Maemo Wiki Mirror - User contributions [en]

Alternative operating systems

2009-05-25T12:25:53Z

205.247.111.216: /* Ubuntu */

Several '''alternative operating systems''' using the Linux kernel have been ported to the tablets. They are derived from Debian, OpenEmbedded or Fedora; Android is a clear exception. All of these alternatives can be booted on the tablets. Because they all use the Linux kernel, most can also be used in a chroot, allowing users to use applications from the alternatives without leaving Maemo.

== Not Covered Here ==

These alternatives are not covered here because the operating systems do not run natively on the tablets (Virtual Machines) or they are not operating systems (Alternate Desktops).

=== Virtual Machines ===
{{main|Emulators}}
There have been several [[emulators]] or virtual machines ported to the tablets that can run alternative operating systems. The best known operating system emulators are the [http://www.access-company.com/products/gvm/ Garnet VM] (Palm OS), [http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=16306 Basilisk II] (Macintosh OS up to 8.1) and DosBox/[[RubyBox]] (MS-DOS and Windows 3.1). Emulation often introduces a large amount of overhead, so emulators tend to be limited to older operating systems that were designed to run on old, limited hardware.

=== Alternate Desktops ===
{{main|Alternative desktop environments}}
[[Alternative desktop environments]] and window managers have also been ported to the tablets, most notably penguinbait's KDE, but they are not full operating systems; they are intended to replace the Hildon desktop only, they don't require a reboot, and they use varying amounts of the Maemo infrastructure underneath the alternative desktop.

== Debian ==
{{main|Debian}}
[http://debian.org/ Debian], one of the oldest and most respected Linux distributions, began, in 2007, [http://wiki.debian.org/ArmEabiPort porting to armel] for its 5.0 ("Lenny") release. This port is now an officially supported architecture.

Several users managed to get Debian to boot on the tablets. The project that became known as [http://trac.tspre.org/projects/deblet Deblet] created a robust installer to automate the process, making it much more accessible to end users. Deblet uses proprietary closed-source binaries, downloaded from Nokia's repositories, to achieve some functionality.

== Ubuntu ==

The Nokia-sponsored [http://mojo.handhelds.org/ Handhelds Mojo project] began porting Ubuntu to the armel architecture in 2007. It's interesting for its compilation entirely on native ARM hardware.

In late 2008, Canonical [http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS8395222090.html announced] an official armel port of its Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty" release. As with the rest of the Ubuntu distribution, the armel port leveraged the work already done by the Debian team to produce a very workable port, and the repositories rapidly filled up with a large percentage of the apps available to other architectures. As with Debian armel, there were several reports of successfully booting Ubuntu on the tablets, but the most well known bootable version of "vanilla" Ubuntu Jaunty was the port by [[User:bman|bman]].

( the above link to "bman" does not function ... it should go to http://talk.maemo.org/member.php?u=14408 )

== Mer ==
{{main|Mer}}
[[Mer]] is a new Linux operating system, built upon a thin base of Ubuntu Jaunty combined with the best open-source elements of Nokia's Maemo platform, such as the Hildon desktop.

[[Mer]] began as an idea that, due to Nokia's push to make most of Maemo open source, it should be possible to "reconstruct" Maemo using only open source elements. The "Maemo Reconstructed" proof of concept developed into Mer as it became clear to the developers that this was a viable environment for both developers and end-users.

Unlike its predecessor, Deblet, Mer avoids using proprietary closed-source binaries to achieve functionality. Consequently, there are still some missing pieces (such as drivers) to achieve full functionality on a pure Mer system.

(''If you are interested in getting involved, you can find more information in the [[Mer]] pages.'')

== Mamona ==

Mamona is an embedded Linux distribution for armel, based on [http://wiki.openembedded.net/index.php/Main_Page Open Embedded]. The main goal of the Mamona Project is to offer a completely open source alternative/experimental platform for Maemo using only free and open source components.

Mamona is still fairly immature at this point, and their last release, 0.2, was in September 2008. There's more information available and you may be interested in getting involved on their [http://dev.openbossa.org/trac/mamona/ Trac page].

== Poky Linux ==

[http://pokylinux.org/ Poky Linux] is a handheld-targeted distribution, also based on [http://wiki.openembedded.net/index.php/Main_Page Open Embedded], that provides an open environment, a build platform (much like the Maemo SDK and the Mamona SDK), and a finger-friendly desktop environment known as "Sato".

While still immature on the tablets, and without an official release in over a year, Poky is still an interesting project, and their [http://www.pimlico-project.org/ Pimlico PIM suite], in particular, may interest some users. You can get it from their [http://www.pokylinux.org/getit/ website].

== Red Hat Fedora ==

There is an [http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Architectures/ARM Arm version] of Fedora 8 and Fedora 10. A [https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-arm/2009-April/msg00009.html bug in Yum] specific to the N8x0 tablets' processor (armv6l), and a very small selection of applications in the Fedora repositories, among other things, has made this distribution slow to gain traction in the tablet community.

== Android ==

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Android Android] is a new operating system by Google and the Open Handset Alliance, based on the Linux kernel, but using custom Java libraries to run all applications.

There have been several successful attempts to boot Android on the tablets, starting with the earliest Android SDK, which was booted from a chroot. When the Android source code became available in late 2008, several teams, working in parallel, managed to get Android booting.

The [http://guug.org/nit/nitdroid/ NITdroid] project is a kernel and userspace port from scratch, and it is currently the most advanced port.

[[Category:Users]]
[[Category:Development]]

Talk:Task:Improving the Application manager

2008-11-25T15:09:44Z

205.247.111.216: /* feature request: ability to hide applications selectively/individually */

== Thanks for this work! ==

This is cool. I mean, I haven't gone through the content but only the fact that you are investing this time and brains is good enough already. I wonder if all the "Improving..." work could be structured in a way that would match the Maemo architecture and also the applications Nokia is developing in top of it i.e. linking to pages like this one and also to relevant enhancement requests in bugs.maemo.org. This would help other contributors improving current proposals instead of starting a new one. It would also help product managers at Nokia following this effort and responding to it.--[[User:qgil|qgil]] 10:25, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

== Info Dialog ==

A 'Changes' tab in the Info Dialog would be nice for updated applications, at the moment to find out if an update is worth installing you have to look elsewhere (ITT, garage, developer blog etc) and it can be quite difficult to track down. [[User:pepitoe|pepitoe]] 14:01, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

== Background processing without indication ==
It will just get stuck here (applies to other screens) when doing things in the background when you try to do some operation (e.g. install from web or from a deb file using the file manager, or even edit catalogs). Attempting to do anything else including the same thing which you don't know if it received, it just says "Operation in progress..." with no way to abort, no measure of progress, and it can sit there for a very long time with no changes and appearing it has crashed. There should be at minimum a busy status (e.g. a gtk field that changes to text saying something like "Busy Updating..."), but even more a progress indicator and/or some indication of what operation is in progress (did it get the instruction to install the right thing or did I tap the wrong thing or is it doing something else entirely?). If it is doing something unrelated or even interruptable (updating the package list, looking for upgrades), there should be a way to abort. This could replace or add to the Button bar noted below —[[User:tz1]]

== feature request: ability to hide applications selectively/individually ==

One of my biggest pet peeves is that when I run through the "Main view | Browse installable applications | All" view, or the "Main view | Show installed applications" view, I am not able to hide pesky items that I've seen every time I've run the Application manager.

Example 1), installed applications that I know I want to keep: "advanced-backlight", "erminig", "Personal Menu", "rapier", "pidgin", "tipcalculator", "sliderule".

Example 2), available applications that I know I don't want: all of the games! (abuse, barrage, blobby, blobwars, bomberman, etc...), all of the subscription services! (rhapsody, skype, vagalume, etc...), all of the dll's! (libgnokii3, libgtk, etc...), and individual apps that I know for certain that I don't want and won't want (gpodder, grcm, irreco-theme-evil, etc...).

It is extremely annoying and frustrating to have to wade through all of these every time I go looking to see what applications I want to try next, or want to uninstall.

Once I know that I want these to stay installed, I should be able to hide it, so that other items are easier to see.

If I want to see these later, there can be an option to "show hidden applications".

-- swajime (can't log in :-( )

P.S. It would also be good to have a "previously unseen" view, when new software is added, or when new repositories are added.
P.P.S. Now that I'm thinking about it, I think it would also be good to be able to view by repository.

Talk:Task:Improving the Application manager

2008-11-25T14:18:30Z

205.247.111.216: /* feature request: ability to hide applications selectively/individually */ new section