Simple documentation for Mer??
 

Hi guys,

I've just had a couple of VERY frustrating days trying to work out how to drive MER with absolutely no success.

I have tried to do a number of things and had crashes (simple things like rotate the screen, change a theme).

I have tried to add some repositories to try and get some applications that might actually be useful and failed miserably (how the hell do you close the add repository screen to get back to the application installer?).

I see mention of "red-pill mode" but have no idea how to enable it (atleast in mer).

I know this is early software, but seriously, if you want people to help test/develop it.. give us a clue how to install some software we might actually want to use??

Not meant to be a hammer thrown here, just not much I can do to help at the moment, nothing I need is available.

Peter.

Re: Simple documentation for Mer??
 

http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer
http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer/Documentation
http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer/Documentation/Installation

There's a lot already documented, i'm also interested what version of Mer did you install. 0.14 has the "x" button to close dialogs (and the "Esc" hardware button should work well anyway [the back button on n8x0])

Screen rotation isnot working yet, because Xorg dirver doesn't support it. (FIXED IN: 0.15)

Theme changing bug will be fixed in 0.15 too. Note that you can't use Maemo themes in Mer.

Red Pill mode can be enabled same way it's done in Maemo. (And that is also Documented in Maemo wiki) but why'd you need to use it? apt-get install <package> works well for ubuntu stuff. Maemo Software is not fully compatible with Mer, even though some applications may work well.

Maemo application cannot be "just put in Mer repo" because they need to be built in OpenSUSE Build Service and Maemo application sources are full of Scratchbox surprises (See: http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer/Build for the build info)

Once Maemo application is modified to support Mer, it will appear in the Application Manager (When, is of course depending on the developer of each app, or Mer developer who wants to have that app)

EDIT: i should stop talking about things i have no idea about.

Re: Simple documentation for Mer??
 

I'm not completely comfortable with that.
What if novell pulls the plug?

Re: Simple documentation for Mer??
 

Please confirm this for me. So no closed-source Diablo apps will run on Mer (without vendor's involvement)?

Re: Simple documentation for Mer??
 

Re: Simple documentation for Mer??
 

No, not true. I said already we're nicely ABI compatible.

Re: Simple documentation for Mer??
 

I recall previous postings. This is what now confuse(s) me:
"Once Maemo application is modified to support Mer..."

How do you or I modify a closed source Diablo app?

Re: Simple documentation for Mer??
 

I'm sorry, i should have shut my big mouth earlier. Don't care what i said, trust Stskeeps.

Re: Simple documentation for Mer??
 

Right. Short checklist if a Maemo application compiles on Mer:

1. Does the Maemo application use any APIs that were deprecated in Fremantle (Mer is based on open source Fremantle APIs and any code that is using those APIs will build.). If yes, then it won't compile.

2. Does the application assume it's being built on gcc3? If so, it won't compile. We use gcc4, like Fremantle.

3. Does the Maemo application assume that it is being built within Scratchbox. Is there libtool/automake/etc symlinks into /targets/scratchbox or the likes in the source package or tricks needed to build within Scratchbox.

4. Does the Maemo application packaging assume that some packages are magically installed beyond typical build-essential dependancies. Hint: autoconf, libtool, automake is not preinstalled in build environments on a Debian or Ubuntu, if you apt-get install build-essential. If it does, add the missing dependancies to build dependancies.

5. Does it depend on certain versions of autoconf, automake, libtool, etc.

Reasons for binary Maemo application package not to work on Mer:

1. Does the package depend on special Maemo packages names for some dependancies? libsdl is interesting.

2. Does the package rely on /bin/sh being bash or busybox?

3. Does the package depend on closed source Nokia packages? (We can possibly distribute some of those with vendor repositories.)

4. Does the package binaries use deprecated symbols in Hildon etc.

5. Is it a Python application and hardwired to python2.4 or 2.5? Mer uses Python 2.6. We're working with PyMaemo to work out how to do this the best.

6. Does the package assume $USER is /home/user or assume that /home/user exists (it is actually an interesting choice of ours to have /home/whoever and I'm still wondering if it is the right one).

These are all things we hope to be able to check before packages make it into Fremantle extras (not extras-devel, -testing, etc)

Re: Simple documentation for Mer??
 

Ah, ok, I wasn't aware that you can build packages locally and that the build server can be replicated elsewhere.

Re: Simple documentation for Mer??
 

Hi guys,

thanks for the dialogue (although I'm not sure how much of it is related to my initial question)...

meizirkki... the version installed is whatever was linked by default from the install page. There is no close button for the dialogues (and that is part of my problem because I can't find a way to close some of them, such as the new repository page).

If this is 0.15 then there are still a heap of issues.

Peter.

Re: Simple documentation for Mer??
 

Which is why it's a 0.1x release, not a 1.x release. . . .

Re: Simple documentation for Mer??
 

Agreed GeneralAntilles, but surely if you want people to test it, some idea how to load apps into it (which is what I'm after) would help?? I can't do a thing with it at the moment, open pdf's, listen to pods.. nothing that would have me testing the software.. isn't that the intent of releasing it at 0.1x??

Peter.

Re: Simple documentation for Mer??
 

Right, currently the image points at Mer Extras Stable repository, which doesn't have that much stuff in it just yet (we'll start filling in there eventually). What is primarily needed testing is the Mer system itself, not the extras.

You can possibly edit repository to point to http://download.opensuse.org/reposit...le_Ubuntu_9.04 instead.

If something doesn't exist in Hildon Application Manager, it is likely you can grab some things in it's native Ubuntu form (we only show Hildon applications in HAM).

Check out http://packages.ubuntu.com - if you find a package name, you can probably 'sudo apt-get install packagename' in X-Terminal and get the application that way.

Re: Simple documentation for Mer??
 

Excuse if this is a daft question, but are Ubuntu packages compiled for ARM architecture? I thought that they were mainly x86 Intel/AMD?

Many thanks

Dan

Re: Simple documentation for Mer??
 

Yes, it's on ports.ubuntu.com. Jaunty is ARMv5, Karmic is ARMv6+vfp

Re: Simple documentation for Mer??
 

That's great news, I didn't know that. I have just installed v0.14 and will have a play! The links to v0.15 don't seem to work, but I don't mind waiting and starting again in a few days.

Re: Simple documentation for Mer??
 

I'm in Mer now and having a lot of fun on my N810. If you enjoy the wtf stage, which I do, this is a great time to play with Mer. So far I've just run Midori and Tear and I think I just installed a file manager.