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Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
Hello community
I would like to start off by saying how amazing the community is and how I enjoy being a part of such a collection of like minded people. After a great deal of research I made the discussion to buy the N900. I love this phone to death and wish it would be this amazing for ever. Unfortunately I don't believe this phone will last more than another two years at most considering I bought it three years after its release in 2010. It will become outdated. Because of the nokia maemo break I suspect that nokia's new executive rule Microsoft will not be producing more opensorce devices as we saw with the N950. What, if any would the next maemo device be? The soul purpose of this thread is to brain storm ideas for a UMPC(ultra mobil personal computer). What I want to accomplish is a list of features that people in the community would want to see in a new devise. If we get enough support the idea will be pitched to Kickstarter for funding. Any ideas are welcome no matter how outlandish. I think this could be a real chance for the community to come together and make real things happen. Overview of ideas needed: A. What type of hardware do we want? -Screen size? -Processor? - HD space? - Key board? - Wireless chipset? - Blue tooth - ect... B. Software base - Continue with current maemo? - Completely new Linux type distro. - What does the community want? I am sure that's not all but I think its enough of a start. So i hope to hear the best of what the community has to say. |
Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
Oddly, with a lot of the design decisions of Gnome-Shell, it is very similar to Maemo 5 (as opposed to the more dumbed down 'phoneOS' that Harmattan Maemo 6 is (don't get me wrong, I love my N9, but I loved the setup of Maemo 5 better)).
So my thoughts would be to get a very small N900 or N950 style form factor and just put full blown Debian Wheezy on it, with perhaps Gnome 3.8 (it seems to have most (if not all) of the 'Gnome' applications updated to match with the new style of having the main menu next to the Activities button. For anyone who hasn't used Gnome-Shell, but has used the N900, I highly recommend it. If I could get my N900 working with Gnome-Shell and pure Debian Wheezy, i'd be a dream come true! slaapliedje |
Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
A Kickstarter-funded device? GL;HF with hardware support when it breaks, successor devices, etc.
I'd much rather prefer ARM platform manufacturers develop PC-style generic Linux support for their platforms. Android is garbage, and I would much rather have a desktop GNU/Linux system (Ubuntu+Unity?) than deal with it. |
Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
A Kickstarter-funded device?
http://www.kickstarter.com/ Yea there is a website that will fund a project if enough people donate the startup capitol. I am sure the community could source together some good hardware. Just look at what raspberry pi is doing. |
Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
I too would enjoy seeing those features. I just feels like cell phone companies are just dicking people out of what is really efficient or something. I think some type of phone/PC hybrid would be the best. the OQO model 3 is one of the coolest pices of tech i have ever seen. I think a design with a better ARM processor would be just fine and more cost effective.
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Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
Nobody has the courage to speak out here on the topic.
Its not gonna happen.....we have the soft but not the hardware. Btw just a device with min 800mhz mtk or omap 3mp with autofocus 400mhz gpu 3 to 4 inches screen with min 160dpi pressure sensitive stylus usb with otg b/g/n extras like infrared bluetooth gps acclerometer compass etc should the device run on our will not we run on its will:) oh a microwave oven must ! Thats all:) |
Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
what do you think jolla is?
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Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
^Not maemo, thats for sure. Though sailfish OS could still be most intresting up to date linux base gnu like distro for mobile phones when it comes out (not sure). Theyre taking too much time though.
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Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
It's certainly possible, but not easy. See the Pandora project for evidence of that.
You would also need a hardware designer or two, software guys to write whatever drivers, and other things you might need to get maemo running on your new hardware. And then the hardware would be 2 to 3 times more expensive (at least) than any mainstream phones/tablets. |
Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
I have a couple of thoughts. First, to say that, so far, without new hardware (using our old N900), the efforts of the community, leveraging the power of open source, have staved off what for most smartphones is an inevitable 2 year decline built into the product cycle pushed by the big companies. The N900 lives on!
Can the N900 live on forever? Devices get old, and new software more demanding. Actually, I think the point about the software is not too pressing, due to the fact that the N900 is an open platform. However, the actual N900 devices won't last forever. Would a successor be welcome? Yes! Are you kidding me? If it inherited all the good attributes of the N900 / Maemo platform. Can a grassroot effort do this? Geez... I suppose it's possible, but I just don't see it happening. There are a lot of hurdles in the way. Look at the Pandora, and how long it took to take off the ground. A much better, much simpler and faster solution is a simple algorithm which I have devised: 1. Fire Elop. 2. Hire somebody with 2 brain cells whose allegiance doesn't lie away from Nokia, and who can understand that the true capital of a company like Nokia is innovation and the people whose minds made great things happen. 3. Re-build the Software Development Group. 4. Resurrect Maemo and bring out a true successor to the N900 (How does the N1X sound? ;) ) Seriously, people. a successor to the N900 would be profitable for Nokia, and it would bring back some of the prestige that they lost by becoming Microsoft's beotch. In any case, if we can only implement Step 1. of my algorithm, we would be all the better for it. :) |
Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
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Of course, you could always go out and by a mozilla device if HTML5 is your thing. Or better still, wait a bit longer and jump on the increasingly closed off, closed source, non upstream supporting fork monster that ubuntu is becoming...... |
Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
Wait for jolla, or ubuntu phones... Maybe look at the new SG see if it can boot linux?
Maemo came and went.. And its now lingering in the afterlife... Waiting |
Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
I would prefer for Hildon Foundation to buy N900 production license and documentation from Nokia - even if they insist that it should be produced under a drastically different name - and ask a Chinese or Korean or Taiwanese manufacturer to build devices based on these blueprints. The worst factor is that any of the hardware needed - camera, processor-CPU, memory-RAM, touchscreen - may be already unavailable from the original supplier - like, Texas Instruments. If the software for the hardware is open-source, then re-compilation for a different hardware will do. If the software for the hardware is closed-source, then reverse engineering of the software is urgently needed. The devices would be produced with CSSU-stable installed on them, by default, including Nokia's closed source binaries when necessary, since Nokia has given re-distribution rights to Hildon Foundation.
Best wishes. _________________ Per aspera ad astra... |
Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
Rather than running with Nokia's version which is based on a hacked together fork of GTK as well as all the proprietary drivers, along with my own dislike of re-inventing the wheel, Cordia Project has already done a mountain of work and only really stalled when it came to hardware for a tablet.
this, from memory, is running Mer (see what I did there) as it's OS core and had also managed to port gtk3 across, with hildon UI sitting on top. there are builds for n900 and resolution independant i586 builds available HERE |
Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
@onethreealpha
What's the n900 folder there?, did they port their own maemo to arm? I imagine, if so, then the closed stuff like the phone wouldn't work right? Edit: just checked there site, yip that's the case. Shame, they just couldn't get a batch of cheap Chinese tablets and make a build for it and sell them. I not sure if the sw would be compatible with freemantel? |
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The original builds were based on the Meego Hardware adaptation for N900 with Hildon UI on top. This included an arm build of Meego CE for handsets with the closed (non-oss) binary drivers as provided by Nokia during the MeeGo project - Repo for Meego CE is still available, inlcuding the non-oss components for N900 and N9. there are complete packaged images for the n900 available @ repo.meego.com N900 builds can be found HERE if you're interested. smoku's work, from memory, centred around getting Hildon Ui running on top of MeeGo, and then Mer with changes to enable the use of gtk3 in it's upstream form, so as to allow for package upgrades that were not supported with the nokia fork. He can give you much more info than I could. |
Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
Well all great thoughts but still not enought support to get this project off the ground. I personaly dont have a time limit as to when this project should be done. What i would like is atleast 5 people that really want this to work. I also need a list of all the phones that can packet inject, if any one has that information.
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Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
If anyone would like to take this as far as possible plz e mail me at thelen_10@hotmail.com
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Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
How many do you have to sell to make a project like this sustainable?
How many do you have to sell to get a proper cpu (not necessarily the latest and greatest) for a decent price? Those are the most important questions. Then probable you have to buy display in sizes which are not much used by the big players, because they tend to hog the supply chain. |
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Is it Arm or x86? what is the hardware design? who doing the CAD and electrical schematics for the mainboard and SoC stack? Who's doing the hardware adaptation for whatever product you want to put Maemo on? If you're getting drivers from the h/w vendor, will they guarantee support and updates (since it's now out of your hands?) and at what cost? Or will they drop any and/or all support when THEY move to another SoC/chipset/GPU... Who's going to work on and bugfix all the forked stuff that can't easily be replaced without major re-working of the OS? who's going to do the UI adaptation for the screen resolution? who providing the updates for coreOS. who's going to set up and host the repo/ who's going to maintain, log and fix bugs? who's going to get existing apps modified to run on the new screen resolution? What IDE are you going to use for dev work? Who will provide software builds for emulation? shall I go on? ...better off waiting for Vivaldi tab and then work to replace plasma active with Hildon |
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Most of those things can be done buy many people. But very few companies are willing to sell you a good cpu if you don't buy large enough. And how much longer is the wait for the Vivaldi? |
Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
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I'm not trying to rain on your parade, but a little bit of pragamtic realism is required when talking about building a device from scratch, based on someone else's UX. Blowing off my comments by suggesting "Most of those things can be done buy many people" fails to identify just who, and how much work is involved and thus takes us back to square one. As for how long the wait is for Vivaldi, I don't know, but I can say it'll be here a lot sooner that any device being talked about on this thread, and it'll have (has) proper hardware drivers. Of course if you don't want to wait, you could try the pengpod. |
Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
On desktop pc's and to a lesser extent it is possible to buy all the parts, body,cpu, motherboard etc end then build your own device and then put on OS on it of your own choosing (within certain limits).
Is something like that not possible for mobile devices? And what if you base it on a x86 cpu instead of a ARM? I am not saying it is easy or even possible. Just want to know. Maybe use soemthing like a Raspberry pi type device? |
Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
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1. you have to have BIG volumes to get the chips. 2. No ARM embedded GFX driver is open, many only is Android GFX drivers. The closest ARM CPU you get today to play with is beaglebone black: http://beagleboard.org/Products/BeagleBone Black |
Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
1. Buy nexus 7
2. Compile hildon-desktop for ubuntu-nexus7 (real one, not touch) or mer. 3. recompile the apps from extras you want for ubuntu or mer 4. Profit. |
Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
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This makes it virtually impossible to buy individual components without economy of scale via a proven manufacturing capability. Large CPU manufacturers that use Arm technology, for example, place very stringent demands on manufacturers to reveal technical and design information about the sort of products they will be putting their hardware into (to ensure quality and performance and brand consistency). This is part of the reason why so few "quality" open source tablet type devices have been made/sold without being to a "preordained/determined" spec as set by the manufacturer. If you've followed the scene, you will find that most people who want to design/develop an open source device, start out with a high spec concept and then end up with whatever low-mid spec system they were able to actually get their software working on. I genuinely believe that building on an existing base is the best way to go. the Iconia w500 can run Mer and thus technically there is no issue with running Hildon UI on top of it (or any UI for that matter. With Vivaldi so close to market, why go through all the heartache (and delays) that they have, just to create a parallel piece of hardware, when others have done it for you? |
Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
So would it be possible with a x86 based chip?
Something like the Mbook http://www.umpcportal.com/wp-content.../umidhands.jpg or Viliv N5? http://www.dynamism.com/images/gallery/viliv-n5_02.jpg |
Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
Haven't really read the whole thread (sorry 'bout that, but I've been forum whoring all day! I swear this is the last one...), but I thought I'd throw in against all the naysayers. Look at the Amiga community. There are seriously people in that community that make all kinds of random hardware bits. Several make Playstation 1/2 controller adapters that plug into the Amiga. There is a single guy who runs Individual Computers that makes everything from CPU 'accelerator' boards to 'flicker fixers' (anyone who knows anything about the Amiga and even some older computers knows that they use old display technology that isn't exactly friendly with most modern screens).
And yes, there are even the makers of the Minimig, which is an FPGA based Amiga 500. So they would be a good group to look at when seeing what some people can accomplish as far as providing hardware or contacts of people to get a hold of for manufacturing actual product. In fact, a couple of guys have recreated the PCB for the Amiga 1000 and have a parts list so you can build a replacement motherboard! If there were indeed a kickstarter, money talks as the saying goes. My only thing at this point really is; Why Maemo? To me the most awesome thing about it was that it was Debian based, and worked well on a small touch screen. What we need is Hildon ported to GTK3, and... oh wait, that's practically Gnome-Shell! It was inspired by Maemo after all. Let's just get a tablet device that runs Gnome-Shell, improve the few things it's lacking (get a proper gtk port of Maliit) and whip up a Debian Wheezy based setup. Though I think we'd want the base, but Gnome 3.8 (there are a lot of improvements since 3.4, which is what Wheezy has). Then just polish up Debian (really easy to do) get GTK3 to be more touch friendly (multitouch, etc) and we'd be set. Then we'd have a real competitor to Ubuntu, which I hate :D slaapliedje |
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Couldn't agree with you more! |
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Shame they are 3+ years old |
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