What is the future for the n900 from now? meego or no updates or nothing? - Page 18 - maemo.org

Texrat | # 171 | 2010-08-06, 16:08 | Report

Originally Posted by Laughing Man View Post

Yeah..but as much as I love my computer in my pocket I am willing to sacrifice the computer aspect and get an Android smartphone if nobody else decides to join in on Meego. Surprisingly it isn't this whole issue that has me fed up with Nokia (though it's annoying how maemo gets kicked around). It's the continual refusal to acknowledge the USB port is an issue and to just fix it like Microsoft does for RROD.

Oh and they stiffed me the $50 they still owe me for the rebate.

I'm just offering one rationale why some of us stick with this over-extended experiment.

But I'll confess here and now: I'm at my wit's end, too. At least as a Nokia employee I could act as a user advocate and had direct channels to those who could improve things; on the outside the best I can manage is as a community council rep, and despite serious effort on all of our parts we still struggle to improve Nokia-community communications, much less get a real seat at the table (blog article brewing).

There are plenty of times lately I'm ready to say "Screw it: Android is awesome. Time to move on." But as one of the original Internet Tablet team my stubborn pride keeps me doing what little I can to make this insanity sane.

Regardless, abject griping is a waste of everyone's time-- most especially the griper's. Amazes me that some can't see that.

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Laughing Man | # 172 | 2010-08-06, 16:08 | Report

Originally Posted by fatalsaint View Post

Acceptable response.. but something to consider:

Look at the plethora of Android ROM's out there.. this could go to my total lack of understanding of the very very very low-levels of Android.. but how can they build ROM's for Devices without the drivers?

Now.. I'd understand if the core kernel/linux/drivers stay the same when you flash an android ROM and you just update the Davlik-Half-asked-sucky-Java VM on top.. but I don't think that's the case.

In my understand you are flashing a whole kernel and everything.. and the only thing any of the android guys have gotten in trouble for (to my knowledge) was Cyanogen distributing Google's stuff. So they have to be getting their drivers from somewhere..

(Although, and there's a caveat here: I do remember having to jump through hoops to update the radio on the G1 for things like the DANGER-SPL...)

I think most ROMs backup the kernel and drivers before flashing a new one. Not sure though.

Originally Posted by attila77 View Post

Ovi Maps can't go in vanilla MeeGo (just as Google Maps can't go into plain Android, but it's a long story...). The point is that you can even open-source the code of the application and give it everybody, the actual product is the data, which is very heavily controlled, with Navteq/Teleatlas on the kill-switch. And data is super-expensive to obtain and keep up-to-date. Don't let the fact that you as a customer don't pay extra, it's just being financed by other means. Unless you're talking about Ovi Maps using openstreetmap as a back-end, but would you really trust that as reliable source for navigation ?

Ah, but doesn't Nokia own one of those companies? I was thinking they could provide the maps for free then sell the data they get from it. Similar to how Google uses the data everyone sends them. I didn't realize Google Maps wasn't a part of plain Android though.

fatalsaint | # 173 | 2010-08-06, 16:12 | Report

Originally Posted by Laughing Man View Post

I
Ah, but doesn't Nokia own one of those companies? I was thinking they could provide the maps for free then sell the data they get from it. Similar to how Google uses the data everyone sends them. I didn't realize Google Maps wasn't a part of plain Android though.

Nope. Maps, Market, Voice, Sky Map, and several others are google proprietary apps. Those are what Cyanogen actually got into trouble for.

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Frappacino | # 174 | 2010-08-06, 16:24 | Report

There will be no major commercial support, maybe very small bugfixes here and there, but to Nokia the N900 is baggage they want to forget. Anyone disputing this has their head in the sand or are being willfully deceptive.

All major support will be community from now on, and of course by its nature community support is voluntary and free, so do not expect timely fixes or all projects to get finished - because at anytime community ppl with expertise can (and will) drop out of the picture. So its best to view any community efforts as a BONUS to what is available now.

so basically if you bought the n900 for support and are NOT happy with what the N900 is NOW, then SELL the N900 and get something else like andriod or iphone where there IS evidence of effort by compnaies to support such phones (unlike Nokia where the evidence is that Nokia wants to forget Maemo ASAP).

Otherwise you just waste your time, life is short as it is.

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Stskeeps | # 175 | 2010-08-06, 16:33 | Report

Just wondering, did anyone bother to ask what exactly what kind of commitment exists regarding the MeeGo hardware adaptation for Nokia N900, instead of guessing?

Let me draw out some phases of a hardware adaptation:

1) Optionally adapt the OS to your chipset (ARM, X86, MIPS, whatever) . This was done initially by a cooperative effort by the same team currently bringing you MeeGo to N900 (ever wondered why we're called #meego-arm ?), the LF guys and the Intel OS&release guys with some help and guidance.

2) Upstream kernel changes to Linux kernel as this is a requirement for inclusion in MeeGo kernel. This means that when a change breaks MeeGo kernel, it gets noticed and fixed

3) Port any hardware support bits (BME, 3d accelerator drivers, WiFi firmware). Make scripts that fix issues/add features specific to the device that would be different from the base system.

4) Testing, testing, testing. A large bunch of test cases is getting written, problems found in hardware adaptation.

5) Feature completion. All the code is there matching hardware capabilities and has to be maintained.

From there on, things follow the 'seasons' of MeeGo, check out the typical release timeline

The most important phase is the Intrusive Change Phase, where our world may be turned upside down. This is where resources are needed the most. Kernel developers for instance.

Next up is feature development, where a hardware adaptation team is not really doing much if it's already feature complete.

Then there's stabilization, fix bugs... and so on.

What I'm saying is, people are both overestimating and sometimes underestimating what it takes to maintain a hardware adaptation in MeeGo.

Rest of MeeGo will get developed for sure, I mean, it is supposed to be the basis of a large bunch of devices, including Nokia's. A hardware adaptation is what, less than 3% of the code in any given MeeGo N900 image? Rest of this comes directly from the MeeGo project. Core, Handset, and so on. Taking binaries directly.

We're trying hard in MeeGo for N900 to open up for others to help contribute, though we have difficulties at times, but try to lessen them. We're trying to do the hard initial work and work out what it takes to maintain things - including open sourcing key pieces.

It'd be stupid if we spent ages on making a proper hardware adaptation and then just let it to rot after MeeGo 1.1. A lot of QA time spent, developer time. Consider our work momentum to keep the ball rolling in the future - and to keep having momentum by maintaining this work.

Now, will you go test the development images (yes, we uploaded a MeeGo image), report the bugs in the images, submit merge requests to our scripts and code in the hardware adaptation or contribute to MeeGo in general or even discuss the work and direction? By having as many contributors now as possible, the faster we get the work done, including these early contributors becoming experts in 'MeeGo on N900', making them capable of maintaining things in the future.

Many of you succeeded in building own MeeGo N900 images using .ks'es. Congratulations - that's first step any team members who has been doing MeeGo on N900 have had to do. Now, what's your next move?

Last edited by Stskeeps; 2010-08-06 at 16:36.

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Grok | # 176 | 2010-08-06, 16:36 | Report

IMO Android is not as awesome as some people think. There are WiFi connectivity issues across the board and the support from the android community is no where close to the quality that this community provides. HTC phone-in support has been apathetic and disinterested too.

Good luck with Android.

attila77 | # 177 | 2010-08-06, 16:36 | Report

Originally Posted by fatalsaint View Post

Ok, I'll concede that point and it makes sense. Speaking currently though, any devices with Froyo and getting Froyo are expected to get Flash 10.1.. correct?

Expected (from major vendors), yes, guaranteed, no. Realistically, currently there is an armv7 target - for phones sporting these (CortexA8 base, Snapdragon), you'll very likely have Flash 10.1, but there is nothing saying you can't put FroYo on a different hardware base (X86, ARM11, whatever) in which case you're SOL with Flash, regardless of FroYo.

imperiallight | # 178 | 2010-08-06, 16:38 | Report

Originally Posted by

Just wondering, did anyone bother to ask what exactly what kind of commitment exists regarding the MeeGo hardware adaptation for Nokia N900, instead of guessing?

Are we looking at an 1.1 OS port release date possibly well before any official Meego device. Or will it have to be after its released?

Last edited by imperiallight; 2010-08-06 at 16:41.

Stskeeps | # 179 | 2010-08-06, 16:41 | Report

Originally Posted by imperiallight View Post

Are we looking at an OS port release date possibly prior to any official Meego device. Or will it have to be after its released?

We follow MeeGo 1.1 release schedule and just started having our first weekly image published to the general N900-owning populace.

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imperiallight | # 180 | 2010-08-06, 16:45 | Report

I see, some users will be thinking of a new device by then I reckon.

But:

Originally Posted by

Rest of MeeGo will get developed for sure, I mean, it is supposed to be the basis of a large bunch of devices, including Nokia's. A hardware adaptation is what, less than 3% of the code in any given MeeGo N900 image? Rest of this comes directly from the MeeGo project. Core, Handset, and so on. Taking binaries directly.

We're trying hard in MeeGo for N900 to open up for others to help contribute, though we have difficulties at times, but try to lessen them. We're trying to do the hard initial work and work out what it takes to maintain things - including open sourcing key pieces.

It'd be stupid if we spent ages on making a proper hardware adaptation and then just let it to rot after MeeGo 1.1. A lot of QA time spent, developer time. Consider our work momentum to keep the ball rolling in the future - and to keep having momentum by maintaining this work.

Should mean that users should be clearer about its future. Thanks