Revision as of 08:01, 27 September 2011

MeeGo Community Edition for Nokia N900/N950/N9

What's hot:
New MeeGo 1.3 based images being done and Fall release is coming! Support also imminent for N950/N9 devices.
Test the Summer Release of the MeeGo 1.2 Community Edition for N900: download - install - cool stuff - discuss

Introduction

The target of this activity is to make a Community Edition of MeeGo for the Nokia N900/N950/N9 devices. Note: The initiative was originally called Developer Edition, so you will see that mentioned in many places. Don't get confused, this is the same thing :)

The Community Edition is an 'overlay' constructed above the current core MeeGo 1.2/1.3. The Community Edition project is working as a draft of a MeeGo handset image, to make possible the MeeGo development on your N900/N950/N9 hardware. Being a draft, it will not take into account all features commonly present in a handset OS. To see what features will be implemented look at #Key_features. Flashed with this edition, N900/N950/N9 will be usable as a primary phone device for a developer/hacker person. This is not meant for regular (Maemo 5 or MeeGo Harmattan) users. Using this release will probably void any warranty and there is no (other than community-based) support available.

Target

The focus is on meeting the non-functional targets (such as performance) rather than number of features. This will hopefully encourage more people to use MeeGo on ARM devices such as Nokia N900, and continue enhancing the functionality or build new stuff. Community Edition is based on MeeGo Handset trunk content, and selected community contributions (see the candidates). Core MeeGo 1.2 Handset features can be found in featurezilla, and features of the Community Edition that are not yet implemented from the Configuration list.

Key features

These use cases shall be the prominent ones in the Community Edition. (If you want to promote a feature to this list, please add it to the feedback section first.)

Cellular voice calls (Dialer, People)

• Make voice calls (input number directly, initiate from Contacts, initiate from Call history)
• Receive calls
• Default ringtone plays
• Volume control works via System UI
• SIM PIN entry support

SMS (SMS, People)

• Send new SMS (input number, send from Contacts)
• Receive SMS, and reply to sender

Browser use over WLAN (Browser, Settings)

• Able to connect to WLAN AP (with security etc.)
• Open a complex modern website (eg. gmail.com)

Camera (meegocamera)

• Still image capture
• Support for N900 keys (zoom, capture)

Common SW (Settings, xterm, lock)

Common components such as System UI, Home screen etc. shall be made functional so that basic device usage is smooth and fast. N900 device specific features such as keys, display and battery will be optimized. MeeGo SDK fully supports this edition, as it is MeeGo 1.2 compliant.

Status

The maturity of Community Edition image, can be seen on the Status page.

Installing and running

Image download and installing instructions can be found on the Getting Started page. Please refer to them for more instructions.

• Download and install instructions page.
• Status and reports on the latest image.
• Applications and accessories for the Community Edition.

Release schedule

This shows the release schedule and content. It should be understood that Community Edition is still based on "best-effort" model, so this might change any time. If you want to make sure targets are kept, please join the project and help us. For more detailed list of features that are implemented on the releases, look in the Configuration page.

I want to help!

Willing to contribute the code to MeeGo, but wondering where to start? Learn the ropes from the MeeGo experts! This material (meego developer's journey) gives the overview on the daily development workflow.

Some more concrete steps:

• To contribute fixes, see ARM/N900/ReleaseProcess.
• Follow Discussion
  • Join meego-porting@meego.com and meego-handset@meego.com mailing lists
  • Hang out in #meego-arm IRC channel on irc.freenode.net
  • Join weekly team meetings are held in the public IRC. This meeting is registered on the MeeGo IRC Meeting Page. The agenda and the archives are also available.
• Learn
  • Play a little with Tablet UX pre-alpha, as it's possible the same applications will be replacing some of the Handset UX ones. Experiments are being tried with the Tablet UX on N900. Find more details at ARM/N900/TabletUX.
  • Look into learning QML, if you haven't already.
• Contribute
  • Would like to contribute the test cases? You will find useful information here.
  • Would like to contribute artwork? See ARM/N900/Artwork.
  • To the performance optimization.
  • Follow acceptance testing reports and see if there's anything of your interest you'd like to work on.
• Look through Developers page, for tips and tricks.

Organization

Core team, of Community Edition, is formed in and around Nokia. In addition to core team, we hope to see growing community working on this. There is something for everybody to contribute, be it bugs, code, artwork, or something else. Core team itself has been divided into the following categories:

• Scrum master: Makoto Sugano
  • Applications team lead: Vesa-Matti Hartikainen
  • Adaptation team lead: Harri Hakulinen. **
  • Release & integration: Marko Saukko.
• QA: Jake Kunnari, Jari Tahvanainen, Marko Rajala
• Community manager: Jukka Eklund

*The Dialer project has been merged with the MeeGo mainstream Dialer project.
**Includes the Hardware Adaptation (maintained by Carsten Munk).

FAQ

Q. Let's assume my bug fix was accepted only in the Community Edition, but rejected in the official 1.2. What do we do with the bug?
A. Submit the fix to 1.3. Change the status to "RESOLVED". Comment that the fix is available in Community Edition & 1.3.

Q. Which SD card should I be using?
A. Class 6 and higher. The class impacts performance.

Q. Where can I download the N900 Community Edition release?
A. See installation instructions

Q. What UI will the Community Edition use?
A. Based on what's available on MeeGo trunk. At the moment, we're working with the MeeGo 1.1-originated Handset UX and apps. We are evaluating the new tablet-originated UX and apps (see ARM/N900/TabletUX). This is still to be decided, and there might even be multiple options for the user to select.

Q. If I get "The package integrity check failed." (NOKEY) when trying to zypper install MeeGo 1.2 packages, where can I find the missing keys?^[1.6.2011]
A. try the following. You could specify other URL for public key.
rpm --import 'http://download.meego.com/live/MeeGo:/1.2.0:/oss:/Update:/Testing/MeeGo_1.2.0/repodata/repomd.xml.key'

Q. I installed to eMMC and it's dog-slow? ^[1.6.2011]
A. The eMMC currently has a severe performance problem, bug #18295

Q. What is this Community Edition really about?
A. Check out the MeeGo CE description.

Ideas, feedback etc.

Please add stuff to the Ideas page.

Reporting bugs against N900 Community Edition

• File a bug report on bugs.meego.com
• Use [CE] in the summary
• Add the N900CE keyword to the bug report
• Select from Platform N900, if N900 was in use.

• Notice:
  • If bug is producible with MeeGo image also, remove the [CE] prefix from the summary. It's used only for the N900 CE specific bugs.
  • Feel free to suggest MeeGo_N900CE_Release_Blocker.
  • If bug is for application, check if there's a upstream link for direct reporting in CE application list. If there's a link, please report to upstream, if not, then to the MeeGo Bugzilla.