Latest revision as of 15:32, 18 November 2011

MeeGo 1.3 Community Edition (and Nemo) installation for N950

(Basic information as copied from https://meego.com/community/device-program/devices/nokia-n9-devkit)

The Nokia N950 is a platform available now for developers targeting the Nokia N9 and MeeGo handset apps in general. Technical details are available at http://developer.nokia.com/swipe. Questions & comments: http://forum.meego.com/showthread.php?t=3597.

IMPORTANT: commercial developers are encouraged to apply directly at http://developer.nokia.com - thank you for your understanding.

How to use Community Edition on N950

THIS IS IMPORTANT: Assumption: you have Nokia N950 device with the Beta2 release (firmware version *must be* at 34-2 1.2011.34-2_PR_RM680, update using the OneClickFlasher if not). You should also have the skills required, similar to what is required for using N900 CE: http://wiki.meego.com/ARM/N900/GettingStarted. These instructions also assume that you are using Linux as OS on your computer. If you have upgraded over-the-air from beta2, these instructions may not work. Also, you can't flash back to Harmattan as there is no OCF for the updated release!!! Update: there is a OCF for 39-5 which was the first over-the-air update. Anyone tested it?

The procedures described here will void any warranty (if there was any), and will destroy your Harmattan setup, losing any data you have there. However, you can always go back to a fresh Harmattan installation with the OneClickFlasher package available at: http://harmattan-dev.nokia.com/release/N950-39-5/

Downloading the MeeGo Community Edition release

Flasher for N950

Download Harmattan flasher from here.

Before you proceed make sure that "Device lock" is not enabled in Harmattan (In Settings \ Security \ Device Lock \ Autolock: off). If you have an Mail-for-Exchange account configured, you may need to delete it before you can disable device lock.

If flasher bombs out with "Devicelock ON: cannot flash unsigned image", then you didn't, go back and disable it.

If the beta2 flasher errors with "bb5_rdc_cert_read" or a few other errors, try the beta1 flasher.

MeeGo Bootloader (Moslo)

In order to boot MeeGo on N950, the default OS, Harmattan, must be replaced with MOSLO, the Meego OS LOader. Moslo can be flashed as a fiasco image, available at: http://tablets-dev.nokia.com/moslo.php. Moslo source repository is located at: https://gitorious.org/meego-developer-edition-for-n900/moslo). Current moslo fiasco image for N950 is moslo-rootfs-1.2011.34-2_RM680-OEM1-916_0.0.13-12.1.bin

Nokia N9 similarly will need its own Moslo.

• IMPORTANT: before installing Moslo, boot into Harmattan at least once and wait for a few minutes.
• Power off the device, disconnect usb or changer.
• Run flasher:

 sudo flasher -F moslo-rootfs-1.2011.34-2_RM680-OEM1-916_0.0.13-12.1.bin  -f

Flasher now waits for a device to connect.

• Connect your N950 and wait for flashing to finish.
• Do not disconnect. Read on.

Write CE to device

After flashing MOSLO, boot the device by disconnecting and re-connecting the USB cable to the PC. You will see a warning and a disclaimer screen for 10 seconds followed by green text based MOSLO welcome screen. Wait for the text "Rootfs now exported via USB".

If you don't get the MOSLO screen after successfully flashing MOSLO, then let the device finish booting into harmattan and reboot it. It can take several full reboots of the device to fully enable MOSLO.

If you have automount enabled in your Linux system, the device may appear as a normal USB drive to your desktop. Automount may not show the drive at first because it is in vfat format. Automount will typically use volume ID as mountpoint name.

IMPORTANT: On some systems (Ubuntu) automounting may have too restrictive options. Manual mounting is recommended.

IMPORTANT: Although the drive exported by device via MOSLO to the host PC it appears as /dev/sdX, inside the device it is a partition, instead of a full drive.

At first MOSLO connection, the partition has to be reformatted. Make sure it is unmounted (if necessary umount it do not 'eject' it via UI!):

sudo umount /dev/sdX
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdX

You will see warning: "/dev/sdX is entire device, not just one partition! Proceed anyway? (y,n)". This is expected. Just make sure you got the right device node and say "y".

For mounting the MeeGo rootfs manually:

sudo mkdir -p /media/<choose mountpoint name for your N950>
sudo mount /dev/sdX /media/<mountpoint of your N950>

If you already had an MeeGo image on the partition, it can be erased by running:

sudo rm -rf /media/<mountpoint of your N950>/*

Extract the Community Edition .tar.bz2 to the mounted rootfs partition with:

sudo tar --numeric-owner -xf <path>/<CE_package>.tar.bz2 -C /media/<mountpoint of your N950>

After the extraction is ready, unmount/remove safely/eject the partition before disconnecting from usb:

sudo umount /media/<mountpoint of your N950>

Boot to CE

• The device should start booting to MeeGo right after disconnecting the USB.
• Otherwise start normally by holding power key for 2-4 seconds.
• First you should see the disclaimer screen.
• Next you see a green-on-black Moslo bootscreen.
• The last line should say: "Running Meego Kernel" (it is shown very briefly)
• Then wait patiently for desktop to come up.

Shutting down is done simply by holding the power key until either a shut down graphic or a red screen is shown. Check that screen back light goes out. If device does not react, hold the power key for over 8 seconds. This will force HW shut down. Note: using forceful shut down might corrupt the filesystem, leading to a non-bootable setup.

Trouble starting?

If device does not react, hold the power key for over 8 seconds.

In case battery is very low, the screen may stay black even if booting continues, or the device may shutdown (and likewise stay black).

• Connect usb or charger and let Moslo charge the battery at least for a few minutes tens of minutes.
• Then disconnect usb/charger and device should continue booting to MeeGo.
• You can reconnect usb/charger after a few seconds. Latest at the Meego splash screen.

Don't panic - try again, check the steps and finally ask for advice at #meego-arm IRC channel.

How to remove MeeGo/Moslo and restore Harmattan

In order to boot Harmattan again, MeeGo and Moslo must be removed. This can be done by using OneClickFlasher available here: http://www.developer.nokia.com/info/sw.nokia.com/id/db230178-aa63-4c73-ba7f-20930da13cad/Nokia_N950_OneClickFlashers.html

Running the OneClickFlasher will overwrite MeeGo/Moslo with Harmattan. All personal settings will be lost. It will take about 15-30 minutes.

Open issues

• How about dual boot with Harmattan?
  • Not possible with current Moslo release. Community is encouraged to find a way, with modified Moslo or some other means eg. u-boot.
• Will this work in N9?
  • Not at the moment. We are working to make a N9 release as well, stay tuned for more information.

Reporting bugs against Community Edition

• File a bug report on bugs.meego.com
• Use [CE] in the summary
• Add the N950 and N900CE keywords to the bug report
• Select from Platform N900, if bug can be reproduced with N900 also.

• Notice:
  • If bug is producible with MeeGo image also, remove the [CE] prefix from the summary. It's used only for the Community Edition 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.
  • If you found a bug when using MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan, please file the bug to the http://www.developer.nokia.com/bugs/

More info

More information can be found in N950 landing page.