Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

Mer for Nokia 770,N800, N810, N810W, X86, Beagleboard, Pocket Loox 720, version 0.8

Information about Mer can be found at http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer and release information and released files on http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer/Releases/0.8. It also has a list of known issues so please read them through first before installing.

If you own a N8x0(W), use the installer mentioned here. 770 instructions here. If you have VirtualBox, VMware, QEMU or Parallels, try out our VMDK or RAW images. Beagleboard and Pocket Loox 700-series instructions now available.

Next release is 2 March 2009 (0.9).

Highlights of this release:
* You no longer need to ctrl-M to press enter in the x86 versions
* Packages which uses maemo-select-menu-location can now be installed
* Hildonized Midori bundled (thanks to the developer, still a svn version though)
* Theme switcher & status bar/panel customization, control panel applet
* Open system sounds
* Ability to install Ubuntu Mobile applications (tasks-hildon, for instance, cheese-hildon)
* Ability to install a bit more gnome applications (gnome-core is still limited by libvte seam)
* Power saving of wifi should work
* Nokia RX-44 and RX-48 keymaps added but not yet automatically detected by HAL. There is a command in 'Known issues' listing how to deal with it temporarily. A fix will be available through updates eventually along with XKB configuration.
* BeagleBoard port. If you are interested in Maemo5 on BeagleBoard, you can contribute to the Maemo on BeagleBoard project - it is a good way to help Maemo5 become more cross-platform.
* Pocket Loox 720 port (HaReT boot from WinMobile). If you have a gadget with touchscreen that has a Linux kernel & X plus touchscreen support booting, with EABI, and is ARMv5TE or higher, come talk to us to get a port going to it.)
* Hildon session script now detects wether it should show a cursor or not based on touchscreen availability.
* Maemo Extras repository added to default repository list.

Mer is still a work in progress and as such you should not expect too much of it - feel free to join and help us out if you think something is missing :)

Thanks to the people involved in the sprint 0.8 that has lead to this release: b-man, wazd, zenvoid, Jaffa, johnx, DarkenCZ, qwerty12, RST38h, r2d2rogers, Meizirkki, thopiekar and timeless and others who contributed but not mentioned here.

If you would like to participate, read through http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer/People and http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer/Sprints and see if there's anything you can help out with. We're on #maemo (or #mer) on FreeNode, IRC, if you'd like to hang out and discuss.

As you can read above we have added Maemo Extras to the default application catalogue list. Why did we do this?

We have done it to highlight where your (Extras developers) applications might have problems when it is put in an environment more aligned with mainstream Linux - and also to find out where we need to work on Mer to make it more compatible with the Maemo platform. It is also a showcase to show how much can already be installed directly into Mer - as we try to be backwards compatible with Maemo.

Together with this release, we invite you developers to check your application from within Mer (you can probably do it on X86 too, - extras-devel are built for i386 too.) and see why they don't install, or not work/start (check ~/.xsession-errors). - You are also very welcome to try and build your applications (do it under x86, it is like developing for a Debian platform, if it works under x86, it probably builds in our armel builders too)

You are welcome to tell us where we are not compatible with Maemo platform - and we hope that you can use this experience to adapt your application to Mer (and mainstream Linux) early on - and share your experiences and problems in this thread or in bug reports to Mer.

Obligatory screenshots:

http://bsd.tspre.org/~stskeeps/0.8/screenshot00.png

http://bsd.tspre.org/~stskeeps/0.8/screenshot01.png

http://bsd.tspre.org/~stskeeps/0.8/screenshot02.png

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

Thanks guys for the great endeavour to make this platform alive can't thank each of you enough, installation is going on and will bring any findings later.

edit: installation went smooth, set up ok swap and wifi all went ok midori browser fired did crash but gave the option to set preferences that is nice, there seems to be some crashes with the browser still under testing though, more feed back later

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

Can we use this in vanilla maemo? If so, could you post a link to the binary (or is it just the one in the Deblet repository)?

When Christian attended the Summit, I was begging him for a hildonized version of Midori. I explained that he should really focus his browser on the mobile market in general and the tablets in particular, since interest in a fast, featherweight browser isn't very strong in the desktop world... Bundyo had ported Midori early in 2008 and so I brought them together for a chat... He and Bundyo chatted a bit, but Bundyo has gone on to build his own hildonized Webkit browser, Tear, and I had thought Midori was a lost cause to us... It is nice to see that Christian's helping out here!

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

The one in the repo seems quite old, I think Midori moved over 0.1 these days.

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

Thanks so much. Wrong repository. :o

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

qwerty12 compiled powerlaunch !

it's so cool to be able to lock screen and keyboard :)

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

I have installed Mer 0.8 on my 770 and I have an issue with the virtual keyboard: the system boots well until the user name dialog box, but the virtual keyboard does not launch so I can not go any further. Before I had tried the previous version of Mer (0.7) and it worked well, including the virtual keyboard

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

I'll take a further look at this when I get the donated 770, try and see if you can reboot and if that helps. Did you add swap when it asked?

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

as reference I reformatted my mmc partition and untarred 0.8. I have 770, os2006 in flash, with he2008 kernel. No problems with virtual keyboard. Swap enabled. After initial input of user data I had to reboot though

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

i tried the auto rotate feature in backlight how do one come back to normal view thanks

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

From known issues: Rotation in advanced-backlight kills the X server
- pop the battery :P

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

That was the only option i had, does it bring it to the normal state.

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

>Highlights of this release:
>* You no longer need to ctrl-M to press enter in the x86 versions
..

I just installed the 0.8 x86 version, and I have to press ctrl-M for enter..

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

Not sure if this is the same problem you're having, but I noticed that enter stopped working my Zaurus (and my VMDK Mer 0.8 image) if I killed hildon-input-method.

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

I'll take another look for something that went wrong, but I didn't kill hildon-input-method.

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

I want to try mer but i got problem with the bootmenu. The install of the bootmenu and mer went fine using the installer link in the first message but when i reboot i can't access the menu. No matter if i hold the home button when it say so (or any other button) i always log into maemo. Any way i could access the menu by default by changing something in the bootmenu.sh?

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

Did you run Utilities -> "Install Bootmenu" first and then Utilities -> "Install Mer"? (if not, just Install Bootmenu again and it should get there)

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

I did install the bootmenu first and i did reinstall it but it didn't solved my problem so i guess i have to find anither way to get to the menu.

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

You have to hold the "home" key and THEN press the power button. Hold the home key, till you see something like "To boot from flas press and hold the menu key" (sorry, dont remember the actual words, but its something along these lines, you will recognise it) then quickly release the home key and press the menu key...
I had to try several times myself. its not a good solution imho.

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

go to maemo, get a root shell (sudo gainroot) and run this:

chroot /mnt/initfs cal-tool --set-root-device ask:flash

then reboot and the bootmenu should come up automatically without pressing any key.

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

it was --set-root-devide instaed of --set-boot-device but it worked.

Thanks a lot! :)

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

Maybe i was not releasing it quickly enough, but anyway, i don't reboot so often that not seeing the menu would save me a lot of time. So i prefer seeing the menu when i reboot. :)

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

How will this affect my data and applications on the tablet when installed? How does this work with my cloned system on my internal sd? Will I have to redo everything over or is it like an upgrade or dual boot? Thanks

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

Status on 770 wifi:

770 wifi driver does not like scanning whatsoever while associated it seems like. The cx3110x.ko with patches seems to work fine (even with WPA2), but takes time scanning and associating, often drawing blank scanning results.

Any of the 770 early adaptors who know anything about the quirks the 770 driver has? I have all patches from here, and using 0.8.1.

On a sidenote - it seems like both 770 and N8x0 cx3110x does not like scans while associated?

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

As promised, we now have a patched HAL for Nokia N810 owners, so their Fn keys can start working without having to apply xkb.model manually. You can grab this update through x-terminal, sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get dist-upgrade - which will after a reboot give you the proper xkb.model.

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

OK; for those of you with 770s, something of academic interest:

https://code.launchpad.net/~mer-comm...-r/cx3110x-770

cx3110x driver 1.2 which compiles for 2.6.16-27, and with patches to help usage. It also doesn't seem to return blank scans constantly when scanning.

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

Does Mer currently support usb-audio using ALSA and has anyone tested it with an external USB DAC?
I'm new to the Nokia tablets and to Mer, so I apologize in advance if this is not the right time or thread to post this question.

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

OK, this weekend I've been hacking away at cx3110x (bundyo's patches) on top of 2.6.28-omap1 on 770. If you put in umac.ko from initfs along with instructions in http://git.pokylinux.org/cgit.cgi/po...cx3110x_1.1.bb and force some flags to make it ARM (non-EABI) with -mfpu=fpa , it will generate you a fresh umac.ko for a new kernel.

My experiments have brought me the following cx3110x: http://bsd.tspre.org/~stskeeps/cx311...tskeeps.tar.gz which loads and inserts fine along with umac.ko, but it fails to do ifconfig wlan0 up (stalls). Maybe it is possible to bring 770 up to par with n800s in terms of 2.6.21 kernel, but this code base is where the road ends for "newer kernels on 770 with wifi working" for me

If anyone is up for taking up the challenge they are more than welcome. I had to build a kernel with CONFIG_SLAB instead of CONFIG_SLUB to get umac.ko to link in properly.

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

Hi guys,

Just trying out the 0.8 rootfs and I notice a couple of very small things that would make things a bit easier for chroot folks.

• /bin/sh is symlinked to /bin/dash and this is quite annoying for chroot. I expect eventually you'll be pointing it to busybox, but until then, pointing it to bash would be the nicest.
• It would be nice to have the libgtkstylus package installed by default. This lets you do tap-and-hold right-click on GTK apps.
• The wmctrl and matchbox-keyboard packages are also nice to have, to help tame the non-hildonized apps. You might even want to include the hardware key hack and custom matchbox keyboards in Easy Debian to further bridge the gap.

Just some small requests; I can do it myself, but it would be helpful to have them in place by default in 0.9...

EDIT: The Mer Midori (Merdori?) looks nice in OS2008. I also like how the stylus keyboard pops up for GTK apps!

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

No, it would slow down immensely, as described on the linked page. We don't intend to switch to busybox as busybox is the root of all application incompatibilities on Maemo..

Well, we have Maemo GTK - so there is different tap and hold handling. However, we could consider LD_PRELOADing libgtkstylus to non-Hildon applications? That'd be interesting.

Well, Mer is really not intended for chroot use, but so it is .. wmctrl and matchbox-keyboard probably exists in ubuntu repository for fetching. You're more than welcome to help out, we need a better environment for non-Hildon apps.

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

(shrug) Ok.

Yes, I was referring to making non-hildon apps more stylus-friendly.

I thought that's what I was doing. Sorry if it seemed otherwise...

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

Yeah, you are - sorry if I come off a bit harsh online :) - wmctrl will probably be in 0.8 cos of powerlaunch and we do need people to look on cheap and easy tricks to make non-hildon apps work nicely in a hildon UI. Alone the new theme for menu bars in Mer helps immensely.

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

Some of you may be interested in my notes for setting up a Mer 0.8 chroot.

My Blog Post.

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

Interestingly, according to the Fremantle wiki page, Nokia is planning to continue using Busybox; they've opened up development of it, too. There's a Maemo Busybox garage project page as of Feb 17th...

The fact that Maemo will continue to use Busybox shouldn't impact Mer's Maemo compatibility negatively, right?

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

Correct - if they avoid bashisms in their scripts :) And yes, Nokia will continue to use Busybox (multiple reasons for this) - Mer is doing it differently as we are trying to align closer to mainstream Linux as we see big advantages in this and Nokia is doing the same with opening Busybox (but I wonder if it will just turn into another bash.)

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

Hi everybody!

I'm trying to figure out which kernel to use with Mer 0.8 on a 770. Looks like kernel used in OS2008HE is 2.6.16.27-omap1 and doesn't support SDHC so it can't use my MMC. It seems to work with fanoush's kernel but I was wondering if there was a better one out there based on 2.6.28-omap1 kernel. Which kernel to use? Do I have to compile it myself or it is available somewhere.

Sorry if the question seems dumb and thanks for helping me out.

pancho

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

I'd personally use the new Mer 0.9 release which just came out, and use fanoush's SDHC kernel.

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

Just a link to the Mer 0.9 thread...

Re: Mer v0.8 release and a call for developers of Maemo-extras software etc.
 

Sorry for posting so fast. I just found the new Mer 0.9 with the information released today.

I'll let you know about the rest.
Thanks for the incredibly quick reply!

pancho