Intel and Nokia Provide First MeeGo Release

wehe writes "The first fruit of the cooperation between Intel and Nokia is available: the first release of MeeGo. MeeGo is a merge of the former Maemo and Moblin Linux distros. What is available now is 'The MeeGo distribution infrastructure and the operating system base from the Linux kernel to the OS infrastructure up to the middleware layer. The MeeGo architecture is based on a common core across the different usage models, such as netbooks, handheld, in-vehicle, and connected TV.' The images available now for download are suitable for Intel Atom-based netbooks, ARM-based Nokia N900, and Intel Atom-based handset (Moorestown). RPM repositories as well as git source repositories are there for download, too."

Comments

Does it come with a brain cannister?

[Gothmolly]

You know, for flying through the cold, dark spaces?

Re:Does it come with a brain cannister?

[Phase Shifter]

Really, It should be simple enough to build one for yourself. Every outpost on Yuggoth has a few places where you can get all the parts you need.

Re:Does it come with a brain cannister?

[Nyrath the nearly wi]

Somebody was trying to arrange a contest for artist to make an illustration of a cute and cuddly Mi-go from Yuggoth to use as a mascot for Meego. Sort of like a Lovecraftian "Tux" the penguin.

Re:Does it come with a brain cannister?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Unfortunately, ever since we committed the dreadfully insulting mistake of demoting Yuggoth from "Planet" to "Kuipier belt object", the fungi have had an embargo against us. Despite the general corruption and mismanagement of the UN Brain Canisters for Food program, they are still awfully hard to come by...

We really need dates

[Nexus7]

Um, not what it sounds like.

What I mean is, articles posted should have a date, instead of "5ish" or something.

I mean, Meego actually released for the N900.
India fingerprinting and photographing every resident for a census.
Microsoft fixing 1800 bugs using "fuzzing."

What is truth, what is fiction? What was posted on April 1st? How will an advanced civilization far off in the future know? For that matter, how can I tell?

Or is it in the account preferences?

Re:We really need dates

[loutr]

"Posted by kdawson on 14:55 Friday 02 April 2010"

That's what I see under the post title. Is that what you're talking about ? If so, yes, you can change the date format in your preferences.

Re:We really need dates

[Anonymous Coward]

Biggest Slashdot 4-digit UID cluelessness award goes to: you.

Re:We really need dates

[netdur]

You have been trolled

Disappointing

[Rysc]

I am quite saddened that this new system will not be Debian-based. One of the little joys of my n900 is that it is Debian underneath. I cannot imagine that switching to a Fedora base will make anything better, and I expect it will make many things worse.

Re:Disappointing

[ultrabot]

I cannot imagine that switching to a Fedora base will make anything better, and I expect it will make many things worse.

MeeGo is not using Fedora base, it's a new distribution that happens to use RPM.

While it probably was not reason for the switch (they cite existing infrastructure and people intel have in place), RPM packaging is allegedly easier than Debian packaging (only need to edit one file and you are good to go).

Re:Disappointing

[glasserc]

Most people who care seem to share your opinion. I'm a little upset about it too, but remember that the original Maemo system wasn't "quite" Debian based -- you couldn't just apt-get whatever you wanted. There were some incompatibilities with the standard Debian repos. That's why they had the easy-debian-chroot package, and that was what I really loved about Maemo. To be honest, I don't care a whole lot whether the Application Manager is a frontend to apt or yum. As long as I have my easy-deb-chroot, I'll be happy :)

Nokia is the biggest hardware company out there that I think really "gets it". So I'm still taking a position of cautious optimism.

Ethan

Re:Disappointing

[Rysc]

RPM packaging is not allegedly easier, it's far easier. That said, I think if you learn to make Debian packages you will find that you get a better and more consistent result than with RPM packages. It's harder to make mistakes because the process is less forgiving (just my opinion).

Re:Disappointing

[Rysc]

I care whether the application manager is a front end for apt-get or yum because when there are 15 pending updates I don't have to click through each one, I can just drop to a terminal, become root and apt-get upgrade. With yum I don't know how to do this and don't care to learn it. I have been burned too many times by redhat-based distros to want to have anything to do with them.

Re:Disappointing

[Anonymous Coward]

"yum update"

There now, that wasn't so hard.

Re:Disappointing

[idontgno]

I care whether the application manager is a front end for apt-get or yum because when there are 15 pending updates I don't have to click through each one, I can just drop to a terminal, become root and apt-get upgrade.

Go root, "yum update". All done tout de suite.

With yum I don't know how to do this and don't care to learn it.

Ah, belligerent and willfully ignorant. That's a winning personality package you've got going there.

I have been burned too many times by redhat-based distros to want to have anything to do with them.

QQ. So don't use MeeGo. I administer both deb and rpm systems, and have for over five years, and they've screwed me equally in terms of package management. Debian is not the Messiah (yes, it's a very naughty packaging system), and RPM is not the Great Satan. Get over fanboi-ism and at least make credible reality-based arguments if you have to take sides.

Re:Disappointing

[steak]

With yum I don't know how to do this and don't care to learn it.

attitudes like this are what lead people to say things like "cry more noob" and RTFM. if you can't be bothered to type yum --help how did you ever learn how to use apt.

or maybe i forgot to wear my troll proof tin foil hat this morning.

Re:Disappointing

[Lunix Nutcase]

Who still faces DLL hell in Windows? I thought every application just install all the dlls it needs in it's own directory. Do you have any examples of DLL hell that aren't 10 years old?

Re:Disappointing

[spikeb]

dpkg can't handle dependency hell either - compare apples to apples.

Re:Disappointing

[Lunix Nutcase]

That's the thing. I haven't seen a real example of DLL hell in years. Most people either statically compile everything or they just ship all the needed dlls to the installed folder.

Re:Disappointing

[MrHanky]

Sure. Bioshock installed via Steam on Windows 7 64 bit recently. It just didn't work, and gave no proper error message. I believe it needed some vintage or other of Microsoft's C++ libraries.

Re:Disappointing

[Rysc]

Packages converted with alien can have significant issues. What's more, they require hand installation. I prefer to get my software automatically via apt.

Re:Disappointing

[Rysc]

I can see years ago when you would want .deb and apt packaging over anything .rpm based, but those days are in the past. Both are fine these days.

This is what people have been telling me for years, and yet every time I actually use Fedora and yum I find that it is laughably inferior. Some part of this is the fact that I am not very familiar with the tools, I am sure, but being unfamiliar should not be such a barrier. Maybe it's time to go and try them all again! Has yum improved that much since Fedora 9? Can you safely do online upgrades between major versions with arbitrary third party packages and repos? If not, I don't want it! I have several systems where I installed Debian in 2001 (version 2.2 'potato') and they are now running current stable releases. I definitely, *definitely* want this for my phone!

If you're looking for new features and innovation, you need to look at Red Hat and Novell. They're the ones paying tons of developers. Fedora is often bleeding edge. You get the advantages and disadvantage that come with being bleeding edge, but I don't think Fedora is inherently worse than Debian.

I appreciate that Red Hat sinks money into development, and they have truly written some good software, but the fact that they're pushing the envelope doesn't mean that their crummy testbed distribution should be used as the basis for anything. It also doesn't mean that their less-crummy stable distribution (RHEL) should be used as the basis for anything! If they put more time in to good design, robustness and correctness and less time in to gee-whiz new features maybe their system would suck less. Debian might be designed by committee, but at least it's (generally) designed and not just smooshed together until it sticks.

Re:Disappointing

[Urkki]

That's the thing. I haven't seen a real example of DLL hell in years. Most people either statically compile everything or they just ship all the needed dlls to the installed folder.

Indeed. And due to this, these days this bloat has gotten so bad, that applications and duplicate DLLs may take whopping 10% of your hard disk space (or even more if you have an exceptionally small hard disk). And better not calculate how much this hard disk space costs, it's mind-boggling!

Re:Disappointing

[PiSkyHi]

I wouldn't call the boy who doesn't choose to keep touching the hotplate screaming "Yowww!" willfully ignorant.

I would say in my experience, Debian packages have sufficient dependancy management to make a mistake, complete your installation and then return to fix it whilst maintaining a working system the whole time. For a long time, Redhat packages seemed somewhat disconnected - it seemed to be impossible for the package manager to just follow your request and follow all dependencies until your request is satisfied with one command line. When you make a mistake with Debian, it can appear big becasue of the chains it follows, like trying to remove openssl - but the fix is simple and returns all to a working system - you can even do things like hold the kernel upgrades from being automatic so that you can keep your current module set on a production system.

I don't know if this situation has changed, why would I care since Debian has always been better at this in the past?

Re:Disappointing

[PiSkyHi]

oh yum do I love pain.

Re:Disappointing

[drinkypoo]

Just as Maemo isn't quite Debian, Moblin isn't quite Fedora. Moblin 2.0 was based on FC10, with the libraries they needed updated having had this done to them. Unfortunately this causes serious problems trying to bring packages from FC10 to Moblin 2.0; you need to use parts of the FC10 repos. In the end it becomes a terrible snarling mess. There's a Moblin respin of Ubuntu Netbook Remix, which won't help you with a phone, but which will probably help a lot of people with intel-based netbooks find a decent, non-confounded OS with good package support. Moblin users should anticipate rebuilding much of the OS in /usr/local if they want any modern packages.

Re:Disappointing

[Rysc]

I've read the yum man page and tried to work with it many times. I don't care to touch it ever again. It makes simple things stupidly complicated and in general does not work. I actually had a far *better* opinion of yum before I ever used it. An equivalent of apt it is not.

Re:Disappointing

[steak]

i have used both apt and yum and never had any problems with either that couldn't easily be resolved. the fact that so many people say things similar to what your saying without any context leads me to believe you all haters.

No Intel GMA500 / Poulsbo Support?

[DaGoodBoy]

Half the available netbooks are running the GMA500 / Poulsbo and there hasn't been any support by Intel for Linux drivers since 2008. How can they claim MeeGo will support netbook and MID hardware without accelerated video drivers for their own product?

Re:No Intel GMA500 / Poulsbo Support?

[rwa2]

Word... I'd love to throw these little mouse-sized computers at everything for work, but can't really use their binary driver packages that can only really be shoehorned in to a particular ubuntu release.

Had to go with a mini-itx nVidia ION platform instead... which admittedly has much better performance and driver support, but is ~8 times the size and thus actually needs space and mounting hardware allocated for it. I wish some manufacturer would sell the nano-itx ION reference platform (hint hint easy money)... that was almost as small as a Fit-PC2 and had all the interfaces we wanted. But blargh.

Re:No Intel GMA500 / Poulsbo Support?

[kraln]

Have you looked at Jolicloud? It offers support for Poulsbo out of the box with no dicking around. After six months of a mostly unusable Dell Mini 10, Jolicloud installed and just worked. Fixed the wifi bugaboos too.

Re:No Intel GMA500 / Poulsbo Support?

[dargaud]

Why do they sell those mini PCs and think people will want to either install the latest Vista on it or run it with the provided OS (whatever that is, including Linux in many cases) where the support stops as soon as it's past your mailbox and into which most of the drivers have hardly any examples. You want to sell them ? Simple, provide open-source drivers and documentation for them.

Re:No Intel GMA500 / Poulsbo Support?

[DaGoodBoy]

That's great! I've been poking through their package mods and it looks like some real he-man coding was needed to get all this working with a more modern kernel and Xorg than it was originally intended. I need to send these guys a beer!

Unfortunately, my big needs aren't as simple as distro that works with the future-ported Poulsbo drivers. People and companies developing Linux products on netbooks and MIDs need those drivers in the mainline Linux kernel and Xorg source to gain wider general use, code reviews and more widespread testing. OEMs want to get a warm fuzzy that the drivers will still work and will still be maintained a year or two from now. As much as I love what I see in Jolicloud, I doubt many people will be willing to bet their company on them continuing to provide this Poulsbo support if Intel isn't willing to update their official drivers.

Thanks for the lead!

Encouraging

[Kludge]

And thank goodness, I say. One of the little disappointments of my little N900 is that it uses debian packaging system, and I can't even tell what date which packages were installed.

Re:Encouraging

[MrHanky]

I believe the package's corresponding .list file in /var/lib/dpkg/info/ is generated at install, so you should be able to get the install date from the date of that file.

Re:Encouraging

[Rysc]

You can't tell only if you don't want to tell. While it's not easily exposed this information is effectively available.

$ ls -l /var/lib/dpkg/info/packagename.list

The datestamp on this should correspond to when you installed it.

Debian is a far, far better platform for building distributions than Fedora or any RPM-based distro that I've seen. I understand that Intel had 'expertise' already in doing it the RPM way, but this is a poor excuse for doing harm to your customers.

Re:Encouraging

[21mhz]

but this is a poor excuse for doing harm to your customers.

In what way, pray tell?

Re:Encouraging

[CAIMLAS]

Debian package manipulation tools are more advanced/mature and are able to gracefully deal with fringe conditions/scenarios than RPM. While the packages may be easier to make, the end result appears to be:

* Debian distros degrade much more gracefully over time/use.
* Upgrades and non-standard (IE 3rd party repository) packages tend to not break things as severely.
* The package system is somewhat more atomic, allowing for function even with broken packages.
* You are able to (statefully) recover from source-based installs as well as non-packaged binary installs.

Re:Encouraging

[Hurricane78]

Portage is even more advanced. And I don’t even talk about Paludis.
I don’t get why people still love to live in dependency hell (or DLL hell)...

Re:Encouraging

[bill_mcgonigle]

Could you explain these in a way that somebody used to RPM could understand?

* Debian distros degrade much more gracefully over time/use.

What does this mean? That you can leap several major versions without dependency resolution problems? The feature of debian's system that I miss in a Fedora system is multiple concurrent versions of the same package, so maybe that's what you're getting at?

* Upgrades and non-standard (IE 3rd party repository) packages tend to not break things as severely.

I use several 3rd-party repos with Fedora and haven't seen any breakage, much less severe. There was a time when poor repo maintainers would do things like publish their own kernels randomly with higher version numbers, but that evolved repo prioritization.

How does debian improve this?

* The package system is somewhat more atomic, allowing for function even with broken packages.

Do you mean the packages tend to be bundled more loosely (one library per package, etc.)? That seems like a human decision. How does an RPM-based system fail to function if there's a broken package? Usually, broken packages refuse to install.

* You are able to (statefully) recover from source-based installs as well as non-packaged binary installs.

How does debian improve on the rpm-based method of re-installing (optionally rebuilding) the affected package?

TIA.

Re:Encouraging

[Rysc]

I use several 3rd-party repos with Fedora and haven't seen any breakage, much less severe.

"Works for me" is not the same as robust and bug free.

Debian has a long history of working well with "third party" repos--this is because Debian was *designed* to be a base with "third party" repos layered on top. Fedora was not designed this way and (last I knew) was a bit schizophrenic when it comes to non-main repos. In Debian this use case was handled years before yum was even written.

There was a time when poor repo maintainers would do things like publish their own kernels randomly with higher version numbers, but that evolved repo prioritization.

Another feature Debian had long before Fedora got it (except that apt pinning can work at the package level, too). This is useful to illustrate why Debian is better at package management: As in this case, Debian has had a longer history and has hit a wide range of use cases, corner cases and issues. This doesn't mean rpm/yum won't become as good eventually, it just means it is perpetually behind the curve. Even if there were no inherent differences or superiorities to apt this would be a good reason to use it in favor of yum.

Re:Encouraging

[Rysc]

but this is a poor excuse for doing harm to your customers.

In what way, pray tell?

Not trying to be flamebait, but switching from a superior packaging system to an inferior one has great potential to harm the end user.

Debian's packaging system is robust and stable. Upgrading phones should "just work" without any fear of breakage. Using apt this is known to work and it is not known that yum is superior. I would add that I have seen only unconvincing arguments that yum is even as good as apt, so I call it inferior.

Re:Encouraging

[21mhz]

* Debian distros degrade much more gracefully over time/use.
* Upgrades and non-standard (IE 3rd party repository) packages tend to not break things as severely.

I have used both packaging systems for quite some time, and I cannot confirm these statements. Both seem quite equally capable when managed well. Which is how MeeGo repositories are supposed to be.

* The package system is somewhat more atomic, allowing for function even with broken packages.

This is interesting, because in Maemo we had a big dpkg whopper: packages left in "unconfigured" state because there is a file conflict, or a dependency conflict. Considering that most users will only use Application Manager with little capabilities of resolving such things, I think "something more atomic" would suit MeeGo better. And rpm behaves completely atomically in this regard.

* You are able to (statefully) recover from source-based installs as well as non-packaged binary installs.

Oh, so you are the kind of user who not only does such things on your mobile device, but requires the system's assistance for it. You may find yourself getting a little less consideration from MeeGo architects, indeed.

Re:Encouraging

[Rysc]

Does portage support binary packages as well as apt? I really don't know a lot about it, but it was my impression that it does not.

Re:Encouraging

[21mhz]

So, you didn't really use rpm, yum, or apt-rpm, you don't know if they are as good, and therefore dpkg/apt is superior. Then there will be harm, mostly psychological in nature. I'm not sure there will be any for other users, you know, people who only see pretty icons on the screen and rarely open the text terminal. And it's those people, I'm afraid, who will decide if MeeGo is a viable mobile platform, or just another geek toy.

Re:Encouraging

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

"emerge -v openoffice-bin"

Yup, sure does (though you lose a lot of the benefit of portage when using binary packages - the ability to select which features are enabled or disabled in the package, potentially eliminating some dependencies, for example).

Re:Encouraging

[ultrabot]

Upgrading phones should "just work" without any fear of breakage. Using apt this is known to work and it is not known that yum is superior. I would add that I have seen only unconvincing arguments that yum is even as good as apt, so I call it inferior.

Whether upgrade works or not is the result of hard work of people preparing the upgrade, not some "magic" provided by apt/yum.

Re:Encouraging

[Steve Max]

"RPM-based" != "Fedora-based", and "rpm" != "yum". You are saying Debian is better than Fedora, but nothing of what you said applies to general RPM packages. In fact, you can use apt to handle RPMs (Conectiva used it a long time ago, and now at least PCLinuxOS does so). In fact, I see no significant advantages between .deb and .rpm; there are more differences when comparing the higher level tools (apt, yum, zypper, etc).

Re:Encouraging

[Nuno Sa]

100% correct.

Having worked with both I like deb/apt better. And in embedded/small environments even more. There's a reason why everything embedded runs debs (apt, ipkg, opkg, etc). Even the N770, N8xx, N900 are deb based.

Regarding the upgrades, usually apt is very capable. You can dist-upgrade debian since 199x? RPM based distros today can't do that. (there is some beta support that doesn't work)

If this was a poll I'd vote for apt.

Re:Encouraging

[mpol]

That may be true, I don't know.
But can we please get rid of the mess that is the cumulative patch? I just don't understand how Debian packagers survive through it. To me it's just a nightmare in maintainance.

Re:Encouraging

[Rysc]

Debian and apt are synonymous. Forget RPM and DPKG, we're talking apt vs. yum. High level design and actual implementation both conspire to make apt better.

And, in fact, Meego is based on Fedora. Maybe this is "based on" in a "Ubuntu is based on Debian" kind of way more than a pure derivative, but it's still based on Fedora.

Re:Encouraging

[Yfrwlf]

If that's true and there are better systems, someone should slap MeeGo for lagging in adoption of better software, as well as every other distro..

Just wake me up when someone pushes a packaging format/system which can be universallly implemented or which is so great it makes the big distros switch. Or fuck it, just make the damn standards for everyone to easily adopt to make it possible to install any software on any distro that adopts said standards, and I'll switch to whatever distro uses it or make a new one. :P

Hell, even a distro based on Zero Install might be better than nothing, at least it can be easily installed on any existing distro.

Re:Encouraging

[CAIMLAS]

What is this "dependency/DLL hell"? You're going to run into that issue with any binary distribution with a fairly determined set of packages and their versions, but the alternative is far more grisly: infinite combinations of installed packages.

From an administrative perspective, it is much, much more difficult to maintain and control when you're dealing with more than one system. There's a reason why the "proper" way to administer (say) FreeBSD machines is to use a single ports tree for all your machines: doing it otherwise is going to lead to a lot of inconsistency.

That inconsistency starts to become non-trivial when you've got 5 different versions of 4 different libraries on which half a dozen different packages depend - on 5 different hosts. It may or may not cause problems, but my experience is that it causes problems more often than binary packages do - both logistically, in that it's much more time consuming to stay on top of - and strategically, in that you've got a lot more "gotchas" when it comes to planning future systems/environments.

The only inherent advantage I can see in source based distributions is that you're able to much more finely customize your system. This can be very useful, and allows you to stick with a very specific version of a program while upgrading the library (or vice versa). The times when this is necessary, however, is slim. And it creates a system environment which, with each change from "baseline" creates something all that much more difficult to effectively support due to the 'fringe' nature of your install and the diminished knowledge/familiarity with the combinations of software. You better damn well need that heavy customization if you use it in a production environment.

Re:Encouraging

[CAIMLAS]

Actually, "Ubuntu is based on Debian" much more closely than than you appear to be aware; a better analogy would be "Knoppix is based on Debian". Many Debian packages have the same package maintainers as the Ubuntu package equivalent, and more often than not, many Ubuntu packages come straight from Debian's sid/testing/experimental releases.

Re:Encouraging

[Rysc]

I am precisely aware of the extent to which Ubuntu is based on Debian.

A pure based on Debian distribution simply uses Debian packages (probably with its own mirror) and adds some of its own. I was not claiming that this is what Meego has done wrt Fedora. I am claiming that the filesystem layout, naming conventions, and even package selections will be based on Fedora's. I don't know the extent to which Meego actually takes Fedora packages and modifies them, if any, but this doesn't invalidate the rest of the comparison. If there's an /etc/sysconfig/ and no /etc/network/interfaces, for example, then it's "based on Fedora" and not "based on Debian." If they are using RPMs but otherwise following the Debian policy manual then I withdraw the comparison.

How about statics

[Fri13]

Will MeeGo bring up the Linux OS static up on web sites in future? Linux OS (the monolithic kernel) is great example why Open Source OS works in servers, desktops, mobile devices, embedded systems and supercomputers.

But we should not just stay on Linux. Nokia should start using GNU's OS as well. Even that Hurd is not so mature OS as Linux is, it still has potential to be a such one. Only developers are missing. Maybe problem is that Hurd is with GPLv3 while Linux is GPLv2.

Now when Linux is the OS in the Android and MeeGo and it is used on many different desktop systems in its distributions focused to that usage, like Fedora, Mandriva, OpenSUSE, Debian and Ubuntu. We can start having such big steps on mobile side as well and then get people understand that Linux is just the monolithic OS and they can choose what kind different softwares they use as desktops and application programs they run. So in the end, there might be balance of desktop markets as well because of MeeGo (and Android).

Re:How about statics

[sensei moreh]

Maybe problem is that Hurd is with GPLv3 while Linux is GPLv2.

Maybe the problem with Hurd is that it's been over 20 years in the making and still not ready for prime time

Re:How about statics

[TeknoHog]

Will MeeGo bring up the Linux OS static up on web sites in future?

Only on non-dynamic web sites.

Cool!

[Yuioup]

Cool! I'll definitely try this on my EEE PC tonight.

Anyone know something about this?

[Gadget_Guy]

There is an amazing lack of information about MeeGo. What are the features? Any screenshots? I was considering the Nokia N900, but I was disappointed to hear that it didn't come with a word processor and spreadsheet like my old Nokia 9300. Will MeeGo fix this?

Re:Anyone know something about this?

[catbertscousin]

There is an amazing lack of information about MeeGo.

Not surprising, really. They take the brains of anyone who finds out too much about them and put them in cases for transport to other worlds for study while the ones on earth use the bodies to blend in with humanity. If you're going looking for info, I'd invest in some big, mean dogs. They don't like dogs.

Re:Anyone know something about this?

[Weezul]

The N900 supports reading Word Processor and Spreadsheet files just fine under Maemo, probably even edits them, but you must buy the app for that from Nokia's Ovi Store. Can't you just see the positive impact Apple has had already? Btw, you've also got several other free readers based around various Linux office suites, but Nokia doesn't polish those.

I'm pretty happy with my N900 over all, especially ssh, rsync, and x11vnc. Very solid VoIP integration. Awesome unixy apps like python, latex, vpnc, etc. You'll find the phone quite "raw" of course, like most apps don't support rotation, but overall worthwhile. I'd expect the next hardware revision from Nokia will give you a considerably more polished experience of course.

Re:Anyone know something about this?

[RoccamOccam]

It is my understanding that you can install OpenOffice if you are using Easy Debian on the N900. See, http://openattitude.com/2010/03/19/easy-and-amazing-debian-for-the-n900/

Re:Anyone know something about this?

[rwa2]

Heh, I'm in the same boat :P . Well, I could list a bunch of features I want (along with a platform that actually provides it)

• Google Maps Mobile (Android, iPhone, Blackberry, Symbian, and even some crappy phones that support java but NOT eeebuntu/Linux/Android-x86 :-( I really would like to be able to run this on a netbook!)
• Google Earth (Android, maybe iPhone, eeebuntu/windows ) It runs well on my netbook after fixing some of the libraries. But no GPS support (and I was a paying customer for that back in the Keyhole NV / Earth-Plus days) :P
• A decent PIM (Blackberry, PalmOS, maybe iPhone, but not Android :P )
• Google apps (Android, iPhone, Blackberry)
• Yahoo apps (iPhone, Blackberry, but not Android >:-P ) It would be nice to be able to check my spam account every once in a while, and while away time on Flikr. And yahoo did / still does a good job with human-optimized content before google made machine-generated search work well.
• Opera mini (OK, everything, which is probably why they'll ultimately win the browser wars after everyone replaces all their computers with smartphones)
• media player w/ streaming media (eeebuntu/windows, the rest is difficult to say, since they tend to rely on PC-based converters or specific distributor app support like Pandora, etc.)
• Flash support (eeebuntu/windows, N900, Android? but NOT iPhone)
• PalmOS emulation (N900 - woo, an upgrade path for oldskool Palm addicts that the Palm Pre doesn't even have!)
• usable thin clients like ssh, vnc, rdesktop, etc. (eeebuntu/windows , most other devices fail to provide enough virtual keyboard keys or mouse button support to be too useful)

So that's generally the kind of app support I'm looking for in a device... unfortunately, there doesn't really seem to be anything on the market that can run all that :P So I'm still running around with my old Palm TX tethered to a dumbphone while waiting for either the N900 or Android to mature and fill out some of their weak spots :-P

(BTW, I'm just guessing on the iPhone, since I've never actually played with one. But I've played with Apple stuff just enough to know it would drive me crazy with what things it would not let me do due to lame policy)

Re:Anyone know something about this?

[Rysc]

usable thin clients like ssh, vnc, rdesktop, etc.

The n900 is good for this, but it really helps to plug in a USB keyboard and video out to a bigger screen helps too--but these are mere device limitations and would not be a problem with maemo in e.g. a netbook.

Re:Anyone know something about this?

[anomnomnomymous]

I got Abi Word running on it, which is a free app.

Re:Anyone know something about this?

[An ominous Cow art]

Also, the extraterrestrial matter of which they are composed doesn't show up in screen shots.

Re:Anyone know something about this?

[Hadlock]

Me and my buddy were looking for screenshots when the code merger was first announced. There was one screenshot on the old site, but I think it was a Moblin 2.1 screenshot. I was a little shocked to see no screenshots for this release, either. For some reason, developers completely forget that screenshots are as important to initial adoption rates as trailers are to movies. If I can't see what it's going to look like in use, I'm certainly not going to download it to see what it's like, unless it's the only app that has that feature on the entire internet (not likely).

Re:Anyone know something about this?

[h0ss]

I'm glad SOMEONE else caught this.

Re:Anyone know something about this?

[drinkypoo]

I downloaded meego because I've just downloaded moblin 2.1 and was underwhelmed. My Aspire One D250-1165 won't resume from suspend properly, it just re-suspends itself after about two seconds every time. On the assumption that intel is abandoning moblin support for meego development, I've downloaded this new release. I just want a release of linux where everything works properly on my Aspire. For some reason it takes ages to DD onto my OCZ convertible SD card (it goes into a USB2 port also) so I'm thumb-twiddling now, and have plenty of time to write this comment :)

First DEVEL release

[Anonymous Coward]

Is not yet a desktop, it boots into a terminal. Don't install it in your (main?) N900 or replace your main operating system in your netbook with it, if you aren't developing applications for it and want to test them there. But can be installed in a USB key and test it from there if you are curious.

Re:First DEVEL release

[ultrabot]

It's not suitable for application developers either, there are no application development frameworks unless you count x libs.

If you want to make apps for future MeeGo, you can start now by making Qt apps for N900.

Finally

[ectoraige]

It has been a long time coming but this is proof that Linux has matured as an OS. Let me be the first to declare that 2010 will be the year of Linux on the brain cylinder.

Re:Finally

[Torodung]

My thoughts exactly. I understand this is a very popular distro in the state of Vermont.

--
V pna'g syl n xvgr, V yvir va n oenva plyvaqre.

Re:Finally

[ectoraige]

I thought FreeMSD and the other MSD variants were more popular out that way.

--
Pna lbh abg grgure lbhe oenva plyvaqre gb bar? Rira ba Lhttbgu gurer'f nyjnlf fbzr sha thlf.

Terminal only?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if the UI isn't there, I'm not sure what MeeGo is bringing to the table for netbooks with this release. There are already a bevy of distros tailored for running on the Atom. Without insight into the new MeeGo UI, it's hard to recommend bothering with what is there just now.

Re:Terminal only?

[steak]

how is it insightful to ask a question that could be easily answered by going to the website?

The phantom os

[paimin]

Mesa likes the little Jedi. Hesa gunna be a strong one.

Meego?

[Dubious Maximus]

I thought MeeGo stood for "Me Eyes Glaze Over".

Eww... PHB speak!

[Hurricane78]

to the OS infrastructure up to the middleware layer

It’s called libraries and demons! “middleware layer”... shit like that word could only come from a manager with no technical knowledge whatsoever.

Re:Eww... PHB speak!

[INeededALogin]

It’s called libraries and demons!

It's called... "Know your audience". Not all people are technical. If you want Linux to be palatable... you have to use easy to figure out vocabulary. If you told someone that Meego provides libraries and daemons... they may not quite get it. You tell them that it provides the middleware... they can figure out(without being technical) that is it the nice cloud of crap that an app needs to run.

Just because a term is too generic for you doesn't mean that it is bad.

Re:Eww... PHB speak!

[21mhz]

It’s called libraries and demons!

With all due respect, it's daemons.

Change for the sake of change

[pavon]

The concept of joining the efforts and creating MeeGo is a very good one, but the details that have been announced are not encouraging. Mameo was a mature shipping product with many developers. Moblin was a proof of concept with some interesting ideas. And yet in all the mundane details they seemed to favor what Moblin was using rather than Mameo. Package management isn't a huge deal. Back in the day apt was better than rpm, now aptitude and yum are pretty comparable, with only minor advantages and disadvantages. So why change which they are using for no compelling reason? Why would they choose the convenience of Intel over the convenience of an established developer and user community? It makes no sense whatsoever.

Re:rpm is a step backward, and rh based is idiotic

[Weezul]

I'm pretty sure a fully open source distribution for the N900 already exists, although I'm not sure how well they've reimplemented Nokia's proprietary packages. You could likewise repackage the new MeeGo distribution using .deb files.

Afaik, MeeGo is a new distribution based around the existing MobLin and Maemo projects, not RedHat. So ARM should have solid support just like under Maemo. I doubt that Nokia will expect that Intel handles their ARM support, not while their aging Symbian platform gets attacked by Android, iPhone OS, Web OS, etc.

Intel's MobLin project was originally based upon Debian too, but they switched to RPMs for various reasons, like the LSB and packaging ease. Nokia then signed on with Intel knowing they were switching package manager.

I'm sure most hard core users will happily follow Intel and Nokia's lead. We need one well-supported true linux distribution for mobile devices with a viable market place, otherwise all the polished apps will run on Android instead.

Re:rpm is a step backward, and rh based is idiotic

[Rysc]

Intel's MobLin project was originally based upon Debian too, but they switched to RPMs for various reasons, like the LSB and packaging ease. Nokia then signed on with Intel knowing they were switching package manager.

I believe you, but links please. LSB support under Debian has (in my somewhat outdated experience) been better than RH systems.

I know Nokia knew a distro/package formate/package manager switch was going to happen with the changeover, but I want to know why Nokia acquiesced and did it Intel's way and not the other way around. Where is the mailing list traffic documenting the technical discussion? I know it's two companies and suchforth but if you're trying to build the de-facto open Linux-based mobile platform then I want not only the source code, I want to see the ugly underbelly, I want to see the sausage made and I want to see the Intel people defend their chosen package manager, to see the basis for not using apt and dkpg, and I want to see the counter arguments, and I especially want to see the people arguing for apt admit that yum is the better solution. Even if the *reasons* are just practical ("We have 10,000 RPM packages, you guys only have 800 .deb packages, repackaging as .deb would take too long.") and not technical I want to see this argument and its conclusion.

I'm sure most hard core users will happily follow Intel and Nokia's lead. We need one well-supported true linux distribution for mobile devices with a viable market place, otherwise all the polished apps will run on Android instead.

Here here, I agree. But, I want the mobile Linux distribution to be based on Debian because Debian is a great base for distributions and is better in every conceivable way than the redhat-derived junk they're trying to peddle. I know that "unified platform" trumps "good platform"--Microsoft taught us that--but we can actually have both this time.

Now I just need a phone to run it on...

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

I can't afford an N900, and other than that one there are apparently no phones available for running Meego on as far as I can tell (LG's GW990 isn't due out for several months).

Anyone know how hard or easy it will end up being to re-flash, say, an older Android-based phone to run off of Meego instead?

Re:Now I just need a phone to run it on...

[drinkypoo]

Anyone know how hard or easy it will end up being to re-flash, say, an older Android-based phone to run off of Meego instead?

You'll need to take apart the Android image and slap the meego files on top of the existing kernel. That will give you a crippled version of meego with an antiquated kernel. In a similar fashion you can allegedly put Android on some ARM-core PDAs, using OpenEmbedded (Angstrom Linux) as the core... but I haven't even tried to get Angstrom to build in a while, historically I've only succeeded with lots of help from the mailing list, and my last few requests for help have gone unanswered. OpenEmbedded in my ass...

So far MeeGo is a gigantic failure. I just installed it on my Acer Aspire D250-1165 and got "localhost login:" Got it on the first try, u:root, p:meego. Thanks for that at least. Now, how do I start the GUI? Oh look, if I run X, no graphics. Nice work, Intel and Nokia. This is the kind of quality work I've come to expect from you two. I guess this is my great reward for buying a netbook with an intel chipset, compatibility! So compatible, even Intel can't figure it out! toolbags. This is eerily reminiscent of my Moblin experience, in which the machine can't properly suspend/resume.

Modification times?

[Kludge]

That's it? That's a system? Using the last modified date on a file? That may work for a make system, but for a supposed database of installed files, it falls short. How do I know those files were not modified for some other reason other than the install?

Re:rpm is a step backward, and rh based is idiotic

[Steve Max]

LSB dictates RPM packages, or at least highly encourages their usage.

joan jett

[joanjett]

The datestamp on this should correspond to when you installed it. http://www.squidoo.com/womensera

joanjett

[joanjett]

MeeGo is not using Fedora base, it's a new distribution that happens to use RPM. http://www.squidoo.com/womensera