Preinstalled operating system
 

Since this message became the first post in new thread, I'll make a short list of possible options.

• Debian with Board Support Package
• Replicant
• QtMoko
• SHR

Maemo Fremantle is not an option, since it can bring unwanted licensing issues with Nokia.

My personal opinion is to use Replicant as preinstalled system, as we can grab more attention from internet media as first Replicant preinstalled device.

Original Message:
We can also get more attention as first Replicant device, if neo900 will get it out of box(iirc dos1 suggested that on irc).

Re: Change in Organization, for a better project
 

By default with replicant ??good idea as the shipping os but maemo might get a setback though

Re: Change in Organization, for a better project
 

I did say make a tv commercial :D

Re: Change in Organization, for a better project
 

Sorry, maybe that's caused by 3 almost sleepless nights, but I think I don't understand :(

Isn't the original GTA04 capable of running Replicant? Well, TO BE HONEST, Neo900 is still a GTA04 variant, so... why not ;) Or maybe - first Replicant device with keyboard (/infrared/whatever else can be added to call it the first one)? Either way, I think I'm going off topic, I'm just going to shut up now (of course I will reply if anyone replies to my posts and I'll feel that I should reply).

Preinstalled operating system
 

misiak and nokiabot both are dead on the money...release the inner shameless advertising beast !
Do it right and it will look awesome....otherwise do it very very very badly so it is still awesome in a clever satire aimed at appealing to the intelligence in people.
Frankly it is simply a matter of looking at the sitch. from a different angle...
Spindoctor misiak :D ...ain't glossin it. There is truth in what he's saying.
Saying it like...Things aren't working in their current way...blablalah...doesn't inspire my blood...
Alllll in the Approach.....This is a better method than a full refund...This is better to have one parent body...This is better for transparency...This is better showing off all the cool crap like replicant and sending/receiving calls and stuff...The Visuals realllly help...worked for me :D.

Only thing left to the banner advertising idea is two hot bikini babes...one holding a beer and food and the other coffee and ice cream...food and sex in advertising go surprisingly well together.

Nokiabot and misiak got my vote.

Re: Change in Organization, for a better project
 

I didn't see it before...It took you saying it...and it hit me..

Considering Replicant appears to work fine on the gta04 board and the neo900 board is a variant of the gta04 board so Replicant should work too.

I don't think maemo would be set back by default replicant preinstalled any more than debian preinstalled...Everyone in the community who is rooting for the neo900 release is aware and waiting for the release of "free-mantle" as the important step toward integration of machine and os....and that may be post neo900 1st run device deployment....

BUT! There is a HUGE advantage to be made at this time.

Just my suggestion here....butttttt....
DON'T release the device with Debian pre-installed (if not possible...then at least NOT JUST debian)

Flog the advertising of the neo900 coming preinstalled with Replicant...

The number of potential buyers will only shoot upward...it is simply the numbers.

Appealing initially only to people who understand debian...and those who know maemo makes for a small minority of the potential sales which could be achieved.

The average...(or above average...even exceptional) consumer...who is interested or curious in trying something different hardware wise will take a chance ...
but os - wise will probably not if the unfamiliar hardware comes with unfamiliar os install instructions ....
AND an os they are unfamiliar with (debian or even free-mantle maemo oriented..if it ever came preinstalled..or even with goof-proof instructions) .

For most consumers it's about familiarity...ease of use...and simplicity.

When people shop for a smartphone...they buy it ...turn it on...and use it....immediately...they don't normally have to install ....or even think about an os instruction booklet...they just hit the power button.

I think offering the debian operating system preinstalled will not be a lure for the buyer who wants to change brand loyalty to us...nor the noob we could have sold to. New buyers...New blood...new learning curve for alot of people...making it easier for them would certainly help. ....Them and Us.


The number of Android users is HUGE!
And Replicant is something they can easily UNDERSTAND and KNOW!!!
The additional options of alternate os's (debian, arch, free-mantle, etc...) is just icing on the cake :D ...A great way of introducing new people to the os's we love...eeeeaaaaseee them into it.

It is only a win.

Android has been tearing away marketshare from Windowsphones and BB's and Iphone for YEARS.
Now HERE is a HUGE opportunity to tear away some of Android's marketshare.

It's only a win.

Re: Change in Organization, for a better project
 

We haven't decided on the preinstalled OS. The original idea was to just provide a hardware and to let user decide and maintain the software on his own, just like on PC, but if it turns out that there is already some nicely working image available when Neo900 goes into production then we may consider preinstalling it. Maybe even letting user decide which OS should be preinstalled?

We didn't put much thought into this yet TBH.

Re: Change in Organization, for a better project
 

THAT was a darn good reason! :D

Heyyy... idea of potential option of buyers flavour of os preinstalled is a nice one...! I think putting disclaimer..(esp. considering anyone can flash and erase the preinstalled os) that though you (the makers of the neo ..) can offer the os...BUT maintaining the os or changing it is completely the buyers responsibility and your liability begins and ends right there.
I'm sure whatever the os is...considering it will be a flashable device (naturally)...such disclaimers will be in bold type. ...ALLL over the box and wrapping :D...

Better having potential options than the device blank or with only 1 os option ...
esp. debian
don't get me wrong here...I love debian...
it's great...personally I use it all the time...I just think it may be too highbrow for the noob...nor smartphone consumer-ready friendly...for those buyers who just want it to start up and run it out of the box....you know...person on the go...busy busy.....2 1/2 kids,wife,job,golf,jetski,boat in the garage and RV in the driveway....just wants to turn on the new toy kinda-buyer...(the ones with the money ...that want this cool stuff and don't think twice about the amount.....they just don't "got" (code for "make" :D) the time..... :D

Btw dos1 ....more wicked neo-vids with good tunes man!
...I'm hooked
....my visual cortex is hungry :D

Re: Change in Organization, for a better project
 

Please leave the device blank - or base kernel/CLI interface.

I would like an empty device (or power on to a prompt - Would love that actually!) and just have a link to all the OS's currently available (at that time).

Re: Change in Organization, for a better project
 

That's a good idea!...the power on to prompt and viable os links...
Myself...depending on os availability and functionality...
If there are choices...
I'm going to be like a kid in a candy store. :D
I'm gonna have a hard time choosing.

Boy.....THAT does sound nice to my ears...
the words ..."...having a choice...". :)

Re: Change in Organization, for a better project
 

I have a solution for you - take a big SD card, divide it into partitions, put one distro to each of them and... move the hard decision to a moment when bootloader asks you which distro to boot ;)

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

Sounds like my old N900 back in its day! I had around 6 different OS's (including Maemo) at one stage!! Good old days!

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

So it feels like people are indiffrent with their default choices btw replicant is making quite a buzz already :) so i did like to say editing the neo900 site with nice eyecatchy slides/banners citing diffrent operating system can be used normally giving a peek of what else is available and other unique capablity features specially why one should get one . Maybe throw in some useless acessories stikers would make some sence.:) Overall a bit shiny and imformative page apart from what we have there would not hurt.

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

Can the selected processer handle kde ?

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

The N900 itself was able to run KDE. (Video here.) So I don't see any reason why the Neo900 wouldn't be able to.

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

Humm kde is kinda like a beast i am liking it more everyday butt it craps down slower hardware if you bash it with many programs at once..

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

I ran KDE(2) on my Toughbook CF-27 Mk3 with 128MB RAM and a Mobile Pentium II 333. OK, it took 2..3 minutes for OpenOffice to start up, but it worked.
I think on a ARM Cortex-A8 1GHz CPU with 1GB RAM KDE should just run great

/j

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

What about GNU/Hurd or Debian_GNU/Hurd?
Giving 'customer' choice of pre-installed Operating System would be... interesting.
Best wishes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Per aspera ad astra...

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

All this talk about the freedom of choice and all that jazz is nice and groovy but really - will the Neo come with a pre-installed OS of any sort? The last thing I want is to spend €700 for an unusable device, whether in the name of "freedom of choice" or not.

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

Does it mean Neo900 will never run (Neo)Fremantle? I wouldn't imagine using the stylus for everything I do (remember Easy Debian)

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

Try again with KDE4! :p
OO has "evolved" too in the meantime.

I still have a similar machine under my desk (AMD K6-2 450MHz, 320MB RAM) and anything beyond a slim Xfce desktop is unuseable. Zenwalk (Xfce) was slow 5 years ago, Slax (KDE3) wasn't even done starting the desktop after 10 minutes.
I'm running a minimal Debian with a minimal LXDE on it which is ok if you're patient, nothing more, nothing less. For office I use Abiword/Gnumeric.

I'd say Easy Debian on my N900 (CSSU stable, 850MHz) has about 1.5 to 2 times the perfomance of this ancient PC.

There's still SHR [1] which dos1 promised to get running on the Neo900. I think it's realistic since it's already running on the N900 [2] (with some constraints).

After having had a look at the SHR UI and some tests with Bodhi I think Debian with the Enlightenment desktop should be quite useable on the Neo900.
My biggest concerns at the moment are the kernel (in terms of power consumtion - my hopes are on freemangordon here), the stability of Enlightenment and the SHR software on Debian and finding suitable end-user software for the tiny screen.


[1] http://www.shr-project.org/trac
[2] http://www.shr-project.org/trac/wiki/Devices/NokiaN900

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

Oh my ...looking back ... my n8x0's ..there were a few o.s.'s that ran well...alot that almost ran well ...many that needed serious work ...and many that didn't/ couldn't run ...
Comparatively ...as a consequence ...
considering the specs hardware-wise...
and the fact it won't be as closed a system as our Nxx0's...
I have great faith in alt o.s.'s running on the neo.
Scads of choice for working alternatives.

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

What's the blocker for Maemo on Neo900? The drivers? The closed apps? Maybe a stripped-down version could be created to possibly download the closed content directly from Nokia repos on one's own risk?

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

+1 to that...
I'm kinda curious myself as to the deets concerning those questions..

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

I could be completely off the mark but the biggest problem as I see it is the effed-up spagetti mess of dependencies that makes it impossible to separate the Nokia binary blobs from the open-source ones. I asked a number of times to sort out the dependencies and detangle the mess and was always told that it was impossible due to the lack of manpower. That makes me wonder if there is going to be any preinstalled OS at all or if we are going to be left to sort it out on our own.

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

+1 that...
.Hmm...ya.... the question of the the blob nightmare seems to be the prevalent issue whenever this question is asked.

I get the feeling it would be easier to build from scratch than trying to untangle Nokia's insane "Gordian Knot"...

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

We have the Jessie image ;) It might be the right direction.

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

+1 to Jessie.
I have more faith in the neo running such alt. os's ...
Arch should also be promising...amoungst others...

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

I don't think there will be a problem with preinstalling any legal to redistribute and at least semi usable image that you may choose.

We will probably have some Debian BSP image for testing anyway, and what I said earlier about SHR still holds, so I'm fairly certain that there will be at least those two options available.

If by the time we flash the devices at factory there will be other options already available (for instance, if someone would already port something like Firefox OS using the early prototypes) then I don't see the reason to not offer such image as a preinstall option as well.

But keep in mind that we're not doing any support for the software, so there's no difference between preinstalling some image by us and doing it by yourself as a first thing after receiving the device.

We will however monitor the state of available software and do our best to help where possible - after all, even the greatest hardware platform is worth nothing without any reasonable software running on it - and this is something that was clearly visible back in Openmoko days. That's one of the reasons why we insist so much on N900 compatibility in hw - this way we can benefit from work done for N900, while otherwise we would need much bigger user base in order to even hope about decent software support from community.

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

the idea is to allow user to install his maemo fremantle system image he owns from his N900, and then install adaption bits over it which replace parts that are not compatible with Neo900, e.g. for the AT interface of modem which relaces the ISI gibberish on BB5 modem of N900.
This obviously is incompatible with "shipping a preinstalled OS with device" - all we can ship with the device for maemo is maybe a script that does the job on user's behalf. We must not ship Nokia (C) blobs, it's up to user to install them to Neo900 after getting them from any legal source ;-)

cheers
jOERG (back from holidays)

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

That of course only applies to Maemo, fully free systems like Debian or SHR don't have this problem and can safely be preinstalled on your device if you wish so :)

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

Makes sense.
It should be much easier without the double-whammy of the built in impediments and barricades in either the n900 hardware or the fremantle platform. And yeah without such handcuffs it should be able to do whatever the openmoko's can do....Yea...I love fremantle...but ....there are alot of distros I want to play with on my neo once it's in my hands...
Hehe...I know I for 1 wouldn't mind seeing proper Mer having a shot at the neo...bet it would do better and go further than on any other device it was tried on...(Not that I'm trying to necro a ghost...but I loved it on my n8x0's :D)

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

We even pondered to offer uSD with free OS for Neo900 on them. So you could swap uSD and voila: new OS. Like with every decent proud live OS, there may be an "app" that installs the OS to the Neo900 internal storage. Even multiple OS on one uSD are entirely possible. However our "primary OS" that we actually ship with the device, on internal storage, will most likely be the BSP package that we also use and that also allows you to do the factory tests to verify all subsystems and peripherals of Neo900 to be functional. A OS installer/selector should probably be part of this genuine OS, so users can chose/config which OS to boot from which storage location. Such installer may also offer download of OS images and setup, resp support user in the process of installing maemo fremantle to the device and then install the Neo900 compatibility adaption bits over it.
[edit] I figure such - let's name it NeoBSP OS - firmware would boot up in two different modes, maybe depending on whether it's first boot / batterycover closed / R&D-mode flag set / whatever:
A) The mode we use in factory would be the automated testing of all parts of the Neo900.
B) The mode that user usually would face when booting his new device will probably have to consist of:

1. a welcome screen,
2. some demo of the more interesting aspects of Neo900 (similar to a subset of what the factory mode does, but with much more interactivity and eye candy, showing compass, multitouch, etc),
3. and finally a text explaining the productive OS situation/concept (what's readily available in internet, from sites like debian, firefox, ubuntu, SHR, etc), a detailled explanation about the procedure to get and install maemo fremantle, and
4. a menu to chose one of those OS installation options from, or jump to the true factory test if user wants to, or a configurator for uBoot to boot up from an alternative volume on eMMC or uSD

/j

Re: Preinstalled operating system
 

That would be a very good idea ...
out-of-the-box-start-up-and-run
Anything that makes initial 1st use as comfortable as possible...