Maemo.org useless?
 

I noticed that the info on Maemo.org's Wiki is often out-of-date and wrong so I thought I'd do an edit. The "create an account" link creates an account on "garage.maemo.org" which does NOT work with the login on maemo.org ! Maybe maemo.org used to be run by the Nokia folks before it was left in its present sorry state? Oh, and I also see that many (most?) of the apps suffer from "Linux hacker syndrom" i.e. "real programmers don't do debugged install files and documentation" :rolleyes: . Do you guys really still wonder why Windows and Mac OS really don't have anything to worry about as far as Linux goes :eek: .

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

I find the Maemo.org site atrocious. It is frequently down, spewing random database errors and is poorly organized. There isn't even a link to the main garage.maemo.org website from the main page of maemo.org! Their downloads section doesn't look to be maintainted at all. It was honestly better when the downloads section was just a wiki page.

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

It's true that the site is often in non-optimal shape; nonetheless I'm glad that someone is working on apps we can use other than Nokia. The downloads section I check on is obviously maintained, since it has changes made in the last week or so. It's the one you jump to if you click Software at the top of this page.

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

Does anyone see any way to contact the maintainer? The lack of any obvious way to do so smells like Nokia to me :D . Are we sure it isn't just on autopilot, the updated software list could be generated by scripts monitoring certain projects?

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

What I dislike the most is the wiki, which is IMO difficult to edit and very poorly organised (lots of pages are not in the index- or overview pages). The latter is probably caused by / made worse by the former.
I find the wikipedia-style wikis much easier to work with, I've basically given up on contributing to maemo's wiki.

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

Agreed. I would really love to see a good, solid Wiki on n770/n800/Maemo/etc. stuffs.

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

If you have good ideas to improve the wiki it would be perfect that you could comment on the following thread in the maemo-developers list: http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail//ma...ly/010760.html

roadranger, you can create a bug in https://bugs.maemo.org I think that it's the better way for to do this. Also you look at the following bug (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1612), it's necessary to wait approximately 10 minutes until the account is activated. To avoid spammers, I think.

Rocketman, in maemo.org if that exists a link for garage.maemo.org, it's at right justly on Carman's ad.
The downloads list I think that it can be update for anyone, I try that my programs are updated there, but there will be programs that aren't show there and programs that aren't updated.

Sorry for my english ;)
Cheers.

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

A three parter:

1) I'm always getting this on maemo.org when I try to go into anything https:

There is a problem with this website's security certificate.
The security certificate presented by this website has expired or is not yet valid.
The security certificate presented by this website was issued for a different website's address.
Security certificate problems may indicate an attempt to fool you or intercept any data you send to the server.
We recommend that you close this webpage and do not continue to this website.
Click here to close this webpage.
Continue to this website (not recommended).
More information
If you arrived at this page by clicking a link, check the website address in the address bar to be sure that it is the address you were expecting.
When going to a website with an address such as https://example.com, try adding the 'www' to the address, https://www.example.com.
If you choose to ignore this error and continue, do not enter private information into the website.

For more information, see "Certificate Errors" in Internet Explorer Help.

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

this is microsoft trying to extract money from the web by getting all secure websites to use (pay for) their certificates. I think you can go to 'details' and install the cert so it won't complain on subsequent visits, but I don't use that browser.

rob.

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

I see it now. I had given up on the main entry page ever being organized and just have direct links in my bookmarks to planet.maemo.org and the garage.maemo.org subsections. The main page actually isn't bad anymore, but I still stand by my comments regarding the sites reliability, poor download section, wiki, etc.

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

WooHoo just tried to login and it worked! I originally tried for at least an hour - that "sync every 10 minutes" thing ain't quite there...

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

Umm, much as I would like to comment on this and that, I'm subscribed to way too many mailing lists already over the years, I'm very hesitant to subscribe to yet another one just for being able to post a single comment or two.

As for my non-mailed comment on how to improve the Midgard wiki (see, I did actually read the thread even though I'm not posting there.. :)), it's short and harsh: Replace the Midgard wiki with Mediawiki (the one used by wikipedia and countless others).

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

I miss the old application wiki... When I search for becomeroot it finds nothing. When I search for root, it finds becomeroot. It would be nice to have at least a list of all downloads, rather than having to hunt. Does it sound like I am whining?

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

I thought about this a bit before this present post. First, I appreciate a Nokia guy coming on here and clarifying things for us. However - it would be nice if the Nokia folks identiifed themselves when they post - and it would be nice to fix the issues and not have to explain them. Also, I never heard of a website that had a bug tracker one needed to log issues with the site in and not have a maintainer who would take comments via email or form. As a semi-retired developer and techno-geek myself I can understand the personal motivation here - but isn't this supposed to be a consumer device with consumer-grade support and service? Nokia, this product line is going teats up if you don't change the way it is supported! Us techo-geeks should be a very small part of your market - not the focus! Hate to say it, but this project needs some managers put on it - the engineering crew can only take it so far and it seems the geeks are in charge here <grin>.

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

Hi,

I work at Nokia and I'm responsible of maemo.org. I'm not engineer and my role contains the word "manager".

It is a website targeted to developers and power users only. Pure end users might find it useless, this is why we try to redirect them elsewhere i.e. here.

> I never heard of a website that had a bug tracker one needed to log issues with the site
debian.org and gnome.org are two examples of websites that ask you to file bugs about the website. Filing bugs is the best way to handle issues and is a practice common to open source developers and power users (the target users of maemo.org).

> isn't this supposed to be a consumer device
The tablets yes, not the maemo platform. maemo.org is not a consumer website. maemo will have a grade support for developers willing it and it will be provided via http://forum.nokia.com . We want to keep maemo.org within the usual open source development practices.

About the previous complaints:

- Nokia and the community have shared responsibilities over the wiki content and downloads.maemo.org. Each one takes care of their docs/apps. I expect to have the Nokia side sorted out by the end of August.

- The Midgard wiki has been improved last week in order to ease its use and match the Moin functionality. Try it out and report specific issues so we can work on them. "Difficult" alone is too vague for us to be effective. There are more enhancements on the way.

- downloads.maemo.org is being improved these days in order to promote and show off the best applications while discriminating the rest. Developers need to do their homework (i.e. providing install files that work) and you can help as well by rating and commenting apps.

- Although the website had a period of instability, we fixed the server and currently the performance is all in all good. Please report any issues with details (when, which pages). Database errors have been fixed as well but if you find one please provide the URL and we will fix it.

Existing bugs about issues mentioned here:

Secure certificate not properly setup, says untrusted site
http://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1403

Users confused because new username doesn't work
http://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1612

New bug reports filed with feedback from this thread:

Explicit feedback channels
http://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1660

List of all downloads
http://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1661

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

The Midgard/Wiki Search is still not functioning correctly, and the Search box in the top right of the page is useless - the Search actually takes you to a hidden" Search page where you by default search the maemo.ord documentation (even if you intended to search for something else) and the main site navigation toolbar now has a "Search" item tacked on the end which is not present on any other page. All very strange, not to mention confusing. A better option would be to make the Search in the top right corner a simple hyperlink to the real Search page.

Now that we have accessed the hidden Search page, it's possible to filter search queries against various areas of the site - eg., just the Maemo Wiki. So I search for the term "BluetoothDUN" against "maemo wiki" - which should find this BluetoothDUN Wiki page - yet it brings up three links but not the page I'm searching for. It turns out that BluetoothDUN is actually in the "maemo.org documentation" section, even though it's partial URL clearly states it's a maemowiki document and it certainly used to be a Wiki document in the old site.

I rarely search maemo.org for any useful documentation these days, it's massively less searchable than the old site. The Search functionality needs something of an overhaul and better implementation within the navigation - the top right search is pointless and confusing, the hidden search offers more functionality but it's existence is not obvious etc. and some documents appear to have been placed in the wrong section.

I can put this in Bugzilla if you like.

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

My (mis?)understanding was that maemo.org is for end users to download third party apps and garage.maemo.org is for developers - I'm pretty sure that "tableteer" has a link to maemo.org for end users? If not, where should end users be looking for games and such? Anyways it will be interesting to see what the cleanup of maemo.org you have planned by August looks like. As far as sending end users over here for help - may the gods have mercy on them :eek: !

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

I've never liked Linux much because apps and ports never seem to get "polished", debugged and documented enough to be "end user quality". Even commercially developed code like Opera make you hack into hidden files just to set neccessary things like the minimum font size :eek: ! I'd personally NEVER bet my project on the Linux developer community turning out Windows or Mac quality apps. The only Linux distro I ever liked was the Lindows (now Linspire) one where they have set up a wonderful app install website where all apps have been ported and are supported by their own engineers. I actually gave them money for their product although I never ended using it - and I'm not one for paying for software ;) . I really hoped they could "end-userize" Linux to the point where it would be a serious competitor to Windows, Windows CE, Mac OS, and Palm OS. I'd love to dump Windows but there is just too much good software out there (commercial and freeware) written for it. Anyways thank you Nokia folks for doing what you can for this product - we all feel your pain!

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

The search related bugs are submitted and the fixes should come very soon:

No maemo wiki specific search
http://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1381

Search database needs total refresh
http://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1302

The application catalog is still in maemo.org because is offering not only stable/beta versions but also all the rest of applications, and from a Nokia point of view this is something to be kept out of mainstream end users.

The jump from Tableteer to maemo.org to find more apps is the current solution but not the final one. Tableteer wants to increase its offer of stable, reliable and exciting third party applications. We are working on a process for applications to jump from maemo to Tableteer based on quality awareness, self tests and some manual testing done by us at Nokia as well, plus some editorial criteria.

Garage is a place to look for projects/people but nobody stops you from downloading the software there. downloads.maemo.org and the extras repository are the proposed places to get the applications.

About where to send end users, ideas are welcome at

Tableteer promo in homepage is confusing
http://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1298

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

Thanks for the info about your plans to make this all more end-user friendly. Sounds like you have a good plan there. I'll put away my tooth and fingernail extractors now that we got you guys to open up a bit to us <grin>.

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

Well, I am not employed at Nokia, so only I was trying to explain the things that I could know. I know that maemo people are working hard ( these days not :) ) in order that the maemo project 'triumphs', specially in maemo.org that is where it's more possible to observe.
Perfect that Quim could have explained with more detail every thing, even in his holidays. This it's the way.


Cheers.

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

Out of curiosity, I tried the register and I am redirected to garage.
I successfully register at garage. But the garage username/password does not work on maemo.org.

Funny!
tableteer - Users
maemo - Community
garage.maemo - Developers, Geeks, Hackers

Problems:
tableteer: does not have list of open/3rd party software on it.
Do you expect users to browse on the software repository on N800?
The list is far too unintuitive for average users.
A simple software catalogue of common software should be introduced there.
maemo and garage.maemo should merge!
N800 is difficult to use already to make every one a hacker level.
In my opinion, one of the most fatal part of the maemo web-site is the wrong decision to use G-forge.
The sourceforge like structure and organization is too inflexible and dull to everyone. I really didn't see there are more than 1000 application for maemo that needs a big repository for project spaces. A more Wiki style multi-level editing with a responsible moderator will give users and developers much more present experience.
It is now Web2.0 time, come on. The infra-structure on how easy for everyone to contribute and collaborate determine the success of all web site and web related products. If things still get old and slow, people will give up and things becomes legacy - go back to stone age.

It would be hard for them to react at this moment. :)
Let's have a little bit patience and see what they to in August.

Yours faithfully,

meowson

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

You are supposed to use your psychic powers to contact the "other side" where your spirit guide will tell yoiu that registering for "garage" will eventually get you registered on the main site. Nokia says 20 minute delay but I tried for at least an hour before giving up - but it did work the next day. Nokia hasn't actually stated that they will tell you about how this works on the site but I hope they will eventually? Read this entire thread for what the horse's mouth said.

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

Yes, it works! It is magic! Not very intuitive though.

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

I wasn't even aware that garage.maemo.org and maemo.org were separate sites.

I created a login for what I thought was maemo.org, but it turned out to be for garage.maemo.org and doesn't work on maemo.org. If nothing else this confusion should be resolved by creating a separate domain for the user centric site and one for the crunchheads.

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

Why not take the useful info in maemo's wiki and put it into the ITT wiki? This would be a big help. People can even just cut and paste and help to improve the ITT wiki without having to type or think much. :)

I agree that this links are wierd on maemo.org and some info is buried in the developer how-to instead of in the wiki which is hard to find and about as confusing as I think this long sentence I am writing right now is. (inhale).

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

One of the first sites a new N800 user goes to is Maemo.org. Unfortunately, in the past they were greeted with bad certificate pop-ups, inability to register or log-in, searches that brought back results that were only relevant to the 770, etc.
This was a bad first impression and sometimes the start of a poor attitude when the user eventialy ended up here at itT.

There have been some huge improvements though, but there is still one issue that bugs me to all 'ell.

Because OS2008 is new I thought I could check in daily to see if the number of apps available has changed on the title page @ http://downloads.maemo.org/OS2008
I would then look through the categories to see if there was something useful.

For the longest time it had been 26, then it went to 29, then back to 26, then up to 34, then back down to 26. At one time it was 54, now it is again at 26...

What's up with that?

I have flushed my cache, then even cleared my cookies to be sure, I've checked from all the various machines I have access to and still this number fluctuates. Why have it listed at all if it is not reliable?

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

IIRC, it does work on maemo.org, you just have to give it a bit of time to get propogated over or something. I seem to recall the sign-up page or an email said something like that.

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

I don't know why either, but here's the bug report:

https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2488

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

I signed up for a maemo.org account, and get the following error after attempting to verify my account. Anyone else have a similar experience, and any solutions?

"Access denied

Credentials you entered do not correspond to valid account."

Thanks.

Re: Maemo.org useless?
 

I don't know about that, but I got the new 2008-compatible Notecase there yesterday, so it's not useless from my perspective. And I've gotten early versions of lots of fascinating software there.