In this edition...

  1. Front Page
    • Recent app developments in NemoMobile
  2. Development
    • Open source replacement for configuring N900 wifi driver
    • Replacing and accessing the Harmattan lock screen
    • mxr.meego.com scheduled for decommission 10th August
    • Maemo 5 Community SSU meeting last week
  3. Community
    • Minutes of Maemo Community Council meeting (July 27th, 2012)
  4. Devices
    • New release of MeeGo TV demoed on Intel CE4200 - community carrying on
  5. In the Wild
    • Are Nokia going to try to divest of Qt?
  6. Announcements
    • Alternative N9 status menu extensions, without requiring Inception or open mode

Front Page

Recent app developments in NemoMobile

Via: @Jaffa2

Editor: Ryan Abel

A Talk thread on NemoMobile saw more activity last week when it was populated by posts of new applications that are undergoing development for Nemo. Highlights include qmlcalendar, contacts using gallery's picker for avatars, Tizmee Tizen compatibility layer, Conversations, Dialer, and a proof of concept QML desktop (lipstick) from Timur Kristóf. There is a lot of cool content in the thread and that particular joy from watching an open source mobile OS form into something amazing is acute, so check out the thread and revel in the awesome.

Development

Open source replacement for configuring N900 wifi driver

Via: @jaffa2

Editor: Andrew Flegg

Another week, another open source replacement from Jonathan Wilson for a low-level closed source package on the N900: I have written a clone of the Nokia wl1251-cal package (used for setting regulatory domain, NVS and MAC address for N900 wl1251 WiFi chip)

Like my bt-cal work, its intended that this be used for CSSU and also for Meego/Mer/Nemo/etc. Its also been written so that someone can modify this in some way so that it only uses standard kernel things, thus allowing the removal of the non-standard Nokia netlink interfaces. Note that on MeeGo/Mer/Nemo/etc if you use this and my bluetooth-cal stuff, you can eliminate the libppu-bin, libwl1251-bin, sysinfod-rx51 and wl1251-cal-bin packages. On Maemo, you can eliminate bluetooth-sysinfo, wl1251-cal and libppu if you are updating mp-blah-pr appropriately. Removing libwl1251 will force a removal of testserver, whatever that is (no clue if testserver is important or not)

Replacing and accessing the Harmattan lock screen

Via: @jaffa2

Editor: Andrew Flegg

A blog post, with source code, describes how the Harmattan lock screen can be integrated with and replaced: Nokia released an app on Meego to change the lock screen. It was called something like zones. And we, in the Maemo community, also want to access to this lock screen. But the lock screen access is undocumented, and I had to hack through it, based on nm and friends, and source code of meegotouch-home. Basically, meegotouch-home provides some plugins. One of them is the weather widget, another is the screen lock. The screen lock is not protected by aegis since Nokia is using it with the zones app, so there is no need to incept anything.

mxr.meego.com scheduled for decommission 10th August

Editor: Andrew Flegg

In a terse announcement, Adam Gretzinger, wrote: mxr.meego.com is scheduled for decommission on Friday, August 10, 2012. If you were using mxr to search or read MeeGo source code you can still access the code in git or source rpm form after that point.

MXR is a web-based tool to show cross-referenced source code. This means you can click on the declaration of a class or function and be linked through to its definition. This raises the question if this is the beginning of the swtich-off of the meego.com infrastructure.

Maemo 5 Community SSU meeting last week

A meeting to discuss the Community SSU for Maemo 5 took place on August 2nd (and into August 3rd by the looks of the log). Major changes discussed included upgrading the kernel version and upgrading the toolchain used to build the CSSU.


Community

Minutes of Maemo Community Council meeting (July 27th, 2012)

The Maemo Community Council meeting for July 27th took place with two participants discussing hand-over activities, infrastructure, and CSSU and Extras issues. The summary can be read by following the link below which also includes the full log of the meeting.

Devices

New release of MeeGo TV demoed on Intel CE4200 - community carrying on

Via: @timsamoff

Editor: Andrew Olmsted

There is a new release of MeeGo TV that users can experiment with and build themselves for the Intel Cocom CE. MeeGo TV 1.2.2 was released and after a few kinks were ironed out, it is now available to play with! It is based on PR27 and is the first MeeGo TV release that people can actually get a hold of and rebuild themselves! It's actually fairly easy, I'll go over the broad howto here and suggest where you can go to get more help.

In the Wild

Are Nokia going to try to divest of Qt?

Via: @Jaffa2

Editor: Andrew Flegg

Following Nokia's closure of the Qt development offices in Australia, a thread on the Qt Project's main development mailing list had this contribution from Atlant Schmidt: A source I consider reliable has whispered in my ear that in the aftermath of Nokia recently shooting Meltemi dead, Sebastian Nyström (the Nokia Senior VP in charge of Qt) has been given explicit direction to sell-off the Qt asset.

This wouldn't be surprising, if true. Nokia's management team seems desperate to reduce costs and focus on the core strategy of the Microsoft alliance. Qt does not fit with that, and it's easy to see questions being raised when they aren't realising the benefit of the investment in future handsets.

Announcements

Alternative N9 status menu extensions, without requiring Inception or open mode

Via: @jaffa2

Editor: Ryan Abel

A new status menu modification package from Talk user "MFaroTusino" adds extended functionality to the built-in status menu without requiring the use of open mode or Inception as with packages that replace the status menu wholesale. Status Menu Extensions alters several elements of the current status menu. A brightness bar is added, sticking to the same visual theme as the Volume Bar. Also, it replaces the availability tab, with Harmattan icons for each of the accounts (with IM capabilities) you have enabled. Finally, there are also several toggles which are added. As with any package which replaces system packages, care should be taken with installation and handling.