MeeGo / n900 - Developer & User Expectations
 

I was in two minds about starting this thread.
But in this instance I listened to the voices in my head!

There seems to be rising expectations on the initial release of "MeeGo for the n900".

EDIT (25/3/10): As rightly pointed-out by Attila77 - MeeGo is a generic release (e.g. not tied to n900 hardware)

E.g:
It will beat Chuck Norris in a fight
It will enable the TARDIS hardware (would be very cool - you can go back in time and convince yourself to buy the iPhone instead)

As said many times in this forum the MeeGo release will be a development only.

Only developers who are interested in low-level OS programming will find the initial release useful.

As an end-user this MeeGo release will not be useful to you....yet

Please do not be disappointed when the initial release of MeeGo does not meet your current expectations.

I have no idea what "state" MeeGo will be in when released. It may not even have a GUI yet. It might not even boot properly.
Nokia may never offically support it!

Who knows?

The great thing is when it is released it will be a community developed project. The things you can reasonably expect from a device like this will hopefully be met. "Normal" people like you and I can still get involved and take responsibilty in helping with the efforts.
It does not matter if you can program or not ("it doesn't matter if your black or white" as MJ would say). But there are other ways ways you and I can help - e.g. testing, documentation

Maemo 5 is alive and kicking like a bad-*** Mofo. There are applications appearing daily in the donwloads section and still growing.

I love my n900 more than I love my wife. The n900 is not perfect (my wife is - "love you!") and no device made by anyone else will be either.

It will take time for MeeGo to become "stable" and this could be many months away!

Until MeeGo is in a usable then it is business as usual for Maemo & the n900.

There are many applications languishing in the "testing" repos and needs people to test the applications and provide feedback.

(WARNING: Only do this if you are willing to reflash your device and perform deep voodoo with chicken bones to get your n900 working again. It's called "testing" for a reason and may break stuff!)
IMPORTANT: Testing & Warning

So basically what I am trying to say is when MeeGo is released for the n900 don't be disappointed by it and start b****ing about it in the forums.

A few people here have decided to learn programming because of the n900 and that's great. This is a great opportunity to learn about OS stuff and programming.

It might even help you find Jesus.

You may even decide to give Steve Jobs "the finger".

EDIT (25/3/10): Or is that give Jesus the finger and find Steve Jobs? Are they the same person?

Some stuff to look at:


What_can_we_realistically_expect...
http://wiki.maemo.org/Extras-testing/QA_Checklist

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...3&postcount=17
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=538094&postcount=1
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=559782&postcount=4
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=559784&postcount=5
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...7&postcount=26

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer & User Expectations
 

Probably the worst thing about it is that it is not "MeeGo for the N900". I blogged recently about this sad state of MeeGo brand confusion. It's a generic version (in very early stages of development) kicked around enough so it actually runs on an N900. As such, I would really be surprised if it contained any serious HW dependent functionality (like phone, GPS, maybe even BT/WiFi). But I guess this is one of the prices of having a more open development model, talking to end-users about development without someone ending up unsatisfied is very difficult to do.

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

I'll comment here instead of Attila's blog. I agree about the brand confusion problem. I think the idea of merging Maemo and Moblin to produce MeeGo is fine, but I think it would be a mistake to rebrand Maemo 6 and Moblin 2.2 as simply "MeeGo" because, even though they might be (mostly) MeeGo compatible, they really aren't MeeGo.

I agree with Attila in his blog that this can still be fixed by some kind of clear, clever "subbranding". I'm not a marketer so I don't have a good suggestion for that, but I really believe Nokia and Intel need to clarify that Moblin 2.2 and Harmattan are not really MeeGo yet.

In my mind, this first "generic" MeeGo release is the only "true" MeeGo...

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

Can't wait to hear the first stories and see some images :)

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

Thanks for making this topic, though i won't be trying anything. But if anyone gets it running, post some pictures :D

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

Isn't the message from x86 Linux distributions clear:

You're only as good as your supported drivers, proprietary or otherwise.

The title has it right, maybe one developer will be interested in a distribution that doesn't support the bulk of their hardware. At best, a second developer will run it in a chroot.

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

What is MeeGo? Maybe this "mostly compatible" is the usual level of compatibility we're going to find in later MeeGo releases. Who knows.

The branding problem doesn't end with Maemo and Moblin, since in the future we'll get the "Tablet UX" (aka Maemo UX) and the "Netbook UX" (aka Moblin UX). If they want the resulting platform to be sane (instead of a phone UX for a netbook or a netbook UI for a phone), both "UX"s will be completely different.

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

Wasn't the 'first release' of meego meant to happen this month? That mean it is coming today?

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

Or today, GMT-12 ;)

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

lol, thats a point!

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

Actually, there is supposed to be an official (Qt based) MeeGo API (not published yet), and that’s the "expected" level of app-level compatibility. Unless delayed, April will see Moblin 2.2 and the first incarnation of the Qt based netbook UX.

There was some talk about this on #meego, but without much conclusions. It is very difficult to say what will be transferable from one UX to another (especially considering DUI and friends), or, in other words, what will happen in practice to Qt’s "code less" mantra.

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

I was going to ask / state something similar about MeeGo not being released yet in a developer package.

Most people here should know by now it's not going to be for the faint of heart however I think a good portion of the community here at Maemo.org consider developer os's the geek version of legos :D at least I do. (No I am not knocking Legos, because frankly those are fun as well even when your old(er).)

I hope they don't push out the developer release to far as I have some great ideas which are rusting away in C++ at the moment. Not that C++ is bad or anything :p

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

These are wise words!

My laptop has an ATI Xpress video subsystem - ATI have decided it is legacy software and as a result the I lose the 3D-accelerated goodness from ATI's driver on later versions of Xorg. I have to rely on the open-source drivers to give me decent performance on my laptop. Great for compiz effects p*** poor for games.
Unfortunately ATI have no plans to release the full specs of my legacy device or willing to release the source code of the drivers. This situation will not change in the immediate future.
I either stay with an old distribution and keep 3D performance for games or install a current distribution and lose great 3D performance but access to the latest versions of software. I had to choose the later otion because I do not have the time to build packages for an older version of a linux distribution.

I really hope Nokia decide to support the n900 closed-source drivers in some way by:

(a) releasing the source under an open-source license.
(b) releasing linkable binary blobs
(c) officially supporting the n900 via MeeGo
(d) helping the community to write open-source versions of the drivers.

(a) or (d) would be ideal because it will allow people to experiment with custom-installs of other distributions (e.g. Install Debian and still be able to use the phone functionality)
I don't think (a) will ever happen - e.g. there are probably third party licensed software and patent issues)

But the closed-source nature of some of the n900 hardware will hold it back and it will be unlikely we'll see a fully working n900 device under MeeGo.

I hope Nokia do the right thing and remove this "restriction" in some way.

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

Well... You already have all required drivers and proprietary binaries on your device.
These are just not redistributable, but certainly usable.

Moebian already solved the problem of linking these binaries to custom distribution. :)

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

If this is the definition of MeeGo, there's no branding problem _at all_: Harmattan is as MeeGo as the code drop that will come today.

This is also Nokia's PoV.

I personally disagree with this PoV, but that might be because I like to tinker with internals -- I'm pretty sure this "level of compatibility" works for a majority of developers.

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

Not the definition of MeeGo, but MeeGo compatibility. A subtle, but very important difference.

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

Touché. That leaves me wondering as much as you if both UXs will be "two MeeGos" or "two compatible MeeGos".

Even if from a branding PoV they're both "MeeGo", they're not going to be binary compatible, but "MeeGo compatible".

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

For those of you who want to do serious MeeGo Dev work, start here:

http://wiki.meego.com/ARM

Otherwise, do not even bother trying to install this release. You have been warned.

-Thom

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

Unfortunately, as seen on other threads, some people have already reflashed and are now panicking with what to do next. I have modified my signature to point out to as many people as possible not to do this. Is it that surprising people ignore the warnings onscreen and just click straight through to the download prompt?

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

Great idea adding that guidance to your sig, but that's exactly the kind of tip that ought to be 'sticky-fied' atop the forums somehow... Mods/Reggie?

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

Discussion about compatibility between MeeGo verticals is welcome in the meego-dev mailing list, where the MeeGo architects and others can be found.

The work on the MeeGo official API is ongoing. The first code drop is an important step for this. May will be the time for the first release, but also the time to start the October release development cycle. There is where the API definition will play a key role.

I'm personally optimistic as I believe that most developers will be happy within the MeeGo - Harmattan (and Symbian?) API. The rpm/deb packaging looks like a problem now, but seeing the progress in packaging tools hopefully it won't be a hassle at all.

This new setting will mark a clearer difference between those happy with the official developer tools and API and those willing to dig further onto the middleware specifics of a platform. That is true. You will have to make choices, but this is no news in software development. :)