maemo.org - Talk - Mer 0.12 released

Mer for Nokia 770, N800, N810, N810W, X86, Beagleboard, Pocket Loox 720, version 0.12

Information about Mer can be found at http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer and everything you need to know about the release on http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer/Releases/0.12. It also has a list of known issues so please read them through first before installing.

Along with this post I have put a poll on "Is this release usable by you on a day-to-day basis?". Please vote a simple yes or no, and justify why it isn't usable in a post following this. For every next release, I will put up this poll, so we can keep track of how close we are to a 1.0.

We have also put up some general installation information and those with clone-to-SD Maemo will find this good to read through.

There will be a Maemo/Mozilla hackfest in Copenhagen (Mozilla Maemo Danish Weekend), Saturday-Sunday 30-31 May 2009 (with party Friday 29 May), where Mer is one of the focus areas as well. As it is a hackfest the focus will be more on coding than on presentations. If you are able to show up and you are willing to help out with Mer, you're more than encouraged to do so :) Focus of the Mer part will be bringing Mer to 1.0 (day-to-day usable on N8x0s). Sponsorship information is here

Highlights of this release:
* Claudius Henrichs will be heading up the localization area.
* David Greaves/lbt is now in charge of Builders & development tools component.
* Matthew Craig/mtc in charge of Outreach
* Based on Ubuntu Jaunty official release.
* John Bloom (johnx) manned a Mer table at LinuxFest Northwest 2009
* WiFi issue on N8x0 finally fixed
* Power saving on N8x0 works again.
* We will be switching to alternate repositories soon, as we are integrating with OpenSUSE Build Service. This means no more stuff will go into repository.mer.tspre.org post-0.12.
* Sound support on N8x0, but requires closed blobs, and someone needs to step up and code a DSP protocol driver for PulseAudio (source code for protocol open)
* Battery monitor (tablet-battery-monitor) on N8x0, requires closed blobs (installs them itself)
* BlueMan ported - which means tethering, DUN, PAN, and a lot of interesting things
* Hildon desktop when dying, now shows a dialog box that it died.
* Drag lock fixed
* Some claim Mer has quite good battery life on N8x0 now.
* Mer is now officially Scratchbox-free, thanks to impressive work on QEMU by ScriptRipper

Next release is 18 May 2009 (0.13). Mer is still a work in progress and as such you should not expect too much of it (note long list of known issues). We are in dire need of hands, both coders, architects/designers, testers, or anyone passionate about mobile development, so if you think you can contribute, you're more than welcome to join us in this community effort.

If you would like to participate, read through http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer/People and http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer/Sprints and see if there's anything you can help out with. We're on #mer on FreeNode, IRC, if you'd like to hang out and discuss.

Thanks to the following people (if anyone is not included who should have been, consider yourself thanked ;) who have helped making this release & sprint a reality: wazd, zenvoid, johnx, lbt, Meizirkki, qwerty12, ScriptRipper, neatojones, b-man, VDVsx, nikolajhendel, x29a, GeneralAntilles, Jaffa, crashanddie, r2d2rogers, goshawk, timeless, AndrewFBlack, mtc, Macer, BoxOfSnoo.

Obligatory screenshots:

http://wiki.maemo.org/images/8/8c/Mer0.11_Blueman3.png

http://wiki.maemo.org/images/7/74/Mer0.12_Blueman7.png

http://wiki.maemo.org/images/1/10/Me...orkManager.png

http://wiki.maemo.org/images/5/50/Me...ifications.png

http://wiki.maemo.org/images/e/e6/Mer0.11_AM.png

http://wiki.maemo.org/images/7/71/Me...ilechooser.png

http://wiki.maemo.org/images/1/13/Mer0.11_Xterm.png

and Meizirkki's video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSJ82NywcJE (uses fbdev, not the current X driver for N8x0)