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Mer/Releases/0.13

Mer 0.13 was prepared in the sprint 0.13: 27. April 2009 - 11 May 2009. Testing period: 11 May 2009 - 18 May 2009, release 20 May 2009. If you want help with the release, show up in #mer on IRC, on irc.freenode.net.

Mer is made by the Mer project - a community project, read more about it here

Call for developer participation

There will be a Maemo/Mozilla hackfest in Copenhagen (Mozilla Maemo Danish Weekend), Saturday-Sunday 30-31 May 2009 (with party Friday 29 May), where Mer is one of the focus areas as well. As it is a hackfest the focus will be more on coding than on presentations. From Mer project so far Stskeeps will be attending.

If you have the time and ability to show up and ability to push some code or artwork or other things through and help out - do show up, it'll be a blast and will bring us closer to Mer 1.0. We hope to establish a IRC presence as well if you want to contribute remotely.

Focus area from Mer project point of view will be a weekend focused on getting Mer ready for day-to-day usage (1.0), both logistically (repositories, restricted builders, etc) and user interface (control panels, getting audio to work on N8x0, and so forth).

Notable accomplishments and news

• We have moved away from Jaiku for microblogging, please see Mer/Awareness on how to keep track of the Mer activities now.
• We have now 100% moved Mer to being built in OpenSUSE Build Service, which means no more Scratchbox. See Mer/Build for more information or contact lbt.
• Nokia has sponsored several of the Mer team members making them able to show up at the Mozilla Maemo Danish Weekend - thanks!!
• We began to include Fremantle beta sources
• First boot wizard on the Neo Freerunner
• Left handed scroll bars setting in themes control panel
• Mer on a Zaurus showing Google Maps under Midori
• There will be discussions on UDS Karmic about Mer as Ubuntu MID, and we look forward to working together with them to improve Mer packages and spread the Maemo platform to more users.
• zenvoid and Stskeeps have received donated SmartQ5 devices from SmartDevices and Mer was running on it less than 23 hours after receiving it :) We welcome all SmartQ MID users to the Mer project and hope you'll help us :)
• There are discussions of SmartDevices and 10 developer rebates, more information to come.
• SmartDevices has provided bootloader (Qi, uboot), kernel sources and firmware maker, so far holding up to Mer/Documentation/Vendor_Social_Contract
• Aired Vendor social contract & Mer, ways to deal with OpenGL ES on N8x0s
• Qt for Maemo framework compiled
• Now using fbdev instead of omapfb as X driver on N8x0
• Midori now has webkit by Bundyo with HIM support.
• For v0.13 only X86, N8x0, SmartQ5 is supported
• Rest will come (770, Beagleboard, Pocket Loox) once we can build their kernels in OBS.
• Our sprints now last a month - and we've put a guide up on how to participate in Mer in a structured manner, see Mer/Sprints

Known issues

• If you can't find an application you want in Application Manager, see http://packages.ubuntu.com - Mer is based on Ubuntu and has 95% of all Ubuntu applications and you can install them with sudo apt-get install packagename, in X-Terminal
• home applets behave oddly when in non-800x480
• Screen should not dim and turn off during first boot wizard
• Magic X menu stretches too far, before adding v ^ buttons.
• Happens occasionally: Initial configuration - Root Password Confirmation Prompt - No virtual keyboard
• X driver for N8x0 does not use Manual updates yet and hence can be a bit slow in updating the screen which may give the impression the system is slow.
• Rotation in advanced-backlight kills hildon desktop
• No charging screen on flashable image
• modifying panel settings causes HD to sometimes crash
• 770 rescue menu does not seem to work (keys doesn't work)
• 770 doesn't pick up correct RTC, or it doesn't have it set
• Control panel may appear to have no menu but it actually doesn't have one.
• Can not enter an address in hildon-application-manager
• X-Terminal is not localized yet, at all (shows webameedit, etc)
• The task switcher does not appear rightmost as it should
• There seems to be a bit of "air" around windows, near left and right corners, also in marquee.
• Marquee background acts weird.
• JFFS2 version of N8x0 port causes weird video problem when rebooting.
• Powerlaunch not working correctly while charger plugged in, no reaction while pressing power-button, no keyboard backlight
• Advanced-backlight crashes hildon-desktop while charger plugged (might be tablet-battery-monitor related)
• Marquee-panel doesn't scale when rotating the screen.
• Deselecting dropdown menu plugin crashes desktop
• Powerlaunch button prompts not correct (no "Yes" "No")
• Applications "Organise" dialog unresponsive
• SmartQ5 WiFi does not work out of the box
• There is no "X" in dialogs for ESC-less devices (SmartQ5, etc)
• Hardware keyboard/slider events on N810 when device is in standby only turns on backlight, and doesn't unblank the screen. Touchscreen events work fine in this respect.
• Text in text fields can not be drag-selected (cursor jumps to start of field instead)
• Applications installed prompt for folder location but are always stored in Extras
• Terminal toolbar Ctrl button non-functional (try Ctrl + d, Ctrl + h, Ctrl + g, Ctrl + c)
• Terminal toolbar (likely other) has significanly misaligned background image when selected.
• When changing theme desktop might crash (seen on SmartQ5 and N8x0)
• Sources are not accessible using apt-get source (for Mer packages), but they are downloadable if you sign up for build.opensuse.org (or just ask us if you don't want to.) - a problem with OBS not exporting them at the moment
• The sources list for Mer points to 0.13 and not Stable, as it should be, and hence an upgradable path needs to be manually set when a new Stable comes out.

Screenshots

(Yes, same as 0.12, nothing very interesting in 0.13 than OBS :)

Video: Mer 0.12, Xorg with fbdev driver

Disclaimer

• There is no warranty. This may blow up your MMC, steal your wife or cause doomsday to come around. But if you find some bugs, please report them on bugs.maemo.org Bugzilla and we'll try to see what we can do to fix the bug causing it.
• If anything goes wrong, grab a USB cable, and rescue mode is done through holding down Home key when booting Mer (on tablets)

Installation guide

Installation guide can be found here, including link to Mer installer for N8x0 - version should be 2.0.0-mer10

Released images