MeeGo / n900 - Developer & User Expectations
 

I was in two minds about starting this thread.
But in this instance I listened to the voices in my head!

There seems to be rising expectations on the initial release of "MeeGo for the n900".

EDIT (25/3/10): As rightly pointed-out by Attila77 - MeeGo is a generic release (e.g. not tied to n900 hardware)

E.g:
It will beat Chuck Norris in a fight
It will enable the TARDIS hardware (would be very cool - you can go back in time and convince yourself to buy the iPhone instead)

As said many times in this forum the MeeGo release will be a development only.

Only developers who are interested in low-level OS programming will find the initial release useful.

As an end-user this MeeGo release will not be useful to you....yet

Please do not be disappointed when the initial release of MeeGo does not meet your current expectations.

I have no idea what "state" MeeGo will be in when released. It may not even have a GUI yet. It might not even boot properly.
Nokia may never offically support it!

Who knows?

The great thing is when it is released it will be a community developed project. The things you can reasonably expect from a device like this will hopefully be met. "Normal" people like you and I can still get involved and take responsibilty in helping with the efforts.
It does not matter if you can program or not ("it doesn't matter if your black or white" as MJ would say). But there are other ways ways you and I can help - e.g. testing, documentation

Maemo 5 is alive and kicking like a bad-*** Mofo. There are applications appearing daily in the donwloads section and still growing.

I love my n900 more than I love my wife. The n900 is not perfect (my wife is - "love you!") and no device made by anyone else will be either.

It will take time for MeeGo to become "stable" and this could be many months away!

Until MeeGo is in a usable then it is business as usual for Maemo & the n900.

There are many applications languishing in the "testing" repos and needs people to test the applications and provide feedback.

(WARNING: Only do this if you are willing to reflash your device and perform deep voodoo with chicken bones to get your n900 working again. It's called "testing" for a reason and may break stuff!)
IMPORTANT: Testing & Warning

So basically what I am trying to say is when MeeGo is released for the n900 don't be disappointed by it and start b****ing about it in the forums.

A few people here have decided to learn programming because of the n900 and that's great. This is a great opportunity to learn about OS stuff and programming.

It might even help you find Jesus.

You may even decide to give Steve Jobs "the finger".

EDIT (25/3/10): Or is that give Jesus the finger and find Steve Jobs? Are they the same person?

Some stuff to look at:


What_can_we_realistically_expect...
http://wiki.maemo.org/Extras-testing/QA_Checklist

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...3&postcount=17
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=538094&postcount=1
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=559782&postcount=4
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=559784&postcount=5
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...7&postcount=26

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer & User Expectations
 

Probably the worst thing about it is that it is not "MeeGo for the N900". I blogged recently about this sad state of MeeGo brand confusion. It's a generic version (in very early stages of development) kicked around enough so it actually runs on an N900. As such, I would really be surprised if it contained any serious HW dependent functionality (like phone, GPS, maybe even BT/WiFi). But I guess this is one of the prices of having a more open development model, talking to end-users about development without someone ending up unsatisfied is very difficult to do.

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

I'll comment here instead of Attila's blog. I agree about the brand confusion problem. I think the idea of merging Maemo and Moblin to produce MeeGo is fine, but I think it would be a mistake to rebrand Maemo 6 and Moblin 2.2 as simply "MeeGo" because, even though they might be (mostly) MeeGo compatible, they really aren't MeeGo.

I agree with Attila in his blog that this can still be fixed by some kind of clear, clever "subbranding". I'm not a marketer so I don't have a good suggestion for that, but I really believe Nokia and Intel need to clarify that Moblin 2.2 and Harmattan are not really MeeGo yet.

In my mind, this first "generic" MeeGo release is the only "true" MeeGo...

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

Can't wait to hear the first stories and see some images :)

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

Thanks for making this topic, though i won't be trying anything. But if anyone gets it running, post some pictures :D

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

Isn't the message from x86 Linux distributions clear:

You're only as good as your supported drivers, proprietary or otherwise.

The title has it right, maybe one developer will be interested in a distribution that doesn't support the bulk of their hardware. At best, a second developer will run it in a chroot.

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

What is MeeGo? Maybe this "mostly compatible" is the usual level of compatibility we're going to find in later MeeGo releases. Who knows.

The branding problem doesn't end with Maemo and Moblin, since in the future we'll get the "Tablet UX" (aka Maemo UX) and the "Netbook UX" (aka Moblin UX). If they want the resulting platform to be sane (instead of a phone UX for a netbook or a netbook UI for a phone), both "UX"s will be completely different.

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

Wasn't the 'first release' of meego meant to happen this month? That mean it is coming today?

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

Or today, GMT-12 ;)

Re: MeeGo / n900 - Developer Only - Not Users
 

lol, thats a point!