My Nokia Blog » Linux

Video: Dualboot on the Nokia N950

Michael Faro-Tusino — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 13:03:30 +0000

So if you follow me on twitter, you would know that I had flashed Nemo to my N950 and was fiddling with dual booting. Below is the video I made.

It is simple enough really. Turn the phone on like normal, be prompted with a few warnings and a standby screen featuring green text. Now, to boot into Harmattan, press the Volume Up button, to boot the Alternate OS, press the Volume Down button.

I have managed to get this to work using Nemo and Plasma Active as my alternate OSes. Hopefully, Nitdroid wont be too far away.

Apparently the same dualbooter is used for the N9, but seeing as it is my primary device, and I have finally got it the way I like it (since flashing 1.2 wiped everything) I don’t feel like experimenting.

Here is my video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=534Hm88NiyE

If you’re interested in dualbooting, the steps are here, along with how to flash Nemo

http://wiki.merproject.org/wiki/Nemo/Installing#Dual-boot_method

Also, if you are curious and wish to try out plasma active, get the image from here, and suppliment the above instructions using the Plasma Active Image instead of Nemo (.tar.baz2 file)

http://images.formeego.org/n950/plasma-active/meego-plasmaactive-armv7nhl-n950-1.2.90.20111106.0816.tar.bz2

Put your questions in the comments below.

Michael

#N9Hacks: Inception (App)

Michael Faro-Tusino — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 08:45:36 +0000

This is by far the best hack currently going for the N9/N950. It is called Inception. I won’t go over what it does in detail, that is what the TMO thread is for.

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=1175013

I will say, Inception makes your N9 more open then ever!

Of course, if you don’t use terminal a lot, and don’t need an open system, than ignore Inception, as it can open your device to malicious software if not used correctly. Anyway, if you’re keen, check it out.

Huge thanks to those who came up with this, does make it easier for devs.

Michael

N9 PR 1.2 On Navifirm (Only EU variants atm)

Michael Faro-Tusino — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 12:04:25 +0000

Sadly, to have Navifirm on my Mac, it is partly Chinese

I was sick of waiting for the update, so jumped on Navifirm. Why are all updates so delayed for Australia? Anyway, as expected, along with the OTA update of PR 1.2, there has been an update on Navifirm pushed out in the last 24hours. At the moment, I am only getting EU variants (both on Nokia Care Suite and Production External). These variants seem to coincide with the variants we have seen get OTA so far. It is good(but sad at the same time) that Nokia isn’t leaking too many things that aren’t official yet. It could also be a server capacity issue.

As always, myself, nor any member of MyNokiaBlog is responsible for your actions if you choose to flash your device, nor are we responsible if you damage it in any way.

Michael

N9 PR 1.2 Officially available!

Michael Faro-Tusino — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 09:41:37 +0000

Just saw a tweet saying that their N9 has received an update to 30.2012.07-1, which seems about right to be PR 1.2. If it is true, and we see more confirmations of the update, (My N9 has nothing.) it would really be an amazing day for Nokia Fans today.

Let me know if you have the update. Screenshots as well would be really helpful

P.S Have looked on Navifirm, and nothing yet

Update: Here is a screenshot of the update

Cheers to Nokia Fan for it

Michael

Video: Progress Update: Android ICS on Nokia N9 (NitDroid)

Michael Faro-Tusino — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 05:05:55 +0000

Like the N900, there is attempts to bring Android to the N9. Been in contact with a dev over Twitter recently, DrunkDebugger, and he has gotten quite a lot done. He has even recently developed a method for untethered booting into Alternate OS. If you are interested, read about it here. Anyway, what I wanted to share, was that he has published a quick video to show some progress of his work. (Video at end of post.)

It is quite promising. Although, I’d prefer having an app compatibility layer for my N9. (Open Mobile or Myriad devs, if you’re reading this, please give it to end-users and not only for OEMS.) It would see the most advanced smartphone (in my opinion anyway) and the only true mini computer mobile, become even more powerful.

I’ve blabbered for enough, check out the video. Sadly, only 5o seconds or so long, but like I said, looks promising.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0DjYjdgNoM&feature=youtu.be

Michael

Source: Twitter

Accessories: Nokia Play 360 Speaker

Michael Faro-Tusino — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:55:54 +0000

I know these have been out for a while, but I hadn’t seen too many reviews of it. Thanks to Nokia Australia’s PR Agency, I was able to get one to trial and bring you a review on. I have a video that re-iterates everything I say in this post so if you prefer to watch a video (and hear the audio), scroll down to the bottom, or you can keep reading. The choice is yours.

The Play 360 comes in Black, White and Blue. (We just need Pink and it completely compliments the N9 and Lumia 800 range.) The speakers are equipped with Bluetooth and NFC and for the size the audio quality is outstanding. I was skeptical that it would sound good, considering most other speakers I have used sound tinny, mainly with high pitched or bass intensive music.

I demo the speakers with higher pitched music (Adele), bass intensive music (Skrillex), R’n'B/Hip Hop (Labrinth) and Pop (Don Omar). Although these variety of genres and music styles aren’t all demonstrated over the same means (Bluetooth/NFC or AUX Cable), the speaker performs roughly the same, and the sound coming from the device is still amazing.

The Speaker has good battery life, and according to Nokia specs, can run for up to 21 hours. Pretty impressive in my opinion given the size of the speaker. As shown in my video, spinning it around, the audio quality and volume stays the same (except for the top, as the sound is emitted straight out and not in a circular path).

Sadly, I only had the one speaker and couldn’t demo the surround sound capabilities of having two in conjunction with one another. I would suggest if you want to buy one, try it out for yourself, but I doubt you’d be disappointed.

It does have a price tag you’d expect for a iPod docking station (AUD$150) and for me, it is worth it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq4DplmtK-A

Here’s the video, and when you watch, please consider the fact that the audio you hear has been recorded through an N9.

Give me your thoughts in the comments below.

Michael

Improved How To Guide: Installing MSN, ICQ, Jabber, AOL and Yahoo! on #NokiaN9

Michael Faro-Tusino — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 06:08:00 +0000

Last week I brought you a way to install MSN on the N9. It was very long and involved extensive terminal work. This is an updated way, using three .deb files and four simple terminal commands. It will provide you with access to creating these accounts using the Accounts UI app.

First of all, download these three files straight on the device;

Open terminal, and gain root access using devel-su with rootme as password unless changed.
Enter cd /home/user/MyDocs/Downloads
Enter ; dpkg -i libpurple0_*.deb
dpkg -i telepathy-haze_*.deb
dpkg -i im-providers-additional-0.2.deb
Restart the device
If successful, you should have the various IM providers in the Accounts app.

Note: Enter lines 3 – 5 separate as they need to be done individually in that order. Also, if icons in Accounts stuff up, just restart device again. Continued icon corruption can supposedly be fixed by replacing icons in /usr/share/themes/blanco/icons/

Create the account like you normally would in the Accounts app, and, as usual, use Availability to go online.

This way of installing the IM includes the service not only in the Accounts app, but in the contact cards of those you merge.

If you need help, put it in the comments below, or send me a tweet

Update: If you followed my last post, just run mc-tool remove butterfly/msn/accountid in terminal. This will stop a duplicate entry of the account.

Cheers to Niwakame and Billranton for the simplest way yet!

Michael

N950 gets MeeGo 1.3 CE Nemo (N9 version being worked on)

Michael Faro-Tusino — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 20:55:22 +0000

Something many of us who have had the pleasure of owning an N900 know, is the ability to flash the device with a range of OSes. Now it seems you can do the same with the N950. (This does not mean dual-boot. Simply run a different OS on your device.)

The MeeGo community has put together a “Community Edition” of the OS, dubbing it “Nemo”. Currently Nemo is only for the N950, but it is being worked, for the N9 apparently. Also, the issue of dual-booting on MeeGo is trying to be solved. (Maybe we will see Nitdroid available.)

There are tutorials of how to flash your device located around the MeeGo community Wiki, so if you have an N950 and want to give it a go, head on over. Let us now how it goes and whether or not it was a smart move.

Michael

3 minutes with Stephen Elop

llaadd — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 09:11:50 +0000

Whilst Jay’s off at the Nokia World Event, I thought I’d keep an eye out for things others are posting and it looks like TheVerge have managed to get a few minutes alone with Stephen Elop where he explains a few things following the Nokia Lumia 800 and 710 launch.

Checkout the video below, it’s interesting what he says about the N9 but from my interpretation of it, he want to use aspects of the N9 to make windows phone better, rather then continuing with Maemo/MeeGo. But that’s just my interpretation on what he said!

source: TheVerge on Youtube

The Nokia N9 review. Part 2.

Sergejs Cuhrajs — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 00:15:25 +0000

In the first half of my review, I was thoroughly impressed with the hardware aspect of Nokia N9. Now it’s time to dive into the software department of this unique phone, and things are starting to look even more intriguing…

*MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan with Swipe UI
I really have to comment Nokia guys on pulling this one off. Alongside the top-notch hardware, the Swipe UI really turns using N9 into a truly refreshing and unique experience. Personally, I had been missing this particular feeling since the day I parted with my N900.

As I explore N9, jumping between menus, apps and generally trying to comprehend the extra layer of movement freedom I’ve suddenly found myself into, a realization comes to my mind. Nokia had tasked itself to take N9 as far as possible from its Maemo roots and spiritual predecessor, the N900. The UX changes are indeed quite staggering, and one would never think N9 as a Maemo 6 OS (later renamed ‘Harmattan’ by Nokia) device unless he or she had a look at the ‘About product’ section in the phone’s settings.

In comparison to Maemo 5 OS running N900, completely gone is the homescreen that could be populated with a rich variety of useful widgets. Perhaps not so unexpected, I still have mixed feelings about its absence. On one side, it does go towards complicating things, and thus disrupting what Nokia is trying so hard to accomplish here – delivering a coherent and intuitive user experience. Nevertheless, I’m still missing that edge of wild freedom that the mobile computer in N900 had granted me. Not so apparent this time around, the Linux based mobile computer is still there in Nokia N9, there’s no doubt about that.

With the complete UX redesign on N9, we now have 3 main windows (or panels) that are accessed by horizontally swiping in either direction: Events, Main menu and the task manager. For now, those windows work in portrait mode only as do the majority of the built-in apps.

While the other two panels are self explanatory, the Events panel is a curios addition to the smartphone experience on Nokia N9. The panel not only combines information about missed calls or unread messages and emails, but also displays weather information and the combined feeds from Twitter, Facebook and Associated Press networks. Touching any news item in this view will conveniently launch the respective built-in app. Having all up-to-date-information in a single, easy accessible place is quite comfortable yet in my opinion hardly a replacement of the home screens found on N900.

There are two more noteworthy elements that compose the user interface on N9 but are not immediately apparent. First off, there’re 4 quick-launch icons that are normally hidden but can be accessed by slightly dragging the lock screen in any direction, and then releasing it. Alternatively, the four shortcuts can be accessed from any running app with a short upwards motion from the very bottom of the screen.

By default, it will contain shortcuts for the dialler, messages, web browser and the camera. You can’t replace those shortcuts right away, however, but there’s a freely downloadable app called Shortcuts in the Nokia Store that enables you to do just that:

The final major element of Nokia N9 UI is the status bar. It can be instantly accessed within any app by tapping the rather thin bar at the top of the screen. The status bar doesn’t work in the entirely same manner it does on Android, however. On Nokia N9, it’s intended for controlling ringer and media volume, as well for managing active data connections and IM availability. What I’d love to see here is a tighter integration with 3rd party apps rather than just built-in services.

* The #N9Effect. So how does Swipe UI hold up in day-today usage of Nokia N9? In all honesty, I have to say that it does in fact offer some very tangible improvements (especially when multi-tasking), and generally just making the whole smartphone user experience feel very smooth, very natural. To my surprise, the absence of physical controls wasn’t really missed, and I think that does speak volumes about Swipe UI.

It’s also interesting to note how N9 even started to change my interaction with my other smartphones, when I tried to double tap the mobile screen to wake it up, or swipe the screen away to close an app before realising it’s not an N9. It’s fascinating how these little things that make a whole lot of sense come quietly together in N9. Things that otherwise would be unremarkable until you catch yourself thinking why hasn’t this or that been done before, on other smartphone OS’s.That being said, Swipe UI on N9 does require some getting used to. Not because I find it flawed, but mostly because I had to unlearn certain things that I have established in my mind after using other smartphones. Over a short time, say, 3 days – I was getting more proficient with using Swipe UI. The biggest advantage I found is that user can quickly jump between open apps without the need to aim precisely at the screen, thus helping me keep focus on more important areas that resolve on the mobile’s screen.

Still, as fluid and elegant the transition between apps is on the N9, there’s a bit of annoyance when apps start accidentally minimizing. When swiping between photos, I would occasionally minimize the gallery app. Similar thing can happen in the web browser, where the smaller vertical screen estate in landscape mode increases the chance of me dragging the window away while scrolling through a web page. You might have to repeat certain screen gestures until you nail them down just right. But, again, I found that my old habits of using the mobile screen were getting in the way, so the learning curve has probably more to do with the user than with the phone itself.

I recommend checking whether the ‘Swipe down to close app’ option is enabled in the phone settings so you won’t end up sending every app you open to run in the background. As much as Nokia N9 makes multi-tasking look easy and fun, you should always be aware of the additional strain on the battery life. There’s no hand-holding to be found on Nokia N9 in that respect. Luckily, there’s a ‘close-all’ option that pops-up if you press and hold any area in the task manager screen. Going back to the first part of my review for a bit, with a careful open app management but otherwise not limiting myself too much I was able to squeeze two full days out of Nokia N9.

Don’t like the way Swipe UI handles the closing of apps? Then I’d heartily recommend trying SwipeManager to mould the user experience to your preference. Personally I found it incredibly useful to set app closing to the ‘swipe up’ gesture as the fingers are naturally much closer to the bottom rather than top edge of the screen.

And while at it, check out MyMoves app that allows users to utilize different touchscreen gestures for launching apps.

*Apps & Services. With a single core 1GHz Cortex A8 CPU and 1GB of RAM at its heart, Nokia N9 handles most situations without any noticeable effort and delays, be it browsing a content heavy web page or multi-tasking a dozen of apps. N9 comes pre-loaded with several apps you might already come to expect inducing Nokia Maps, RSS feed reader, Joikusoft Wi-Fi Hotspot, and a Documents app that can open several popular file formats like pdf’s and docx., just don’t expect to be able to edit them. I did not, however, find a built-in voice recorder, but thankfully Nokia Store had one available for free, although a bit too simplistic.

Just like N900, there’s whole a truckload of different communication services Nokia N9 supports right out of the box. You can sign in your Skype, Google, Mail for Exchange, Flickr as well as FaceBook, Twitter and YouTube accounts. Configuring those different accounts on Nokia N9 is incredibly easy and can be done in just a few steps.

The built in twitter app is quite decent but there’s nothing to shout about. I especially liked that you can refresh your time line by simply dragging the page down. I did, however, find one particularly glaring issue – it doesn’t support picture uploading. Apparently it’s a ‘bug’ in all current public firmwares of N9, and I was told that this will be addressed in an upcoming N9 fw update. Whenever that comes. There’s a workaround as recommended by other N9 users, but that’s hardly the solution I’m looking for. Here’s where Pixepipe would really come in handy, but as you might’ve already guessed, it’s not present in Nokia Store. Aside from that, If you wish to have slightly more features, you can always try TwimGo from the Nokia Store for free.

The default web browser is a mixed bag. It renders websites fairly well and has a very nice, clean looking UI. The tabs work in exactly the same manner as on the N900 - each tab is handled as a separate window in the task manager. The placement of bookmarks is a little strange though – they reside in the same menu as the apps, which is kind of a messy business. It’s great to have a few select bookmarks, but certainly not ideal for 10+ bookmarks. Hopefully an upcoming update will fix this issue or at least bring folder support so users can separate apps from the bookmarks.

The music player is something I really enjoyed on N9. It goes pretty much in line with the principles of effective and clean design that characterizes the rest of Swipe UI. All the necessary controls are laid out for an instant access, and you can even swipe the large cover art sideways to easily switch between tracks, or tap it to pause the playback. If you’re used to tinker with the equalizer settings, however, be warned – there’s none. The 3.5 mm audio output is stellar though, and coupled with the fact that there’s a native FLAC audio support, the N9 can become a stellar portable media player along with some expensive headphones!

Nokia N9 also has a couple of pre-installed HD quality games including Galaxy on Fire 2 and the grand-daddy of all time killers – Angry Birds. While I’m not a fan of the later, Galaxy on Fire 2 is a very nice surprise. It originally came out for iOS devices but was later ported to a range of different Android smartphones and tablets. Down to its core, Galaxy on Fire 2 is an expansive space sim very reminiscent to one of my all time favourite PC games called Freelancer. The plot might feel a little dry and predictable but the gameplay is top notch, and you can literally spend hours just trading and doing side-missions in different systems. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s one of the better looking games currently out there on our mobile phones.

*The biggest problem area in Nokia N9 is, understandably, the number of quality 3rd party apps. The limited ecosystem of this first and last MeeGo phone is something you have to bear in mind when deciding whether to invest in Nokia N9 or not. It’s the lingering question of how many developers outside the dedicated community will take their precious time to port their apps to N9, with the help of Qt or not. Nokia has already promised to support N9 with updates for a least 2 years. From my past experience with N900, you still had a decent number of useful apps, and completely for free.

What I wish to know is whether down the line N9 will be seeing any of the high-profile names such as Sports Tracker, WhatsApp Messenger or Evernote. As we all know too well, you absolutely have to have some AA quality apps to coincide with the launch of the phone, no matter how polished the actual hardware is. So, let’s take a quick look at what I’ve managed to find while casually browsing Nokia Store on my N9:

gPodder is one of my old Fremantle favourites that looks and runs very nicely on Nokia N9. I couldn’t ask for more functional podcast client that on top of all is absolutely free. There’re no in-app ads either. It’s a crime gPodder isn’t already pre-loaded on N9.

Foursquare For MeeGo seems to be the official app. It’s very responsive and well animated, and as much as I use foursquare (read: very casually) the app seemed to have all the necessary features.

Internet Radio Player has a ton of different free stations to choose from. You can sort the extensive list of stations by genre or name. There’s even a fancy Equalizer that you can tweak or just use one of the presets.

Filebox - I couldn’t find a built-in file manager so this one comes very handy. It supports multiple file selection, opens zip/ tar files and works in portrait and landscape mode. You can even choose your favourite theme colour. Yep, it’s free.

Screen Capture - here’s an app I’ve been using quite a lot throughout my review. I’d prefer to map the screenshot trigger to one of the volume keys rather than have to manually re-set the timer each and every time. Or having to use the overly sensitive proximity sensor – I’m looking at you, ScreenshotMee.

MeeCast - the built-in AccuWeather app isn’t bad but I’ve found MeeCast to offer a less cluttered overview for the week’s forecast. You can even customize its appearance with different iconsets.

Converter Maemo - An old and familiar friend to Nokia users, Offscreen Technologies, has already managed to port several of its Symbian and Maemo apps over to MeeGo. The apps does what it says, that is, converts different types of units like speed, temperature, pressure or volume.

Battery Usage - an absolutely essential app for analysing and monitoring the power consumption on your smartphone.

Toshl is an absolutely gorgeous looking app that helps you keep track of your expenses. It’s still relatively buggy on MeeGo, and you will need to buy a Pro account if you plan to keep track of more than one budget.

Wallpapers for MeeGo is another sweet way of showing off the vibrant screen of Nokia N9. It almost makes you wish you could set wallpaper not just for the lockscreen…

So these are some of the interesting apps I’ve stumbled upon while browsing the Nokia store. The situation isn’t as dire as one might think, and you can also find several more or less stable off-store apps (like Firefox for MeeGo) should you ever feel adventurous.

*The bottom line, or should you buy Nokia N9 - As crazy that might sound, the N9 was probably one of the closest iPhone rivals without even realizing it. Like other reviewers have stated before, it’s hard not to immediately fall in love with N9. It’s even harder to put it down in the first few days. The outer shell and UI is gorgeous and refreshing, the tech inside – solid.But you have to be prepared to take a certain risk when investing in the N9. As I mentioned, the apps and the ecosystem are amongst the biggest drawbacks of this handset, and it’s not entirely clear how well and how far those will develop further on. Coupled with the fact that it’s now the eve of Nokia World that is bound to have several Windows Phone announcements, I simply cannot immediately recommend this phone to everyone. It’s definitely easier to recommend someone N9 than N900, but at least things were much more clearer with its predecessor. None of them are, in fact, a mainstream product. Clearly the effort has been made with Nokia N9, and the potential, dare I say, was huge.

I think those who will end up buying the N9 will not be second guessing this decision in the first place. Those are the techie users who are perfectly aware what they are getting into, and know to look past the shinning armour and see the untamed Linux beast within.

As for the people who are not avid smartphone app users and are just looking for a sleek looking, intuitive and simply great phone, the N9 can be the perfect fit.What attracts me the most in Nokia N9, aside from Swipe UI, is the spot-on hardware. But in that twisting turn of events, I’m now far more excited for N9′s WP running counterpart Nokia 800 aka Sea Ray than I was ever before. It’s only with a heavy heart that I had to I highlight the earlier mentioned flaws in this otherwise superior smartphone experience that Nokia N9 has to offer.

First I was confused by this feeling, perhaps even slightly angry; but now I’ve found comfort in knowing that, despite being surrounded by the turmoil with MeeGo earlier this year, in the end, Nokia N9 still received a well deserved limelight. And what’s more, it has helped remind the world that Nokia can still deliver some stunning and unique smartphones.

_______________________________________________________________

I believe this pretty much sums up my thoughts & feelings on Nokia N9. If you haven’t read the first part of my review where I covered the hardware of N9 – be sure to check that one out too! Oh, and you can also follow me on Twitter @_Nexus :-)