In this edition...

Front Page
- MeeGo Conference round-up
Applications
- Mong (MeeGo Pong) development status, 2011-05-29
Development
- Next CSSU testing update to downgrade Qt
- Porting MeeGo 1.2 to Nook Color
- Second alpha release of Necessitas - Qt on Android
- Proposed community quality assurance rules for MeeGo Apps
Devices
- Asus Eee PC X101: newly released MeeGo netbook
In the Wild
- MeeGos hit the big screen
- What's a PNG? #meegoconf
Announcements
- BeBeCe - a BBC iPlayer app
- Tweed Suit - a heavyweight Twitter client
- QNetMan - network monitor
- N900 wifi hotspot script
- Windows Phone 7 "Mango" iconset

Front Page

MeeGo Conference round-up

Last week was the second MeeGo Conference, held in San Francisco. The conference started well, with a two-day warm-up, including live-action Angry Birds with teams building catapults and levels out of balsa wood. However, the conference proper's start marked a low point, with feedback on the keynote almost entirely negative. Your editor, Andrew Flegg wrote:

Announcing new devices, or freebies for attendees, isn't necessary. However, I did expect the MeeGo Conference Keynote to address the challenges facing MeeGo now; particularly since February 11th there is not a mass-market consumer electronics vendor onboard as a strategic partner. Celebrating the work that has been done to date is necessary for the community psyche. Outlining the next steps, including a roadmap, is integral for the development ecosystem. None of these things were done, and it left a pall over the entire conference.

However, the sessions, BoFs, and sense of community still left it feeling like a worthwhile event. No date or location has yet been set for a subsequent conference.

Applications

Development »« Front Page

Mong (MeeGo Pong) development status, 2011-05-29

Thomas Perl has posted a video of the multi-player MeeGo-based Pong game which started with an impromptu hacking session at the MeeGo Conference. Thomas introduces it in his San Francisco roundup with: Intel loaned out ExoPC hardware running MeeGo Tablet UX for MeeGo development during the AppUp Event on the Warm-Up weekend. Conny had the great idea to start a multi-touch Pong game that we now call "Mong" (Gitorious repo) and that we now collectively develop with some community members (sounds - recorded live from the Air Hockey tables at the Hacker Lounge! - by Erik, graphics by Tim, code by Conny and me). The update features updated graphics and multi-touch gameplay.

Development

Devices »« Applications

Next CSSU testing update to downgrade Qt

Mohammad Abu-Garbeyyeh is planning to address the Qt regressions in the current version of the Community SSU testing branch by downgrading Qt from the current version of 4.7.2: While testing on another N900, I found that Qt Mobility 1.2 doesn't mix well with the CSSU update, this only means one thing, the update will be delayed a day, a new CSSU update will be pushed, this will revert Qt back to 4.7.0 with some custom fixes applied on top, then new Qt Mobility libraries if they don't work well with the old 4.7.0 (which they should).

Read more (talk.maemo.org)

Porting MeeGo 1.2 to Nook Color

Barnes & Noble's Nook Color is a US Android-based book reader, designed to compete with Amazon's Kindle. However, unlike the Kindle, it's running Android and has been hacked to have full tablet capability - which makes it a bit of a bargain at its low price. A thread on the forum details developers attempts to port MeeGo to it. The current status is described as: At this point 2.6.38 with drivers and board support files ported forward compiles silently, but does not activate the screen thus giving no useful output. With 2.6.32 and 2.6.29 it is possible to boot up to the login prompt (Xorg must be disabled, or the device will not give any indication of having booted.) If you have a device, or any experience with low-level hacking, get involved.

Second alpha release of Necessitas - Qt on Android

Necessitas is the community port of Qt to Android, and has seen some success with Qt applications already appearing in the Android market. The latest release is a major one: Today I have the honor to announce the second alpha of Necessitas SDK and the first as a KDE project. YES, we've joined KDE, because we share the same goal; to make Qt more powerful, more accessible, and to keep it free for everyone. This release brings a lot of exciting new features:

- we began to move Necessitas to KDE infrastructure

- we've switch to Nokia's SDK Installer

- Necessitas comes with proper support for Windows and latter also for Mac

- Qt framework [bug fixes]

- QtMobility (preview)

- QtWebKit 2.1, we activated JIT support

- latest QtCreator 2.2

- gdb 7.2(with python support), for the best native code debugging experience out there

- install Google's official SDKs and NDK using Necessitas SDK installer

The release also introduces a new change management approach for the Necessitas repositories, allowing a progression of new features to developers in a timely manner.

Proposed community quality assurance rules for MeeGo Apps

One of your editors, Andrew Flegg, picked up an action in an ad-hoc BoF at the MeeGo Conference to come up with some proposed rules for apps.meego.com: The aims are: To simplify the criteria down as far as possible compared with maemo.org's Extras-testing QA; To make sure the system does as much as possible; To provide a checklist approach, but without mandating that everyone can (and should) investigate all aspects (not everyone needs to, or can, check for power management issues) If you have experience with the maemo.org Extras-testing repository - either as a tester or a developer, please chime in with your thoughts.

Devices

In the Wild »« Development

Asus Eee PC X101: newly released MeeGo netbook

Engadget reports that ASUS are launching a slimline $200 netbook running MeeGo: ASUS is starting off its bevy of Computex announcements with the new Eee PC X101, a netbook that gives the 11-inch MacBook Air a run for its ultrathin money -- with a 950g weight and 17.6mm thickness -- while running either Windows 7 or... wait for it, Meego! The latter model will come out at the groundbreaking price of just $200. Check out its scarlet construction in the gallery below or jump past the break for our video hands-on. Given the netbook UX is considered "stable" (or "deprecated", depending to whom you speak), this is perhaps more of a curiousity piece. Also interesting is the announcement press release referring to "Intel MeeGo" <sigh/>.

In the Wild

Announcements »« Devices

MeeGos hit the big screen

Intel has released a cartoon as part of the advertising for their AppUp Developer Program: Have you met the hardest working friends of software developers, the MeeGos? Last week Intel released a behind-the-scenes look at what really goes on in AppUp app creation factory for MeeGo!

What's a PNG? #meegoconf

Quoting Wikipedia: Portable Network Graphics is a bitmapped image format and video codec that employs lossless data compression. PNG was created to improve upon and replace GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) as an image-file format not requiring a patent license. The PNG acronym is optionally recursive, unofficially standing for PNG's Not GIF. Never underestimate the power of Google, especially when there is free wifi available.

Announcements

« In the Wild

BeBeCe - a BBC iPlayer app

Stuart Howarth has announced a new project he has in development: Someone mentioned the idea of a BBC iPlayer plugin for cuteTube-QML, so I've decided to run with that idea and start work on a BBC iPlayer application, provisionally titled BeBeCe. I will of course continue to maintain and improve cuteTube-QML. It's currently at a very early stage in it's development, but I should be able to make swift progress by re-using many of the UI components from cuteTube-QML, with some minor adjustments. The app is not yet available, so watch the thread for updates.

Read more (talk.maemo.org)

Permalink

Tweed Suit - a heavyweight Twitter client

Marcus Wikström has announced "Tweed Suit", a desktop style Twitter client and RSS reader for people with good eyesight and the need for massive amounts of information. You don't actually have to have a Twitter account to use it. You can just use it as a information gathering tool, but obviously without the direct messages, home and mentions. The package is currently only available in Extras-devel, so is not yet ready for end-users.

Read more (talk.maemo.org)

Permalink

QNetMan - network monitor

Anatoliy Kozlov has released a network monitor for Maemo 5. He describes it as a Qt-based network manager which allows to monitor your network traffic. It is possible to record network sessions information for different connections and provide the information in graphical view. The latest version is in Extras-testing, so those willing to test and rate should do so, in accordance with the QA criteria.

Read more (talk.maemo.org)

Permalink

N900 wifi hotspot script

Talk user "9000" has announced another mechanism for creating an ad-hoc wifi network for sharing an N900's data connection: The advantage of using this script to build WiFi Hotspot over the packages mobilehotspot and joikuspot is that it's simple and consume less power. The original script is written by jebba, modified slightly by me for easy customization, DNS and process initialization; therefore credit still goes to him. The reason I post this script is for those who are having technical problems with mobilehotspot or joikuspot, and for those who'd want to run a WiFi hotspot with minimum power usage. How, exactly, this uses less power than Mobile Hotspot or Joikuspot isn't made clear, nor are the benchmarks. As the scripts are run as root, care should also be taken.

Read more (talk.maemo.org)

Permalink

Windows Phone 7 "Mango" iconset

Robin Lundgren has started on a project to provide Windows Phone 7-like icons for Maemo 5. The package, 'mango', is now in Extras-devel and as it modifies system files, extra care should be taken when installing it.

Read more (talk.maemo.org)

Permalink

« In the Wild

Maemo Weekly News

In this edition...

Front Page

MeeGo Conference round-up

Applications

Mong (MeeGo Pong) development status, 2011-05-29

Development

Next CSSU testing update to downgrade Qt

Porting MeeGo 1.2 to Nook Color

Second alpha release of Necessitas - Qt on Android

Proposed community quality assurance rules for MeeGo Apps

Devices

Asus Eee PC X101: newly released MeeGo netbook

In the Wild

MeeGos hit the big screen

What's a PNG? #meegoconf

Announcements

BeBeCe - a BBC iPlayer app

Tweed Suit - a heavyweight Twitter client

QNetMan - network monitor

N900 wifi hotspot script

Windows Phone 7 "Mango" iconset