship a distribution with DSP-accelerated OpenGL rendering, or just stripped of OpenGL dependencies, but Nokia can't.

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

Yes, really.

Stuff like GTK breaks don't have a thing to do with hardware, and OpenGL support is still a software issue (drivers, remember?). OMAP3-support isn't really an API issue, but a capability issue.

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

I think there is a common theme here. Nokia claims hardware is 2 out of 4 of the reasons for API breakage. GA claims rightfully so that it's not really hardware differences for the breakage. It's a business decision. Call it what it is and move on.

Frank

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

I just had a look at http://repository.maemo.org/unstable...t_changes.html

Is there a reason why some packages have -debug and other -dbg? Most are called -dbg, but there is also hildon-application-framework-debug.

I wonder what is non-free about libspeex1.

Aside from this, what was promised is delivered... :)

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

Well, surely the packages will be compiled with optimized settings for OMAP3. If you read the announcement you'd notice Quim invites the community to backport to OMAP2/N8x0.

Nokia is just not going to put energy into this. Can't blame them, they sell hardware (and services). Not Maemo 5.0...

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

What does "cellular data connectivity" mean? I thought we already could already connect to cellular devices and cellular data networks. I'm missunderstanding something because I doubt he's saying that these are going to be able to be used as day to day cell phones.

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

Does the compiler settings difference mean even if the community back ports Maemo 5 to OMAP2 that Maemo 5/OMAP2 applications would need their own repository?

So we would end up with an application being compiled (potentially) for:
Maemo 5/OMAP3 (OS2009?)
Maemo 5/OMAP2 (OS2009HE?)
Maemo 4 (OS2008)
Maemo 3 (OS2007)
Maemo 2 (OS2006)

Frank

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

Actually, we will be supporting this community project. We don't just send an invite and then disappear.

We have various things that are being worked on right now to help the community such as defining license terms in a way that the community can build and use variants. We also made much more components open source than ever previously in order to support this activity. There might be still components that the project need in order to succeed and we will try to make them available too. What we can't do within the next months is put lots of people working on the kernel and lower layers to make the backport. That is too complex to be feasible without delaying the work on the lead device. But even that we don't want to influence the ongoing work for the lead device of Maemo 5, we did get help from the core development team to make this pre-alpha SDK happen. In this case, it was a fix needed to run the Maemo 4 UI on top of Maemo 5 software stack. Small but valuable things.

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

Short version: On-board, data-only HS*PA on the new Maemo/'NIT'.

Long version: This means, as sneak-peaked on the Maemo summit september 2008, that the device running Maemo 5 (as codename its usually called 'N900') might have cellular data connectivity on-board, without using a protocol to tether such as BlueTooth and without using an external device such as a phone.

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

We will be supporting on-board HSPA i.e. both HSDPA and HSUPA.

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

So, basically, reincarnated WiMAX and SIP (or something similar) will still be required to call others. Now, that you mentioned it, I remember a discussion about that back in Sept.

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

So there are a number of reasons for the break - greater processing capabilities of the OMAP3 platform (including support for hw acceleration of OpenGL, though this is something that might be possible for our OMAP2s with either some reverse engineering or some words in the right places, I am ever hopeful). This means that the new UI may be too much for our OMAP2 devices (though we should have a damn good try when it's finally released, closer to the device release date).

Next issue with supporting the OMAP2 platform is the addition of the hi def camera and always-connected HSPA. I imagine this will fundamentally change the applications that are provided and the way the device is used. I can understand Nokia not wanting to release a version for the OMAP2 devices which is hobbled and whose apps don't work as designed, etc.

We can still try to get a decent version working on the OMAP2, it won't be perfect (which is why Nokia aren't wanting to do it officially), but we should be able to get something pretty decent - either "Diablo on steroids" (current ui), or if we manage to make/steal ;) a driver perhaps even the new UI. Many of the new apps probably won't work very well (crap camera, not always-on connectivity), but at the very least we should benefit from the back-end changes (library updates, messaging, etc.)

I should add here that Nokia are keen to support our efforts to do this, by the licensing changes that Peter mentioned, and by opening up components that we might need to get this working. They are behind this, but not for official releases.

So, let's get cracking and see if we can get a Fremantle (with Diablo-ui) running on the OMAP2 tablets :) and in the fullness of time, we can give the OpenGL version a try too!

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

oooooh yeah!

firstly, a big thank you to the guys within Nokia who have actually delivered on part one :)

As for backports or alternatives, I am with you all the way on that lardman, lets see where we can get to. We have seen marked improvements in many technical areas this year and the DSP ogl stuff sounds like an interesting bit of lateral thinking :)

one thing, even with always on hspa we cannot assume always connected ;)
We wouldn't want our users to be up the creek without a paddle with no connection for normal apps. This is doubly so if we are considering a port to other non devices with lesser capabilities.

bring forth the hardware!!

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

well, i bought my tablet, because they promised they would make at least 2 proper OS releases.

btw - nokia do not sell hardware, they sell products.
as for services - who will buy service for abandoned product?

i hoped, that with n800/n810 still supported, they could provide lo-price product along with "powerfull" and probably pricier "n900".

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

...And do you now believe that they've lived up to that promise?

Re: Maemo 5 Reveals its Features
 

Something tells me the iPhone Linux project could get us a decent reverse-engineered PowerVR driver down the line, so I too am holding out hope. Major shame to see the N810 WE being forgotten, given that it released with Diablo so has seen none of the big upgrades. It's beyond me why Diablo would implement an on-device flashing utility if it's going to be unused. Good luck proving me wrong and surprising us all with a Fremantle backport that supports the N8*0!

Even if the UI stays the same (or gets simpler / lighter), I would be pleased with some of the new technologies being fit in like PulseAudio and a new version of Telepathy. (Speaking of which, will Fremantle finally package telepathy-butterfly? It has always been beyond my understanding why nobody has done so).