MeeGo-Harmattan HE
 

Hi, PR1.2 for Maemo 5 has been announced at http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/...e-release-1-2/

The announcement also contains this information:

In other words, the MeeGo-Harmattan release from Nokia will not be officially supported in the N900. But if you have an engineering mindset and you are interested in exploring what can be technically achieved by the community, please be active in this thread.

Carsten, the maemo.org distmaster, is in the best position to coordinate this effort. He has all the Mer experience and he is working in the open project to provide an N900 hardware adaptation for the MeeGo OS. He is also used to collaborate with members of the MeeGo Devices team at Nokia like Tero Kojo or myself, who will pay attention to the progress of this effort.

One of the main factors to be considered in this initiative is the key role of Qt, a key layer in the MeeGo architecture and a very useful bridge across platforms and releases. Qt 4.6 is now officially supported in Maemo 5 and Qt 4.7 is already in extras-devel. This is a very good indicator of the possibilities Qt based apps have beyond Maemo 5, into MeeGo and also the upcoming Symbian releases.


BIG DISCLAIMER

Please don't bug the people working here with questions/complaints about Maemo 5, open/closed software, official updates or MeeGo. There are plenty of threads for this just a click away.

The project discussed here is about getting the API, UX and apps of the first MeeGo device from Nokia (aka "MeeGo-Harmattan", provisional name) running in the N900. For insiders, this basically means making Harmattan run in the N900. The Harmattan content is not public yet and nobody really knows how good the releases of this initiative will be. Follow the MeeGo hardware adaptation for N900 thread to have an idea of the worst case scenario to be expected.

How can you help? Please be constructive. Be ready to test and provide feedback. And be patient: this project can't dliver faster than the MeeGo & Harmattan projects themselves.

Thank you!

EDIT: Subject changed as requested.

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

Let's do this. Count me in. I'll be glad to help supporting MeeGo in the N900 :^)

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

Thanks for a good post :)

Ok. That sounds great as long as we will still get the same newer driver revisions to the N900 as the Meego products with the same SoC will get, and equal OS speed. It will not be ok if Meego gets a 30+fps GUI with flawless vsync, if the same optimizations wont be done to Maemo.

but of course it will be great if the community manages to port Meego (with full driver support) to the N900 :)

btw. an important, and even trivial question - should we be able to expect support for new Qt versions to maemo as long as new Qt versions gets support for Meego?

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

We already have updated driver revisions in MeeGo 1.0 for N900 at least. Would be silly to ship old drivers :) Also, keep in mind, for the hardware adaptation, it is a professional team working on this. What would be provided in here, is basically the differentiation (on top of a UX on top of a hardware adaptation on top of MeeGo Core)

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

Hello,

Just in order to be consistent: This kind of work that Quim proposes will be needed to create "full", open and nicely usable system on N900 on top of MeeGo.

Br,
//Harri

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

Trying to wrap my head around this. What I imagined was that the handheld UX to be released soon after 1.0 would be the reference UX, am I completely off with this? However, by differentiation here you mean the Nokia differentiation on top?

Are we talking about two different projects here, the first under the Linux Foundation MeeGo project(N900 HW adaptation and stuff) and another under Nokia umbrella(differentiation) or am I mixing something up?

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

Sorry, I thought my first post was clear.

In short, this thread is about creating a Hacker/Community edition for the N900 of the OS and apps that Nokia will ship in the first device based on MeeGo.

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

Ok, makes more sense now. Thanks to Stskeeps too, didn't manage in time ;)

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

Does anyone see WRT playing a role here? Or is the current thinking that a MeeGo hacker edition for the n900 would not use WRT as a main component?

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

So things like phone, messaging, media player, the nokia versions, will be open source? Are there any plans to open source the maemo versions of these apps once Meego is released?

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

Just a side note:

There were plans about making Maemo 5 available for the N8x0.
They said that Maemo 5 needs graphics acceleration, and the N8x0 don't have that.

Okay, so the task would have been to "dumb down" Maemo 5 to make it work without that.
Instead, the community created all sorts of weird things (like Mer, the purpose of which I still don't understand), and none of it actually became usable or stable on an N8x0.

Will it be any different this time?

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

Am I the only one that sees that comment as Nokia withdrawing official support to the N900. If Meego ain't coming to the N900 and Maemo is being stopped. Not much of a future without the community. Without Nokia supporting it, they won't continue to sell it or make it and the community shrinks.

Not that I am surprised, I have said as much elsewhere that 1.2 would be pretty much it for the N900. Not shocked but still appalled.

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

This is the most encouraging news I've had all day and I'm still playing with PR1.2...

I have just posted elsewhere that Nokia should turn Maemo 5 over to the community now; It's entirely understandable that Nokia don't want to develop a one-model OS any further. This proposal offers even more potential and will extend the effective life of the N900.

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

No what I see is a business decision been made and Quim saying there will be cooperation from Nokia in probably getting a feature complete Meego release for the N900 as long as the community spearheads the effort.

edit: also known as this is GREAT news!!

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

[b]The important factor Nokia is not considering is its customers... just this little detail.... just a bunch of crap the excuse of not supporting it... Maemo 5 was killed in just about 6 months, faster than Windows Vista!! Just lame... be sure you lost a lot of customers with that move!!![/b}

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

I must confess my head is spinning now with all this MeeGo stuff...

Correct me if I'm wrong, the meego we're talking here is actually Harmattan, which is just a rebranded maemo 6 and has little to do with the full blown meego from meego project discussed here.
So, theoretically at some point we will be able to run on our N900 either:

-Good old Maemo 5.

-Meego 1.0, with the N900 hw adaptation done by the meego project + reference handset UX + reference handset apps.

-Harmattan, with all adaptation effort done by the community + official Nokia apps.

Am I getting this right or there's something I missed?

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

Everything in MeeGo will be open source unlike Maemo. Only things that are closed source are some drivers(like GPU) and Nokia applications(like Ovi Maps). At least this is what I get from comments of developers :)

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

Could you please tune me on same frequenzy as you are?

First of all Vista was released in 2006 and is still getting support. Mainstream support probably ends soon (or has it) but security updates keep coming for quite long so what the H are you blabbering? Secondly they have not killed Maemo 5. As one of Nokia employees said n900 will get official 1.3 update also: http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=561617&postcount=4

Meego will be provided as community version where stskeeps probably has his own hands deep. Qt will provide that probably most of programs coded on that platform will be usable on meego devices as on N8 and N900.

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

The work here is not about opening software but about integrating open and closed components in order to provide a user experience and feature set as close as possible to the one offered by Nokia in its first MeeGo based device.

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

Of course, Web Runtime should have here the same role as in the original release from Nokia.

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

So does this includes adaptations specifically for N900's resistive screen as well?

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

I'd love to get involved. So far I've been unable to figure out where though. I keep an eye on the meego forums waiting for something to pop up that looks like I can do and someone else isn't already working on.

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

While the thread about "No official Meego Release" gets a thousand views and a ton of comments, this thread about a Meego/Harmattan?maemo 6 hacker edition which answers all the questions gets no looks even after Qgil links it. Sometimes I shake my head at this forum, I really wish for the days when these tablets were for enthusiasts and not end users.

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

The most frustrating aspect of this whole "N900 will be a reference MeeGo platform with community support but no official MeeGo release" business is that we have to pry bits and pieces of information, one at a time, out of qgil and Peter.

@Nokia: please make one detailed statement saying
a) What N900 owners can hope for from being the MeeGo reference platform
b) What MeeGo commercial support will include that will not trickle down to the N900
c) What items in (b) can practically have substitutes developed by the community.
d) What items in (c) are unlikely to have substitutes developed by the community, and why (e.g., because the source will be closed, or because they will take advantage of hardware unavailable on the N900, or for whatever other reason).
e) How and how long Nokia intends to support the N900 community from this point forward.

Until there is such a statement, this board will be drowning in noise, mass hysteria and FUD.

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

@jactanner
http://wiki.maemo.org/What_can_we_realistically_expect
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=53571

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

Unfortunately this is not an isolated incident. FUD runs high around here. I wouldn't be surprised if someone hacks Flash 10.1 onto the n900 and 90% of the forum misses it because they are too busy complaining about the lack of an official port.

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

The page http://wiki.maemo.org/What_can_we_realistically_expect needs a really thorough update now that PR 1.2 is out, and the Ovi store is about to get a refresh. A lot of the information / discussion is out of date.

The thread http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=53571 is really excellent, I hadn't seen it yet. However, that just makes my point - no coordinated messaging that addresses all of the questions I (and others) pointed out.

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

in other words, we will beg nokia for binary blobs from meego and those crumbs that do fall from the table will end up being incompatible with our n900s.

Hackers and crackers will spend thousands of man hours for free trying to make this work on an n900, when in the end they could've worked at mcDonalds for 1/10th that time and bought the latest device.

I am selling both of my n900s to some of these folks for cheap so they can build a brick wall and I can move on to a newer device at a discount.

I am learning how it works around here, albeit, slowly.

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

If Mer were a success, I'd not complain. If OS2008HE was a success on the 770 - you had parts of it that didn't work on the 770 (sound, Flash player) - then I'd not complain.

The fact that Maemo5 will be dropped, and all updates will soon (probably) cease - six months, PR1.01, PR1.1, PR1.1.1 and now PR1.2 - is somewhat disappointing.

This is like Diablo all over again: 23-14, 30-2, 36-5, then 43-7... then silence. And the hacker editions of 2007 and 2008 on the 770 were downright slow.

Mer... never made it out of the gate. Mer^2, the state of that is... "it's coming". MeeGo for N900... same fate more than likely. Won't support the important bits, will be for enthusiasts that don't mind the closed bits not working and no way to get the modern bits of the OS.

Yet another "start, stop, restart" from Nokia on this one. I do hope that the future "hacker editions" are usable whereas the other ones were truly not.

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

End user here, I read this whole thread and ignored the others. Just to let you know there are exceptions to every rule. As an end user, I am waiting and seeing because I am not sure what it all really means. I am basically happy with the N900 and am loathe to support the more closed eco-systems out there (I also support cummunity based farming:)).

Fred

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

I have been reading some of the meego meeting irc logs that are online, although it still appears most discussion is still closed and takes place internally on #meego-arm, and it appears that although the meego team does have contacts inside Nokia to get some things, there is no telling how long that cooperation will last.

In one specific example, the battery management entity is attempting to be added to meego and is not behaving properly. Nokia provided BME does not provide any debug output whatsoever. A contact attempt will be made to nokia for at least a debug version if not source code. Maybe they got it, maybe not, we don't know.

This same dance is going to have to be carried out for every bit of closed driver-ness, which likely includes opengl, audio, BT, WLAN, and on and on.

The nokia cooperation is only going to last until the first meego hardware prototypes are available that use different drivers and there will be noone to go to anymore for n900 driver stuff.

I don't doubt that there will be a open meego + a bunch of closed blobs from nokia you can install on an n900, but I HIGHLY doubt it will be anything approaching a consumer device or Fremantle.

The meego team is just using the n900 for reference right now because that is all there is. it is not because of some kind of benevolence toward users or the n900 hardware. Once there is new hardware, I don't think we will see meego team trying to merge sh*t into meego kernel for n900 any longer, and even if they tried to, the intel people would likely shoot it down immediately. So, enjoy your n900 for the time being, but get ready to pony up for the next device.

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

[Delete my post please]

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

I think we need to be clear about what is being provided in the Meego Community edition for the N900.

So far from the various threads all we have is that Meego will run on the N900 through the community. Great, Linux boots.

As far as we are concerned NO thread thus far as of today has made any commitment to Meego UX components which means you can't make phone calls, browse the web, anything, no UI, nada.

What we do know will work on this Meego OS is likely QT, which means you can manually load QT based apps, but as of now NO commitment to any of the things we actually use.

Now, could that change? Of course. Could Nokia and 3rd party developers release community versions of the browser (with Flash), Skype and OVI maps? Sure. But what is being talked about right now in terms of MeeGo on the N900 does NOT include the Meego UX (I'm guessing user experience) so for most people this will be completely useless.

I don't want to be a naysayer but I want people to have the proper expectation. I think like me when many people heard MeeGo on N900 supported by the community they thought it meant an unsupported but FUNCTIONAL (besides QT) version of MeeGo. I don't think that is what is being committed to at this point.

I hope I am wrong.

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

What? Anyone can join #meego-arm on freenode, there's like 43 people there and we're only 14 or so in the team :) It is even publically logged, if you go to the channel to get the URL in topic. We do have contacts inside Nokia, because, well, we have team members from Nokia doing their part and sometimes reaching out to the people with the right knowledge is needed. Check out http://wiki.meego.com/ARM/N900/Meetings

Specifically it said we are going to make a debug version in the internal OBS. This is not the same as a 'contact attempt', it's one of the people with access to internal OBS making this change to a packaging flag.

No, the dance is just actually doing what's needed to be done. Most team members have the right access to get the job done and know who to contact.

I think you're being too paranoid and exaggerating things. Come spend a day with us in the IRC channel and watch our work. It is a new kind of work which you might not know too well - open development. If this was the old days, we wouldn't even be seeing an updated kernel on the N900. This is new times.

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

Not to scandalize or start a whole flame war but from the meeting logs and the "general" perception for me is that Intel is giving you (Nokia) a raw deal with this whole Meego thing. Like for example, not allowing your changes to be included upstream in the last minute (which is a good thing) while including their own changes without any issues. I don't even like to bring up the Deb vs RPM debate.

Now that Nokia does not "officially" support N900 Meego implementation, do you have enough pull with Intel to get things done?

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

Any first collaboration is hard between different work cultures and processes and in stressful situations things are bound to be tense. Intel did not include their own changes without issues, read further in the log - theirs got declined as well. We were a bit late to the party as we switched kernel version and this harmed us a bit.

After all this, I would have no difficulty sitting down and having a drink with the release guys. They're just doing their jobs and trying to find solutions.

Also, it isn't about Nokia vs Intel, we all sit somewhere in the MeeGo project. Once the project structure is published, things are clearer, process is visible etc.

Deb vs RPM I'm not going to start - I wrote debs before and I love rpms now. Without brainwashing ;)

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

I don't think i am being paranoid, just realistic. The n900 is not a meego target for NOKIA, period. It is enjoying some love from some members of meego team right now because the first hardware for a meego device *might* share a good bit with what the n900 has, but I doubt if the meego team even knows that or not, and the n900 is a good testing device for now for Nokia and 3rd party meego UX stuff.

I am not trying to belittle meego team work at all, it is a gargantuan task that requires a lot of sustained focus, but that work's function is NOT too provide a meego for n900, or is it? I think it is primarily to help nokia get stuff they need into a meego kernel going forward for NEW devices.

I wish you all the luck, but I see the n900 hardware adaptation effort as a hobby subteam of the general meego direction at best and will find the same problems and fate as Mer

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

Thanks Stskeeps.

I know you guys are working hard for the May release. Hope it will be successful and you guys get some well deserved break. Best of luck.

I hope Meego (Nokia and Intel) follow your (Meego-ARM team's) lead in being and working in the open.

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

Pretty sure those days are coming back, real soon.

Re: N900 community support for the future MeeGo based release from Nokia
 

hey folks.would we get flash ten with meego on our lovely n900?or is flash 10 definetly death for us and will never come?????