People who do not use cssu, why? First post updated 1.17
 

Original post:

I'm wondering why people dont install cssu, it is basically a bug fix for the maemo 5 os. Yes it does have additional features, none of which have to be used. It is what would have been PR 1.4 if Nokia was still supporting Maemo 5.

Are people still using PR 1.2 refusing to update to PR 1.3? I could understand if there wasn't a stable release, but that is not the case. On the same line of thought though users not running cssu seem to have no problem installing anything that pops up in extras devel.

I dont get it the devs working on cssu are some of the best on tmo yet I could make a package upload it extra devel, call it space optimizer which would be nothing more than a script that reformats MyDocs and I bet people would download it by the dozens.

So why arent you using cssu?


NOTES:

It seems that the general consensus is that cssu is just "portrait mode" and to that I want to say that it is not. You can read through the thread and come to your own conclusions.

If you do decide to try cssu it is highly recommended that you first install backup menu and do a complete backup of opt and root. This will enable you to restore your phone without reflashing.

Even if you already use or will never CSSU I highly recommend the use of backup menu.

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=63975


Answers to common questions:


What does CSSU actually change/fixed/updated?

Thanks to Copernicus we now have an expanded explanation of what was changed/fixed in modest (Maemo email client). PS click on his name for the wiki and hit the thanks button while your at it.

The change log is here.
http://wiki.maemo.org/Community_SSU/Changelog

The bug list is here with the corresponding bug reports.
http://wiki.maemo.org/Community_SSU/QA

Updates to QT (part of CSSU):
http://qt.gitorious.org/+qt-develope.../changes-4.7.4

http://labs.qt.nokia.com/2011/09/01/qt-4-7-4-released/

For a complete list of packages in CSSU also at the bottom of the page a verbose discussion with page links to what was actually changed:
http://gitorious.org/community-ssu


I dont like/care for portrait mode or the new camera

Portrait mode is disabled by default and when portrait mode is enabled there is the ability to blacklist any app that you do not want to rotate.

To revert to the stock camera

apt-get install --reinstall camera-ui=1.1.29.1+0m5


If you can contribute to the documentation of what CSSU is please post.

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

I simply don't have any reason to use it. I use my N900 nowadays mainly for Mer/Nemo hacking.

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

I think that it's mostly about portrait mode support. And I don't care about portrait mode.
I had it before it was "stable" and I didn't like all those rotations. Plus I didn't like new camera UI and I was/am quite fine with stock audio player. But then I had to take my phone to service and I didn't install it again. But I'm thinking about it.

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

same reason I have never installed CSSU before because I don't care about potrait mode also CSSU can raise manu problems with other applications as some people said

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

I think that this is one of the main reasons, thinking that it is just portrait mode support. It is an added feature which you dont have to use as well as the new camera which can easily be changed back to the original. The new media player is not intergrated in neither testing nor stable.

It has fixes to the OS as well as support for a newer version of qt, which is where this question I have stems from. There is a new version of cutetube qml in extras devel that users are having problems with because of lack of support for the new qt modules.

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

I didn't install stable flavour CSSU until a week ago.
I wasn't to bothered about the portrait mode. Was happy with DrLaunch.

Since I have installed the portrait is really useful and the UI is smoother.
I don't seem to need a reboot every week now, the OS fixes are really noticable.

I have had no trouble with any apps/widgets since installation
Pleased I installed now, can't wait for stable OMP.
Also a better portrait keyboard would be useful.

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

I've heard that it can conflict with some other apps. But I am going to try it out in the near future. Can the rotations be turned off? I always use it in landscape mode. Feels more natural to me.

EDIT: Is there a list somewhere about which apps/widgets give trouble with the CSSU?

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

fixes to the OS?
Like what?

I'd rather install separately anyway ;)
I don't need extra qt modules either.
I think keyboard phones should be locked to landscape :)

So, for me, apart from the OS fixes this is useless

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

Because my Emmc is broken xD

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

@ bingomion and The Wizard of Huz

I updated the first post to respond to your questions because I think a lot of people are actually unaware of the fixes

@ bingomion

The fixes that are included are bugs that can not be fixed by a standard download.

@ sixwheeledbeast I only use OMP I havent had any issues with it. I dont think it will be integrated with cssu because it can be easily installed through the standard app manager which isnt the case for the new camera UI

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

Rotation can be locked/unlocked easily with an extra app.
I used to always use landscape, but now there's an option I am using portrait more.

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

@Mike Fila
I know OMP will be separate. Just waiting for it to become stable.

I am sticking to extras for now, haven't the time to reflash from devel and testing stuff at the moment.

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

Some of the fixes make programs compiled on CSSU phone not work correctly on a 1.3 phone (see VFU thread, crawl is another example). Some of the fixes are nice (grey char in xterm), though I would prefer to install them separately. Also got a problem with camera while on vacation without a laptop for a reflash, so no pictures :(

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

does CSSU have a virtual potrait keyboard ?

that is what I hate when there is an application supports potrait but if I want to use virtual keyboard I have to rotate my mobile to type there

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

you dont need to reflash to get the old camera back.

apt-get install --reinstall camera-ui=1.1.29.1+0m5

@ tony power there is a portrait keyboard but it suck

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

In CSSU stable flavour it's the landscape keyboard squashed.
It not a patch on Operas virtual keyboard, but it has one.

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

It seems to me, that most people who aren't using CSSU (with few noteworthy exceptions) aren't just knowledgeable enough to know what it does (posts, claiming that CSSU main feature is portrait mode - LOL - or that cameraui2 can't be uninstaled), or are FUD believers (mystic "widget" incompatibility, WTF?).

Well, it's FOSS, so everyone is free to use whatever he/she want. Just don't cry, when something You would like to have require CSSU and developer isn't interested in releasing version compatible with non-CSSU devices. Or, Your bug report can't be confirmed, cause you use ancient QT or whatever. It's like requesting every developer to write for PR1.1.

CSSU is Maemo "upstream", no matter if someone like it or not. Of course, there is always "plausible deniability" available, so no one is forced to use anything ;)

/Estel

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

'Basically a bug fix'? The CSSU has been hailed as a wonderful way to get portrait-mode working, and enable plenty of other additional features. Rarely is it hailed as being "just a bug-fix".

So far as I can see, I need none of the additional features currently added by CSSU. Moreover, I haven't yet encountered any significant bugs in 1.3(.1), let alone seen anything in the CSSU changelog that demands my attention. So, from my perspective, I would be replacing a 1.3.1 Maemo that is working perfectly fine on my N900 with a newer version for no reason other than that it is a newer version.

Don't get me wrong, I'm quite happy to see talented folks working on the Maemo infrastructure. But, I just don't have a need (yet) for the product they've built.

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

Yes, I've been reading all these posts, about CSSU's main feature being portrait mode. In fact, if you look at the Wiki, that's what it says, too:

http://wiki.maemo.org/Community_SSU/Features

Lots and lots and lots of GUI improvements, including rotation and portrait mode improvements. In fact, that's pretty much all that the main page says:

http://wiki.maemo.org/Community_SSU

Beyond the bare assertion that the CSSU is the "continuation of Nokia's SSU", all that the wiki talks about (beyond how to install it) is the new pretty transitions, rotations, and portrait mode.

Honestly, we could do with a bit of instruction here, if the CSSU is actually not what it is being advertised to be...

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

Sorry, but if installing CSSU makes programs compiled on 1.3.1 or scratchbox not work and vice versa it hardly seems a bug-fix. Making backward incompatible fixes is a problem. I am not crying, found my own workarounds that don't break compatibility (mrxvt for grey-char in terminal for example). More problems arise when people compile programs on CSSU phones and get bug reports from non-CSSU users.

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

Rarely, at least until about 6 months ago. The push for portrait-mode was the early reason people flocked to CSSU, which is why I avoided it as well. But the past 6+ months has been more about stability and replacing flaky Nokia bits where possible. I updated about a month ago, and am very pleased with the results.

I can tell you, I had issues with PR1.2 and 1.3. In particular, wifi would drop out on occasion, the graphics chip would wander off and cause a kernel driver to spin on occasion, and the dsp driver would occasionally just not work, causing camera and video apps to not work right. Updating CSSU brought along upstream patches for all of those, and now they're rock solid.

Want to see something you'll never see with PR 1.2 or 1.3? Check out the picture below, which I snapped earlier today. Note the up time, 3 week of solid running, and it's still doing well. This is my primary phone, and I use it constantly throughout the day. Web surfing, audio playing, email checking, texting, calls, everything. And yes, I'm running CSSU, with K49, and moderate overclocking. :)

I get that some people don't want to update because they're happy with what they have. If that's the case, I say go with it. Better to have what you want then chance for more if you don't need it. I totally get that. But I do think, if you're having any issues at all, CSSU will likely fix a whole lot more than it breaks. To date, I haven't found anything that CSSU breaks, but I'm sure it breaks something somewhere, as that's the nature of change.

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

I agree. Most of what I know comes from the wiki. I don't have time to work through the CSSU thread. Maybe someone in the know should upgrade the wiki entry properly.

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

@woody Why would 1.3 never see that? 1.3.1/KP49 got 10d currently, constant use as main phone, no issues whatsoever

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

Then why are you even on PR 1.3? PR1.3 introduced problems that caused all kinds of issues for several apps. So much so that Extras was actually split off into a separate 1.3 variant!

Xploder, one of the few decent games from the OVI store stopped working when PR 1.2 was pushed, and again when PR1.3 was pushed. It was 2 weeks before they updated the app to handle the change the first time, and one week the second. There are still plenty of apps that stopped working in PR1.3 in Extras that are now just dead because nobody is maintaining them. (Hangman is a great example of this.)

So even the precious PR releases cause things to break. That's the nature of change and fixing things. You can only keep supporting busted behavior for so long before it breaks everything else.

And really, do you expect an app made explicitly for PR1.3 to work on PR1.1 or PR1.2? They often don't. Why then would an app made specifically with CSSU settings be expected to work on a non-CSSU environment? It shouldn't. The fact that some actually do is somewhat astonishing.

There's a price to pay when you're still using Windows98 in 2012. If you're happy with what you have, that's great. But don't complain that people aren't supporting your decision to stay behind.

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

It seems like CSSU has an upgraded Modest (email client). I'm interested in that, and plan to try CSSU as soon as I get a chance.

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

Cool! Any chance the wiki will be updated with details about this?

I will admit, my 1.3 Maemo did begin acting flaky after about two and a half months of uptime. I've since started the practice of rebooting my phone about once a month since then. If there's a good explanation somewhere about how the CSSU improves uptime, that might be of interest to me...

And, yeah, if we could be a little more specific than "fix more than it breaks", I'd feel a little better about handing my phone over to it. I certainly like the idea of bug fixes, and if the CSSU actually fixes bugs, it'd be nice to have a description somewhere about exactly what bugs it fixes, and why I need those bugs fixed. :)

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

I come here alot. Had an N900 since released. Just got an N9. I never really knew what CSSU was, though I saw it often. I assumed it was a branch of Maemo for those who live in the terminal. Which is not me.

Besides--if you don't see how different it is to use a program under testing versus an entire OS, well...

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

@ Copernicus features does not mean fixes they are 2 different things!

@ Copernicus and szopin The fixes are to x-11 ie qt 4.7.4 which includes opengl support this is where problems occur when developing in the newer version of QT which PR 1.3 does not support

for a long list of those bug fixes and upgrade see

http://qt.gitorious.org/+qt-develope.../changes-4.7.4
http://labs.qt.nokia.com/2011/09/01/qt-4-7-4-released/

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

I'm not saying it can't. I'm saying mine never did until updating to CSSU an K49. To be fair, I updated both around the same time, from Titans last release with PR1.3. I would have an sgx failure, or the dsp would stop responding, or some other such thing would happen that required a reboot. Or, it would just spontaneously reboot after about a week. (Usually while trying to take a picture or play a video.)

I'd be willing to bet that most people runing PR1.X without CSSU have problems achieving more than 7 days of uptime without needing to reboot. Again, being fair, lots of the upstream fixes for drivers are coming from K49. It's just that CSSU kind of "pushes" you to use at least K46, which for most people will fix a lot of stuff. Most people still on PR1.3 are also probably on an older kernel, be that Titan or the stock Nokia kernel.

I can tell you the GUI improvements in CSSU are really nice. I only use landscape mode, so I'm not talking about portrait stuff. The speed, ability to nuke "transitions", the fact that one rouge widget doesn't kill the desktop. And that if the desktop does die (or you kill it), it recovers gracefully, and re-connects to everything in the right way. It also no longer grows in memory size every day, like the old one did.

Just a few perks of having the new stuff. Again, if it's not something you want, I'm good with that. But it's where things are heading. I don't think Nokia is going to push a PR1.4 ever. Even seeing a PR1.3.2 is probably out, even if another major signer goes rouge. Just a matter of time...

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

Mostly using terminal programs and haven't experienced any problems between 1.2/1.3/1.3.1, but if you say so.
Somehow CSSU guys did work on fixing modest crashes and other problems reported all the time. I consider xterm 'fix' that makes programs compiled on CSSU phone not work without it a backward incompatibility bug that is a showstopper for me. Do you expect all maintainers to fork their programs (CSSU-stable/CSSU-testing/non-CSSU variants?). Then again you could hunt down all the fixes in bugtracker and apply all that you want/need (like the enter not working in Midnight Commander patch which is the cause of the incompatibility btw, as behaviour is exactly the same as after installing CSSU).
Also, not M$ fanboy but Win98 programs work quite well in XP/Vista/W7

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

Oh, I agree! And I'm still waiting for a "fixes" page to go along with the "features" page on the wiki. The bare changelog just doesn't give me much to go on.

Sounds interesting. So, there's some disconnect between opengl and qt on Maemo 1.3, then? (The links provided don't seem to mention opengl at all...)

I've been playing around with Qt on Maemo for a few months now, works pretty well for me so far. The bug fixes mentioned on the 4.7.4 changes page would be nice to have, but they don't look earth-shattering. I don't see why I can't live without them...

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

Not a problem on my machine. I have seen problems after 60 or more days of uptime, though, so there must be some parts of PR1.X that could use fixing. (That is, assuming it wasn't something I did to the machine myself.)

Now, this is something interesting! Can you provide any documentation about this fix? Where was the memory leak? What was done to fix it? Can we put this somewhere in the CSSU wiki?

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

I can tell you that's probably a very very rare experience. Either you're not using it at all, or you've tweaked the crap out if it. Most stock PR1.3 users don't see uptimes beyond a week. The forum is chock-full of people siting just that.

No, I can't. I can tell you that on my PR1.3 system, hildon-desktop and/or hildon-home would increase in size over time. Short of killing them, and re-starting, they would not get smaller. I no longer have that issue with CSSU, and have changed nothing desktop wise in that time frame.

If I could have provided a line/diff/offset to show where it was leaking, it wouldn't have been, because I would have fixed it. Though I'm sure if you look at the CSSU source garage and searched for "leak" you'd find plenty of check-ins matching.

I'm not here to help you justify loading CSSU on your device. That's your decision. I'm just here to tell you, it's not all about portrait mode and flashy transitions. Want to see what was changed? Read the change log that's been linked to by at least 3 posts now (including edits to the top post). I'm off to enjoy my N900, with CSSU installed. :)

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

It is also full of people who install speed patches, battery patches and other improvements, so it is not a good measure. Pretty sure long-uptime stability is introduced by KP as I am another very rare example of uptimes of around a month with no issues.

Re: People who do not use cssu, why? I dont care if you use it or not! First post updated
 

Btw, the cause of backward incompatibility was introduced in the first leet version of CSSU:
http://wiki.maemo.org/Community_SSU/...g#PR_1.3.3.7-1

The whole patch for bug 6009 is one line change:
- {GDK_KP_Enter, _vte_keymap_GDK_KP_Enter},
+ {GDK_KP_Enter, _vte_keymap_GDK_Return},

In keymap.c file of vte, not a new upstream version, just remapping that causes, very rarely, issues. Not sure if there isn't another workaround, but remapping and pushing it to a release (of a non-removable os update) after 20 days of testing definitely wouldn't catch all possible problems with repos full of programs (Jan 2011).
Bugfixes like this should cause now every maintainer to push two versions (or three with stable version out now) of their progs? All the hundreds of maintainers should now come back and recompile? If this would update libvte I would probably consider it an option (4 vs 9, sure why not), but as a quick fix that introduces incompatibility, sorry but no

Re: People who do not use cssu, why? I dont care if you use it or not! First post updated
 

I did tried the stable cssu and didn't see anything different and then I tried the testing cssu i noticed the portrait mode and camera ui changes, portrait mode was a nice but most app was just opened in landscape mode, which made the portrait mode kinda silly and the cssu did break the sketch app on my device. In the end I decided to reflash the device and just installed kernel power and few other necessary apps, and unstalled most of the pre-installed games and widgets that i don't need. I've using n900 for 2yrs and my device have never shutdown on its own. The longest uptime i remember that I had was about six months and all others was just me rebooting the phone after messing with the system.

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

Ok, then, I guess I'm a rarity. As you might guess, I don't really tweak much; never felt the need. Perhaps I do use my phone more "gently" than others here, but I do use it every single day, browsing the web, listening to podcasts, editing files in Vim. But yeah, I don't see a lot of problems with stock PR1.3.

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

Here I agree 100% - I'm not sure if current description brings always "desired" audience to the project... Yet, it's really a *minor* (minorish minor) issue, and if CSSU would have only such problems, I would be happy penguin.

Also, woody14619 provided some nice links with detailed changelogs. + I totally agree with his rationale about compatibility - sorry szopin, but I remember crawling through pages and pages of discussions, about how PR1.3 resulted in some package being incompatible.

You ask, if maintainers should fork their applications? IMO no, they should write it to work well on latest upstream version (being CSSU Stable now), which 99% of the times meant working well on experimental (CSSU-testing). If it also works nice on PR1.31, PR1.3, PR1.2, PR1.1 and so goes on, it's great. If not, it's generally problem of user refusing to upgrade - after all, it's FOSS, and you don't need to pay for new version...

Of course, if maintainer want to fork program for different (C)SSU's - that's great. As it was stated, it happened many times, when PR1.3 was young. If not maintainer, but someone else want to backport things to older (C)SSU's, that's also great. But, it isn't required.

/Estel

Re: People who do not use cssu, why? I dont care if you use it or not! First post updated
 

Havnt updated simply cause my phone works.

If I could be sure that the various fiunctions I use work in CSSU then I would update.

rather than mess aorund making them work, easier to stick with a functioning system.

Since I can easily program any function I need that does not exist, I am happy to work with what I have.

Hats off to the community and I fully support the efforts to update CSSU.

rgds

Re: People who do not use cssu, why?
 

That is also the problem. Main focus on portrait mode is visible through whole this thread. Biggest feature advertised it would seem. Patches introduced incompatiblity in a _must have_ app - xterm a year ago, yet everyone was testing how the screen rotates. I would be a happy penguin if CSSU was just bringing latest upstream versions and properly tested fixes.

That's not great at all. Latest 'supported' (for whatever it's worth) upstream version of maemo OS is 1.3.1, not leet version. Decisions about keymapping was made probably too long ago to make everyone happy (N810 had similar issues and the patch didn't make it upstream at that time, which would have probably prevented problems currently), but xterm incompatibility 'fix' that claims to:
The fix makes sure the key works as expected under any X Terminal application.
clearly does not do so.
End users refusing to update? You have been on this forum enough to know how easy it is to contact maintainers of apps from a year ago to rebuild/update. Sad, but every backwards incompatible 'fix' is a mess