If you've been playing with Nemo Mobile on your N950 recently, and wanted to do more than just swipe around the Lipstick UI, you might have noticed that while there's a music player app, it can't playback MP3 files (OGG files seem to work fine). This is a quick'n'dirty log of what I had to do to get MP3s playing (I've checked in the repos for something similar, but couldn't find it):

First, install the Mer Platform SDK:
https://wiki.merproject.org/wiki/Platform_SDK

Then, get SB2 (for armv7hl, as this is what Nemo-on-N950 uses):
https://wiki.merproject.org/wiki/Platform_SDK#Compiling_with_the_SDK

Then, set everything up so you can use "nemo-n950" as target with sb2:
https://wiki.merproject.org/wiki/Platform_SDK_and_SB2

Install build dependencies (you might need more than these, use "zypper se " to search for package names):
sb2 -t nemo-n950 -m sdk-install -R zypper in gstreamer-devel gst-plugins-base-devel gst-plugins-bad-free-devel gstreamer-tools orc-devel zlib-devel

Get the gst-ffmpeg sources (use version 0.10.11, due to bug 655238):
http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/src/gst-ffmpeg/

Extract the sources, then do:
sb2 -t nemo-n950 ./configure --prefix=/usr
sb2 -t nemo-n950 make
mkdir tmp
DESTDIR=$(pwd)/tmp/ sb2 -t nemo-n950 make install
cd tmp/
scp -r . root@192.168.2.15:/

The last step obviously assumes that your device is connected and USB networking is properly set up. And then we hear somebody say "Well, but why not package it properly?". Ok. Take this modified gst-ffmpeg.spec file (based on gst-ffmpeg.spec already included in the sources). Then build a package using:

mb build -t nemo-n950 gst-ffmpeg.spec

This will leave you with gst-ffmpeg-0.10.11-1.armv7hl.rpm in ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/armv7hl which you can then scp and rpm -i to your device.

I attended FOSDEM 2013 in Brussels, Belgium last weekend. It was my first FOSDEM, and as such, I was quite positively surprised about the location/setting (big University with too many rooms and tracks to visit them all) and reach of the event (open source projects from every different corner you can imagine).

It was also nice to catch up with old friends from Maemo/MeeGo times like Quim, but at the same time it was impossible to say hi to everybody, as the location is so big, the event only lasts two days and everything is quite hectic and crowded. Still, I managed to meet community celebrities like rzr (of Harmattan Community Repository fame) and e-yes (of Nitdroid-on-N9 fame) in person at the event, which was really nice.


Apart from meeting people and having a good time in Downtown Belgium (so many beers to choose from), Jolla Mobile was also present at the event, and I managed to attend two talks (QML App Development and Porting Nemo to new Hardware), where I found out about Sailfish.Silica 1.0 (Jolla's Own Version of Qt Components), and Open Source Components of Jolla (really good to see Sailfish Silica open source'd and also good to see maliit and contextkit used as middleware).


The photos of the weekend, including a quick sightseeing tour on Monday as well as your usual dose of food porn can be found on Flickr.

Whew, January is pretty much over already, and there haven't been any updates here. So this means here's a short cumulative update of what's happened over the last few weeks:

Tetrepetete
If you are not afraid of falling blocks, and don't mind the lack of colors, give Tetrepetete a try. Not to be confused with a game of a totally different name, this game brings falling blocks of 4 to your N900 and N950/N9. While the full color version is still not available as such, the free greyscale version is up for grabs as .deb on the website. Including a cameo appearance by That Rabbit from That Rabbit Game for no good reason. Play or discuss. Or be productive. Or something.

SMS Backup GUI
Instead of rolling my own solution from scratch, I found the wonderful MeegoSMSBackupRestore project by Tony Wang, which is a command-line tool for Harmattan devices to backup and restore SMS messages (as if that wasn't clear from the application name..). It was missing a GUI, so I've added one. The announcement and download, as well as the Debian source package (.dsc, .tar.gz) are available from an Internet near you. Feel like Git? We have you covered as well.

apkenv updates
If you haven't been watching the apkenv Git repo closely (I know you haven't), you might have missed the Pandora port by crowriot, which - while not being directly useful to Maemo/MeeGo users as such - also brought improvements to the Cut the Rope module, which somehow works now. To be discussed at talk.maemo.org, and patches (as always) welcome.

In other (totally unrelated) news, the thesis is done (yay!).

As promised, following the 2.20.3 release for Maemo 4 and Maemo 5, a new version of gPodder 3 has been released today. This release brings some new improvements to the QML UI that should make scrolling in the episode list faster, as well as align a bit more with the Harmattan UX Guidelines.

gPodder 3.4.0 running on MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan (N9) As always, updated packages will be available via Nokia Store once the QA process has finished. As there have been problems with apps.formeego.org recently (3.3.0 isn't even out of the staging area yet, after 3 months), we now provide a package of gPodder for MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan on gpodder.org/downloads for those who want to avoid or can't use Nokia Store (you have to enable packages from unknown sources, and you might have to uninstall the previous version if it came from Nokia Store or Apps For MeeGo due to the Aegis security policy). The source and packaging is available in the "harmattan" branch in Git, as has always been the case.

I hope you like the new UI changes. If you are missing the feed update button in the lower left corner, try "pull to refresh" on the podcast list (this avoids accidental updates when pressing the back button twice). I'd like to create a nicer "pull to refresh" implementation, but the limitations of Qt 4's QML Flickable prevent me from creating a better one (if you have a better implementation than gPodder's PullDownHandle, I'd love to hear from you). Scrolling the episode list should now also be faster (than before), and some unnecessary animations were removed in the process.

A new release of gPodder 2.x for Maemo 4 (aka Diablo, N800 + N810) and Maemo 5 (aka Fremantle, N900) is out, fixing YouTube-related issues (again ;).

gPodder 2.20.3 running on Maemo 4 (N810) Packages have been uploaded to Maemo Extras, but as people have reported problems with the autobuilder, and as maemo.org seems to be moving these days, anyway (to the Hildon Foundation, apparently), we also provide for the first time since.. well, since a very long time I guess.. binary .deb packages for gPodder on Maemo 4 and Maemo 5 :)

gPodder 2.20.3 running on Maemo 5 (N900) You can find the download links on the gPodder download page - you can directly download gPodder 2.20.3 from the web browser in both OS versions, and choose to open the .deb file with the Application Manager. Be sure to choose the right package for your device (N8x0 users choose the Maemo 4 version, N900 users choose the Maemo 5 version). Enjoy :) Next up: A new release of gPodder 3.x for Harmattan. Soon!

A new version of Billboard, the standby screen customizing app for the N9 has been released and is now available from Nokia Store. It brings some nifty features such as in-line color customization, a battery bar and a battery icon:


The full ChangeLog is available on the Billboard website.
Questions and feedback can be left in the support thread on TMO.

The compatibility layer for applications packed as .apk (that are running natively and use OpenGL ES) has seen its source code released yesterday. Supports Maemo 5 (Fremantle) and MeeGo 1.2 (Harmattan), which means your N900, N950 and N9 are covered. Documentation is provided in the source, and the wrapper generator scripts are also released. Looking forward to contributions and new modules from the community. Details can be found on the apkenv website.

Here's something obvious (and I'm sure it has been discussed before, I just can't find the link right now), but it might be helpful if you haven't played around with SSH much yet, and your Wi-Fi Hotspot isn't working (the case for me right now). The goal is to get an internet connection over your N9/N950 from a PC (tested with Linux, expected to work with OS X and probably also works on Windows - on Windows you might need something like PuTTY).

1. Enable developer mode on your device
2. Connect your device to your computer via USB
3. Select "SDK mode" when asked for the USB connection type
4. Use the SDK connection utility, and select USB connection
5. Note the password displayed in the "Connectivity Details" screen
6. On your computer, use "ssh -D 9898 developer@192.168.2.15"
7. Accept the host key question, and enter the password from step 5
8. You should be greeted by a Busybox prompt "/home/developer $" - leave that open in the terminal window in the background
9. At this point, a SOCKS proxy server is running on port 9898, and you can use it in any applications supporting a SOCKS proxy (there are even utilities like socksify(1) (Debian package: dante-client) that make generic network applications work through a SOCKS proxy)
10. To use it in Firefox, go to Edit - Preferences - Advanced - Network - Settings..., then choose "Manual proxy configuration" and set "SOCKS Host:" to localhost and port to 9898 (be sure to disable the proxy again when you want to browse via a normal Wi-Fi/Ethernet connection)

Instead of doing steps 4 and 5, you can set up a permanent password for your "user" account on the N9, and even set up a SSH key on the N9 to avoid having to enter the password. You can make step 6 simpler by adding an entry to your ~/.ssh/config file (on your host) - see ssh_config(5) for details:

Host n9proxy
    HostName 192.168.2.15
    User developer
    DynamicForward 9898

After that, a "ssh n9proxy" (possibly followed by the developer password) is all you need to set up the proxy. This method is arguably easier (and definitely safer) than using the Wi-Fi hotspot, and instead of using up battery on your N9, it gets charged via the USB port while you are using it.

By the way: You will have to manually connect your N9 to your mobile internet connection, this won't happen automatically.

gPodder 2.20.2 has been released today, and gPodder 3.3.0 has also been released. Version 2.20.2 is for users of Maemo 4 (N800/N810) and Maemo 5 (N900) and version 3.3.0 is for MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan users (N950/N9).

The reason why another 2.x release comes out at this point in time is because YouTube downloading was broken by another website change recently, and of course we don't want to leave our good old Maemo users without their daily YouTube video fix. A full list of changes for Maemo 4 and 5 can be found in the 2.20.2 release announcement.

Version 3.3.0 for MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan brings some nice features like download resuming, filters for unfinished files, scroll position improvements and display of the publish date and file size in the shownotes. Of course, 3.3.0 also includes the YouTube download fix. A full list of changes can be found in the 3.3.0 release annoucement.

As a side note, Maemo 5 support has now been completely removed from the master branch as of 3.3.0 (it has never been officially supported, but you could kind of run in on the N900 with some motivation and work). N900 users really wanting to use gPodder 3 should use it on Nemo Mobile, supporting gPodder 3 and its QML UI in Maemo 5 is just too much work, and the time working on gPodder is better spent improving the Harmattan version and making sure that the 2.x branch doesn't break.

Here's the run-down of the release status for various versions and targets:

gPodder 2.20.2 is ready for testing in Extras-Testing for Maemo 5 Fremantle.
gPodder 2.20.2 is already in Extras for Maemo 4 Diablo.
gPodder 3.3.0 has been uploaded to Nokia Store QA for MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan.
gPodder 3.3.0 has also been uploaded to the MeeGo Community OBS.