A couple of months ago we started a project to create a Linux application similar to Nokia PC Suite, but for maemo devices. The application is built using Python and Qt. As a first application in the “suite”, it was developed a backup application, which has the same functionalities as the osso-backup application available in the device. But here the backup application runs in the desktop and stores the backups in the PC.

Tablet-Suite main screen

Tablet-Suite features implemented

• Show device status: power, device memory, flash memory
• Show device information: OS version and Model (N800, N810)

The backup application features implemented so far are:

• Create a new backup selecting categories and output path. The backup is stored in the PC, not in the device flash memory
• Manage backups: remove and rename existing backups
• Copy backups: copy backups from pc to device, and from device to pc
• Restore backups: it is able to restore a backup stored in both pc and device

Known Issues:

• Protected devices (password) are not supported
• Application is still not stable, some bug fixes and improvements are needed

The connection between the desktop and the device is done by IP network. The user just needs to know the device IP. The current implementation uses scp and ssh to transfer data and execute commands, so it is exchanging ssh keys between the pc and the device (root user), that is why the root password is required for this alpha release. There is already a daemon implementation which will do the job in the device side, so a specific tablet-suite password will be used in the future to hopefully avoid security problems.

Comments, suggestions and feature requests are really welcome. We will release a 0.2 version for the backup very soon.

The next applications to be implemented in the suite are: Flash the Device and Install Applications. The application sources and binaries can be downloaded from Garage:

https://garage.maemo.org/frs/?group_id=1013

Below some screenshots:

Backup Main Screen

New Backup Wizard

Restore Backup

It is possible to create a network connection between a Maemo device (N8×0) and a Host PC in several ways: USB, Bluetooth and WLAN. The PC-Connectivity project just released the Beta 1 version of two applets to help the users and developers to connect the device to a PC with a single click. The PC to connect is not restricted to be a Linux machine, as MAC and Windows are also supported.

PC Connectivity Manager

Connection Switcher

The first applet called “PC Connectivity Manager” is placed at Maemo “Control Panel”. It allows the user to enable/disable the connections and also to setup them changing IP address, netmask, etc.. The second applet called “Connection Switcher” is placed at Maemo status bar. It is the faster way to enable/disable the connections.

Besides the network connection features, the applets also allow us to configure other connection tools, such as x11vnc and nfs sharing. It is also possible to create “environments”, so different settings can be configured for different PCs.

For more details:

• PC Connectivity Beta 1 pages
• Installation
• Configuring USB, Bluetooth, WLAN (ad-hoc)