Last but not the least day of Maemo Summit 2009.

The first talk was about Fremantle Starts (this name is really amazing :), a set of previously selected projects for Fremantle platform. These projects were selected by Maemo community itself and they also received special attention from community and Maemo.org. All of them are really interesting. As the other days, we had very interesting talks about different subjects, but all related to Maemo development.

I just presented my talk about IDE Integration project. Too short time (only 5 minutes), but it is was enough to give an overall description about IDE Integration project. I hope the community starts to use the components (ESbox, Pluthon, Mica, PC Connectivity and VM images) to help them during Maemo development.

Now, my overall impression about the event: it was absolutely amazing! Different profiles of maemo developers and maemo users made part of Maemo Summit 2009. Nokia and Forum Nokia fellows gave more information about newest Maemo device and Fremantle plaform. This really help developers to know what is going on inside Maemo platform and which are the future of such platform. In addition, important tips about Maemo development application and design were present. This is a key point to provide high-quality applications for end-users.

The 2nd and 3th days of Maemo Summit 2009 are being organized by Maemo community. Therefore, the sections are a little bit different from the 1st day: more technical details and more APIs. However, the focus is still on Maemo platform (Fremantle Harmattan versions) and Qt framework (on different aspects: Qt live and Qt Mobility).

Another important new: Web Runtime will also be available for Maemo 5 on Q1 2010. Considering that more and more devices have support for Internet access, this is really important. So far, there's no API to provide web-based applications for Maemo 5 as WRT for S60 devices. With WRT, it is possible to create very interesting applications really fast... and now, for Maemo 5 as well :)

Today, more talks with different participants: developers, Forum Nokia fellows, and much more. As I'm member of IDE Integration project, I asked if some of them (developers) know about the project... Unfurtunally, anyone know that IDE Integration has very interesting components to speed up Maemo development. This shows that, if you want to make your application be used by many developers, you also need to make it largelly visible for the community :(  Maybe, we should put information on Forum Nokia as well??

I'm sure that the 20 hours to arrive at Netherlands are worthy... Maemo Summit 2009 has just started :)

The first day was really interesting. There were great sections about UI design for Maemo 5, Qt for Maemo platform, Harmattan platform and Forum Nokia support. Also, 300 (yes, 300!) N900 devices was distributed to developers so we can provide feedback about applications and general aspects of newest Maemo device. However, these devices need to be returned after 6 months. Anyway, this is a good and unique experience for each developer that makes part of Maemo Summit 2009.

There are many guys from Forum Nokia here to get closer with Maemo community and see what they can provide to us as Maemo developers. I hope they (Maemo and Forum Nokia) be closer. IMHO, nobody provides better support for Nokia developers as Forum Nokia does: updated documentation, wiki, different kinds of company/developers programms (Forum Nokia Champion, Forum Nokia PRO, Forum Nokia Launchpad, etc...), and much more. On the other side, Maemo community provides the "spirit of freedom".

I'd like to thank for Janaina, Matt and Seppo (all of them from Forum Nokia) for the interesting talks and support. Thank you!

We proudly announce the Prefinal release of IDE Integration project. I've already talked about this projects on couple of posts, but just to remember you :)

• IDE Integration consists of a complete environment to develop Maemo applications on Linux, Windows and Mac OS systems;
• You can develop applications by using full-features IDEs (ESbox and Pluthon) on C, C++ or Python programming languages;
• You can launch/debug Maemo applications on local environment (emulator) or on device transparently;
• Communication with Internet Tablet is a lot easier with PC-Connectivity;
• Virtual machines with Maemo SDK development environment properly installed (for VMWare, VirtualBox and QEMU);
• Integrated documentation;
• Much more :)

I´ve already discussed about virtual machines with Maemo development environment properly installed. Such virtual machines are provided by IDE Integration project.

However, if you don´t want to use the virtual machine and simply use Scratchbox as built and launch environment? For non-Linux users, the installation process may become a nightmare: scripts, targets, repositories and shell-based interface. Based on several workshops on Maemo development through several cities of Brazil (myself as trainner), I got how Maemo development environment installation can be a hard work for non-Linux users.

ESbox, one of Eclipse products of IDE Integration project, provides graphical wizards that help you to download, install and configure Maemo development environment. In fact, ESbox does all the work for you! ESbox installs Scratchbox 1, Scratchbox targets (1 and 2) and also Nokia binaries (which are mandatory for Maemo SDK Fremantle, for example).

ESbox also flashes your Internet Tablet with the Maemo image you want, including the latest one. Therefore, if someone asks you how to install Maemo development environment, the answer is: "How don´t you use ESbox?"

Hi,

The Maemo Eclipse Integration 2nd Edition Beta 1 was just released!, including Maemo SDK Virtual Image 2nd Beta 1, which is available at http://maemovmware.garage.maemo.org/beta1.

I've been remembering about Mobility Weeks promoted by INdT through several cities of Brazil. Specially, the hard work that I often faced to configure several machines with Maemo development environment. Of course, everything should be properly configured to avoid potential problems during workshops :)

About 1 year ago, Maemo SDK Virtual Image wasn't stable enough to be used on such scenario: if any problem had happened, I wouldn't have had time to solve it and precious minutes would have been lost to fix such problem during workshops.

But today, Maemo SDK Virtual Image is stable enough and it can used on any Maemo programming workshop. Since it contains all components for Maemo programming (Scratchbox, Maemo SDK, ESbox, PC-Connectivity, etc.), all you need to do is:

• Install any virtualization tool: VMWare, VirtualBox and QEMU
• Download and decompress Maemo SDK Virtual Image
• "Play" your virtual image and start Maemo development!

Raul Herbster.

Hi,

it's amazing when undergraduate students have the chance to enlarge their knowledge about important technologies on the industry, such as Nokia platforms. On Brazilian universities, it's not so common to find initiatives that make undergraduate students enjoy on competitions and win prizes. Experienced fellows on such technologies to give support for competitors are even more unusual.  But it is not only just a device that students win, but also knowledge about widely used platforms.

The Embedded Systems and Pervasive Computing Lab (Embedded Lab) on Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG) has launched the 2nd edition of Efforts Competition (portuguese): an amazing contest that involves a considerable number of graduate and undergraduate students in order to generate interesting and innovative solutions based on Nokia platforms, such as Qt (for maemo and for S60), maemo and S60. The winners receive Nokia 7310 Supernova devices as prizes. And the best point: the students provide articles that describe all steps involved on the process. They can also solve their doubts about Nokia platforms and about their project with researchers that work on Embedded Lab on such technologies. Unfortunately, Effort Competition 2nd edition subscriptions are over, but keep on eye on it - 3rd edition is coming

I'd like to introduce IDE Integration project

At first years of maemo platform, there were no options for IDEs to help developers on maemo programming. The development environment consisted of a command-line interface and a virtual X server, which prints out the output of maemo graphical applications developed with such environment.

There's also another important point: the developer had to constantly switch between different tools (shell-based text editor, compilers, linkers, debuggers, launchers and so on) and this tasks demmands extra time and effort. However, you can argue that you're used to such environment... I agree with you, but what about begginers on maemo development? Are they really used with command-line interface? Are they familiar with editors such as vi or vim?

Therefore, it was verified that an IDE for maemo programming was extremely necessary in order to make maemo applications easier to develop. This fact positively impacts on maemo platform adoption, so more and more developers start programming interesting applications to it a lot quicker. Considering the points described above, maemo.org launched IDE Integration project, which aims to provide a full feature environment that makes maemo development easier and an amazing activity

IDE Integration project consists of 5 components:

• Mica: the Maemo Integration Common Architecture has a lot of features that can used by plug-ins for Eclipse framework for maemo development. Mica has support for C/C++ and Python programming and it already implements a set of connection methods (SBRSH, SSH and RSE) that can be used to launch/debug your applications on Internet Tablets. Since Maemo platform is based on Debian distribution, the solution for application deployment is based on Debian package. Therefore, Mica also provides features to create Debian package from your project and also make it possible to install your package into Internet Tablet.

• ESbox: an Eclipse product for developing applications and libraries on the Maemo software platform. ESbox is strongly integrated with Scratchbox, reducing time and effort for configuration and increasing the productivity for Linux-based embedded systems development. It supports C/C++ and Python programming languages. Maemo 4.x and future SDKs will be supported. ESbox also supports deploying, running, and debugging applications and libraries on the Nokia Internet Tablet. 

• PluThon: an Eclipse product that provides support for developing Python applications for maemo. PluThon does NOT require Scratchbox. Developers run and debug applications directly on a maemo device, speeding up the development time. PluThon offers useful utilities to test and deploy applications directly into Internet Tablet. Therefore, it saves a lot of programmer effort and time and also eliminates the use of command line and archaic text editors.

• maemo SDK virtual images: Maemo SDK Virtual Image project provides a programming environment for maemo platform. This project is an important contribution since it offers the developer a complete maemo programming environment with no need to spend time to download and configure correctly all tools. As main advantage, it offers a VMWare appliance (but also works with QEMU and VirtualBox) with Ubuntu and the main tools used to develop maemo applications, including Scratchbox toolchain, maemo rootstraps with Python for maemo properly installed, documentation, and much more.

• PC-Connectivity: Maemo PC-Connectivity provides tools to simplify setting up of communication between the Tablet and the PC at two parts:

• Connection setup: to configure a TCP/IP connection based on different mechanisms (USB, Bluetooth, WLAN) and different operating systems (Linux, Mac OS and Windows)
• Communication tools: remote shell (SSH, SBRSH), secure remote copy (SCP), mounting file systems (SSHFS, NFS, SMB)

If you haven't explored maemo platform yet, give it a try! In addition, why don't use IDE Integration project to make this experience much interesting ? You can send any report to eclipse-integration at maemo dot org.

--Raul