European Wafaa

Just to let you know this site and the server it resides on will be going down for a bit - I need to redeploy the server as I have managed to completely wipe out rpm and any render the admin side of things fairly useless.

Hopefully I will do a proper backup of things before i start afresh, but if not - ooops See you on the other side!

OK so I admit I have been a wee bit silent on the topic of Goblin, some may even think it is a dead project. Well it isn't! I have just had some time off, and work is doing its best to interfere with what time I have (as always). Anyhow enough of the excuses and on with the update.

I was hoping to have a little Christmas present to all of you, but unfortunately I have been unable to create it so it will just have to wait :s That present was to be a live installable hybrid ISO of Goblin, but for whatever reason things just didn't pan out. Whilst I was off Aaron, Michael, Tambet, Greg, Joey, Gary, Matt, Jakub and many others (sorry if I missed your name of this tiny list) have been busy as always. There have been two fundamental changes to Goblin:

1. We have moved the base OS from openSUSE 11.1 to openSUSE 11.2 - yes we're now using the latest and greatest the Geeko has to offer.
2. We have moved the UX from Moblin 2.0 to Moblin 2.1 - yup using the latest and greatest the Linux Foundation has to offer.

These to fundamental changes bring with it some painful issues. Mainly that of patches and getting the correct patches added/removed. As always we are trying to be good netizens and upstream what is applicable. I personally was hoping that when we moved base OS things would be a bit simpler to build, oh how foolish was I!?! Murphy's Law is always there lingering in the background ready bite me squarely on the buttocks. There are some crucial packages that are failing to build on 11.2 which is slowing the whole process down a bit, but never fear we are working on it. Hopefully I can give you a present before Easter.

So if you would like to join in on the fun and madness, then head over onto IRC (#opensuse-moblin on Freenode) or hot the mailing list (subscribe to opensuse-goblin). Remeber though people, if you ask a question and it isn't answered within 1.5 seconds just wait a bit longer and ask again after 30-60mins. Most if not all the people there are very busy, but they will help you when they can

I'm an avid user, fan and proponent of the Symbian operating system for mobile phones. There are many reasons I like Symbian, and yes I know a lot of people think it is outdated irrelevant and is marked for the death knell. Personally I think those that think so are wrong, but are completely entitled to their opinion

One great thing about Symbian is that you can easily write applications for it, using the Web Run Time widget as your means. I'm not saying it's better than applications written in any of the available languages - C++, Qt, Python, Ruby, .Net, Java ME, Flash Lite. No "jail breaking" or hackery is needed to use any of these languages, just choose your preferred language and have fun.

Anyway back to topic - creating apps or widgets using WRT. The first thing is to go and grab the best IDE for the job - Aptana Studio. Yes I know there are a million and one IDEs out there, but Aptana just works and makes it so simple to do the job! You can use standard Eclipse if you wish, just add the plugin (see the website for details). So how does one use Studio on Linux? Well it is almost the same as one would on any other platform, be it Windows or Mac. The only difference is there is no package to install per se.

1.) Make sure you have mozilla-xulrunner181 installed. A simple zypper in mozilla-xulrunner181 should do the trick.
2.) Simply download Aptana Studio - Stand Alone version (latest version as of this post is 2.0).
3.) Extract the downloaded tarball to your desired location, I used ~/bin. You can re-name the resulting directory anything you wish, as I follow the KISS methodology I kept it simple because I'm fairly stupid at times and re-named it AptanaStudio2.0.
4.) Create a little script that is in your $PATH and name it something, thankfully in openSUSE ~/bin is in there so that's where I placed mine (called Aptana):
export MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME=/usr/lib/xulrunner-1.8.1
/PATH/TO/EXTRACTED/TARBALL/AptanaStudio
Ensure it is executable.
5.) I then created a desktop icon, pointing to the above script, and used the nice .xpm icon that is in the extracted tarball.
6.) Now you are ready to fire it up, you can either use you desktop launcher or as the launch script is in you path you can just Alt+F2 and type the name of you launcher script.
7.) Once launched select Plugins from the home screen and go to "Featured", there you will see the Nokia WRT Plug-in for Aptana Studio. Select "Get It" and follow the simple oncreen prompts.

Once Aptana restarts you are ready to create you widgets. Look at the Symbian Developer site for more details on how to create widgets or simply create a new project and imprt a widget to have a look. So now that you have the tools, how about someone help me and get the "openSUSE on Symbian" widget up to scratch?

One of the issues of installing the Moblin UI on an existing machine is that there are a heck of a lot of packages needed to get the full experience, so I present to you here the Goblin 1Click. Yes I know 1Click is a bit of a misnomer, but hey it's an easy way to install a packages set without knowing the repo or package names For those of you wondering why I'm still calling this Goblin rather than Moblin well you should have attened Michael Meeks talk at the openSUSE Conference to understand that the name "Moblin" actually stands for several things. So I use "Goblin - openSUSE powered Moblin" or "Goblin" for short to differentiate.

So back to the subject, installing the pretty stuff is pretty simple, or in the words of the great Meerkat - Simples! It's just a matter of following some simple steps. Just to let you know this is using the slightly rougher Moblin:UI and Moblin:Base repositories:

1. Head over to http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Moblin:/UI/ and choose your desired target platform (openSUSE 11.1 / Factory [11.2] / SLE11) where you will get a listing similar to


2. Select the GoblinUI.ymp and Firefox will ask what you would like to do


3. Choosing YaST Package Meta Handler is what you want, and that will then present


4. Select Next and it will give you a summary of what it intends to do


5. When you click on Next you are prompted to confirm that you know what you're doing and that basically don't come crying to me when you machine goes boom - I'm just a lunatic like anyone else


6. As I run a pretty traditional set up I am prompted to enter root's password once I accept the above disclaimer


7. As YaST goes through the repos and packages it checks the GPG keys, it will prompt you for any action on any keys it doesn't know about


8. Once it has read all the packages etc it checks to make sure there are no conflicts. You will then be presented with a slightly erroneous "Package Conflict" dialogue advising that you need to fix some choices. This is actually pretty simple and not a conflict as such but a vendor change - you are choosing to override packages provided and signed as from openSUSE with those from someone else


**CAUTION** If you are using gstreamer packages from Packman you will have some additional choces to make - hint you will need to "downgrade" the Packman packages

9. You just need to choose the following to satisfy zypper:
:- For anjal select install evolution-2.27.5-9.12.i586 (with vendor change) [Option 1]
:- For cubano select install banshee-1-1.5.1-11.4.i586 (with vendor change) [Option 1]
:- For mojito select install libsoup-2_4-1-2.26.1-2.13.i586 (with vendor change) [Option 2]
:- For mutter-moblin select deinstallation of gnome-menus-branding-openSUSE-11.1-33.24.noarch [Option 2]
:- For syncevolution select replacement of libsoup [Option 2]
:- For PackageKit select PackageKit-0.4.8-3.5.i586 (with vendor change) [Option 1]

10. You will then be able to see the full list of all packages about to be installed


11. Once all is done you should see a nice dialogue advising you that everything was successful



If you have autologin enabled, you may want to disable it so you can logout and then choose to switch to the "Moblin User Experience". If you have any issues, please join the mailing list - opensuse-goblin or head over to irc and ask your questions in #opensuse-moblin

All feedback is welcomed, and I'd like to thank AJ for helping pick some of the low hanging fruit on Monday whilst I waited from my flight back from Nuremberg.

UPDATE: **!!CAUTION!!** This assumes you are using vanilla repositories and not using GNOME Factory for 11.1 etc. Thanks to The Rev Ogley for the pointer!

Yes I'm heading over to NUE on Wednesday for just under a week of Geeko fun for the inaugural openSUSE Conference! I'm looking forward to meeting all the old faces from previous events, but also getting to see so many new faces and actually work out if all those IRC nicks are real people or just some wonderful trick by Beineri.

Originally when word about the conference came up, I was looking forward to just gooffing off with a load of fellow Geeko lovers maybe look at fixing my openSUSE on Symbian widget but nothing major. Oh how times have changed I am going into the conference with big aspirations - Get Goblin working/building and have an image ready for 11.2 M8!! Now some may think this is no big deal, maybe it isn't to you but to me and a few others it is a huge deal.

At present I and others have been running Goblin (openSUSE powered Moblin) on an 11.1 base. Which for the most part works great, the problem is we need to get current with the release schedule. One of the issues here is that predominantly all Moblin/Goblin work is done by Novell employees, and those poor buggers have been working their backsides off to some pretty stringent cut off lines based around the SLE builds with their OEM partners. I have been trying to give things as much focus as I can, but my work (the one that pays me) tends to get in the way. Now one of the beauties of Open Source and especially anything involving the Build Service is that you can easily chip in and help in almost any which way you can; regardless of time of day or location in the world. To see what I mean, have a look at the work-flow that is in place for Goblin.

Some of the tasks ahead of us is sorting out which packages need to be submitted up to Factory and then making sure that those packages' spec files meet openSUSE's high standards - some of the specs are pretty dirty. We also need to make sure that we can build an image based on Factory and make sure it runs/installs fine. Talking of images, we need to also look at the images - at present the image is based around an OEM recovery disk and not a standard live style image. Michael Meeks has started the ball rolling looking at a live image, and I have been trying to get an image built in SUSE Studio. Another item that needs some good old fashioned TLC is the Wiki, I put my hands up for neglecting this but it will get looked at - especially with your help

So when I'm in NUE at the Conference I am hoping to be able to sit down with the Novellians that are paid to deal with Moblin, but more importantly sit down with you the general community and try and wade through these tasks together so that come Milestone 8's release on 01 October 2009 we have a fully functioning Goblin release, with a variety of install options - I have pretty much sorted the 1Click side of things but still needs some work. So please come and join me along with those from Novell, Intel and pretty much everywhere and help make openSUSE the premier distribution for Moblin!

Oh and if I manage to find some spare time, I'm hoping to sit down with Thomas Schmidt and work through getting openSUSE on Symbian sorted, and also help out with some of the video recording and general lovefest.

BTW if you're not sure who I am, I'm the one in the kilt

So continuing from Part 1, let's take a look at the available "Web Services".

Once you have a network connection to the outside world you can either go back to the MyZone tab and select the Web Services button or go to the Applications tab and search for 'web service'. You will then be presented with:


To set up Twitter you just need to enter your username and password. The Last.fm pulls in what your "friends" are playing and just needs your username. I dont have a MySpace account so can't really advise on what is needed there but trust me when I say it will be straight forward and simple. The Facebook and Flickr services will show you roughly what will be needed. So when you select Facebook you are asked to log in:


When you select the "log me in" button, the browser will open up for you and you pop your details in:


You are then asked if you want to authorise Moblin to automatically publish to Facebook without prompting:


Assuming you do then you can then close the browser window/tab and then hit "continue" on the Facebook Web Services section. Should you wish to stop the service just go back to the services page and select "log me out":


The Flickr service is very similar in that it asks you to log in to the service:


It will again open the browser for you, and once you enter your credentials it will then ask you what you want to do:


When you select "Next" to authorise Flickr, it lets you know what permission you are granting it and asks you to confirm authorisation:


Once done you are free to close the browser window/tab. Back at the Web Services, you need to select continue:


And should you wish to stop you can always log out:


Now we can also set up Instant Messaging. Now Goblin uses Empathy as the IM client, and I know some people don't like Empathy due to missing features or whatever but I have to say it works well from my experience. Goblin in contrast to upstream Moblin actually has all the available protocols thanks to including telepathy-haze. So to set up IM just head over to the People tab and select "Account configuration". From there it's pretty much the standard Empathy setup work flow.:


Now if you go to the Status tab you can post to Twitter & Facebook, and change your IM status:


You can check on IM contacts and start conversations by heading to the People tab, it will display all online contacts:


So that's it for now, I'll be back later with some more Goblin Goodness.

People have asked me in the past for some screenshots of Goblin, and who am I to deny you fine people an insight into the goodness that is Goblin. I'll be doing several posts to share the love, otherwise I'll get too many complaints for a huge post. Also it's good to prolong the love

So first things first, you can grab the image from here - make sure you read the README.FIRST file before doing anything! It gives you directions on how to get it onto your machine. This image is designed purely for use with a usb stick (2GB should do nicely, it's ~1.5GB), we are looking at moving to a hybrid iso based image but just not quite yet.

When you boot Goblin (from the image) up by default you are autologged in and greeted with the "MyZone" tab:

You can see from the annotations what each section of the MyZone will do.

I'll quickly take you through a tour of the top of the screen:

Starting from the left we have:
1.) Clock and the current day's date, there is an unfortunate issue (at least from my point of view) in that the clock is only available in 12hr format, upstream are aware of this and I have been told that it will be available in 24hr format too (no time scale though).
2.) MyZone, the landing page to your system. incidentally the selected tab will be highlighted in white as displayed here.
3.) Status, from here you can change the your online IM status, and also post messages to Twitter/Facebook etc
4.) People, this will show your online contacts from your IM account(s). It will also allow you to send an email to any of your contacts stored in the addressbook
5.) Internet, this is Mozilla based Moblin browser. A sort of cut down FireFox, it works well most of the time (I say most as sometimes it doesnt like to work with flash sites or very ajaxy ones).
6.) Media, this is a combined Video/Audio/Photo application. It works OK, but I prefer the tools I've used for a long time - Banshee and F-Spot They are included by default in Goblin
7.) Pasteboard, this is a handy feature. Basically you copy some text regardless of application, and it will show up here.
8.) Applications, this is the way you access your applications. They are all grouped, and it is from here that you set your favourite applications. The search bar is very good too, you can find an app by name or function.
9.) Zones, in the Moblin UX the concept of multiple desktops doesn't exist. There is however Zones (basically the same thing ) From here you can see what applications are open and switch to them easily
10.) Power and brightness, it displays your current power availability (plugged into mains or how much battery life you have left), and also lets you adjust you screen brightness.
11.) Volume, yup you can crank it to 11 from here.
12.) Networks, the all important section where you set up and monitor how you connect to the interwebs. You can do all your wired and wireless (WiFi & 3G) connections from here.

When you hide the tab initially you are given a little hint on how to get the toolbar back:


One of the first things I recommend you do is set up your network connection(s). To do so is pretty simple, if you have a wired connection just plug the cable into your machine, you should see the network icon animate doing a circular type dance:


Once connected it should change to something resembling two snakes kissing:


Now if it's a wireless network (WiFi) that you want to use, thats almost as easy. Jjust head over to the Networks tab:


Select the "Add a new connection" button on the bottom left and ensure you select the WiFi tab:


From here you can see all the available wireless networks. Select your desired Access Point and let the hand shaking take place:


Once connected the Networks icon will change to a ball with lines above it - the more lines you have the better the signal (a bit like a mobile really):


Now if you want to use your mobile phone or usb modem dongle to connect to a 3G network the steps are pretty similar. When you select the "Add a new connection" button on the bottom left choose the 3G tab:


You are presented with a country list, so choose the country of the SIM card and not the country that you are in (if you are roaming). For all of Her Majesty's subjects, please note that Blighty is listed as Britain and not United Kingdom or Great Britain. Once you select your country, select the appropriate Network Operator and Access Point:


Once that's done all you need to do is click on connect:


The transparent no-entry looking sign on the right of the connection is there for you to delete the connection should you wish to.

OK so that's the end of the first instalment, I'll be back later with some more Goblin Goodness

I've had my N97 for around a week now, and I really really love this device. Yes it has some issues but at the end of the day, the age of gadget nirvana is still way off in the future.

An application that I use a shed load of is the wonderous Banshee. I use it for all my music and even some of my video. One issue I had was that Banshee wouldn't or should I say couldn't see my N97 when it was connected, regardless which of the four connection modes were selected. Now the N97 is an MTP device, the problem is it looks like poor ol' libmtp doesn't know about it yet so Banshee can't see it Also the N97 isn't recognised by hal either, so again Banshee can't see it (nor can NetworkManager for tethering).

Do not despair compadres, as thanks to the wonderous Banshee community, well OK all credit to Sandy Armstrong but it was on #banshee, provided me with a workaround:

1. Connect the N97 in "Mass Storage" mode
2. Create a file called .is_music_player in the root of the 32GB drive
3. Add the following to that new file audio_folders=Music/
4. Open Banshee and hey presto!

Thanks a million Sandy.

OK now this isn't ideal, but it will do for now. I'll try and look at libmtp and hal very soon (maybe tomorrow) to see if there is a way of using "PC Suite" mode to do it all. Remember that if you have set messages to be stored on the "E:" drive you will need to redo this after disconnecting from "Mass Storage" mode. I haven't tried syncing any video with it yet, so I'll add that to my TODO list.

P.S. This should enable the N97 to be seen in Amarok and Rhthymbox and almost any other Audio/Media player.

As I mentioned yesterday, I was having some GPS related issues when using my N97 as a SatNav device with Ovi Maps 3. On my way home yesterday I tried changing some of the positioning settings, well basically disable everything apart from bluetooth device. I can categorically say that the issue is not with Ovi Maps; but could be either the built in GPS is faulty, there is a weird bug between Symbian^1 and the internal GPS, or it isnt recommended to use the phone as a SatNav device in landscape mode (which is how I like to use it). I'll try in portrait another time to see.

I have also tested converting videos using the wonderous ffmpeg, it took me one or two goes to get the correct codec names but all in all works a charm. To use ffmpeg just run:
ffmpeg -i $INPUT.FILE -vcodec mpeg4 -b 1500k -r 24 -s vga -aspect 16:9 -ab 80k -ac 2 -acodec libfaac $OUPUT.FILE.mp4

Obviously replace $INPUT.FILE with the path to the file you wish to convert, and replace $OUTPUT.FILE with the path to the file you wish to create. You can also replace libfaac with libmp3lame. I found no difference in quality or file size, I do still encounter the issue of the output file is larger than the input file - any ideas on how to reduce the resulting file size?

One thing I forgot to mention yesterday about the device is the touchscreen. I actually like it, I'm not a great lover of touchscreens, but the N97's is pretty good. Any issues I've encountered are not the screen's fault but that of the application; for instance Nokia Messaging (Nokia's updated e-mail client which provides push facilities) has several UX inconsistencies - message list can be scrolled through kinetically but scrolling of message content can't, some items require double tap whilst others only require a single tap or even press and hold. By the way I actually really like Nokia Messaging and there are certain aspects of the Symbian^1 version that I much prefer over the S60 3rd version, and almost nothing vice versa. Now how many of you own an iPhone? Quite a few of you I bet. OK now for you lot you may complain the arse off of a hairy sweaty wookie about the N97's 'resistive' screen versus the iPhone's 'capacitive'. Well all I can say is "LA LA LA, talk to the hand 'cause the face thinks your talking bollocks" In all seriousness, yes the iPhone's capacitive screen does mean it can do some very very fluid things; but if it's a bit chilly outside and you're walking along with your nice woolly gloves keeping those legendary digits of epically monumental coding all warm and cozy what do you do if you need to use a function on your phone? That's right - take the glove off, get the phone out, use it, put it back, put your glove back on and bitch and moan about how cold it is. You can't even imitate our African primate cousins and use a stick/pencil/crowbar/or anything other than part of your body. Now with the N97 all of that goes away, you can use anything providing you press a little bit harder than you would on a capacitive screen. CAUTION I am not saying you need to take a sledge hammer to the device to select a button!!!! If you do don't come crying to me, because in all honesty I will just laugh maniacally at you and most likely ridicule you as publically as possible

I'm also the owner of an N800, and I had managed to secure funding for one with my wife's blessing as I claimed it was a SatNav device that did more than just SatNav (it's so much easier if I can get her to buy into the reason for a gadget purchase - trust me). At first I thought the device was great; but after continuous use I felt it lacked something, problem was I couldn't put my finger on it. Was it the available number of apps? No, there are plenty available (some good and some pointless just as with almost any platform). Was it the SatNav application? That did somewhat sour the experience, maps were effectively carved up into regions/countries and even if you had a worldwide license (like me) you couldn't plan a rout from say Peterborough to Zaventem (something I do fairly regularly); you would have to plan Peterborough to your crossing point i.e. Folkstone or Dover, then when you get to Calais plan your route to the old Belgian Border Crossing, once you reach the border you need to then plan your route to your final destination - a real PITA!!! OK so SatNav aside what else got me about the N800? I found the battery was pitiful, it would barely last a day and that's without actually doing anything on it, the build quality was good though so no complaints about cheapness there. There is still something that disappointed me about it and I haven't used it since February, and doubt I will till Jan-Simon finishes his GSOC project For me the N97 matches and mostly exceeds all the functions the N800 used to do, the only thing that the N800 holds over the N97 is the number of FOSS applications, but I'm sure (hoping) that will change in the near future. Oh I also forgot to mention that in addition to all the programming languages available for Symbian you also have Qt so bring on the Kool aid

One item that really grates my bollocks is the plethora of media codecs and containers. Also the lack of applications that can play different video on portable and mobile devices. On the desktop we have that epically monumental legend (is that OK Jeffrey? ) of applications called..... VLC. Now if a Symbian port could be done, I'd be happier than a pig in shit (Garrett don't even comment, I remember our tweeting conversation on the subject ).

Any how I had attempted to convert some video on my work machine running that oh so common OS using a multitude of free applications but to no avail. I suddenly had an epiphany (no not the browser), why not use VLC to convert the video? Well all I can say is it works and works well(ish), remeber that this MultiMedia god is cross platform so regardless of what or how many OSes you use you can have a consistent method to do so.

The nitty gritty that you need are as follows (many thanks to Karri Ojanen for the info)

Resolution: 640×480
Bit Rate: 1500
Frame Rate: 24
Aspect 16:9
Audio Codec: Mpeg4AAC
Bit Rate: 80
Sample Rate: 44100
Channels: 2 (Stereo)

I'll try and update this post with some screen shots later, but in textual form the steps to do so are:

Create a conversion profile using the details above by:
1. Going to 'convert/save (Ctrl+R)'
2. Add your target file (using the 'Add' button)
3. Select convert/save
4. Then select the 'Create a new profile' button at the right hand side of the "Settings" section
5. Name your profile (I chose N97 for simplicity)
6. In the "Encapsulation" tab select MP4/MOV
7. In the "Video Codec" tab select the 'Video' check box and choose 'MPEG-4' from the drop-down menu change the Bit Rate (1500), Frame Rate(24), Width(640), Height(480)
8. In the "Audio Codec" tab select the Audio check box and choose 'MPEG 4 (AAC)' from the drop-down menu and change the Bit Rate(80), for Sample Rate choose 44100 from the drop-down menu

Et voila mes amies!! You now have a reusable profile for all your N97 media conversion needs. The only slight issue is the resulting media file size, I started off with a file that was 832MB and ended up with a file that was 1.1GB. Not ideal, but as I have a shed load of space on the device I'm not too concerned. Now if anyone knows of a better tool to do this especially on Linux and openSUSE in particular then please let me know.

Happy mobile video viewing Oh and by the way Karri has an excellent real world review/comparison of the N97, I highly recommend you read it if you're interested in getting the device.

Yes I got myself a shiny new Nokia N97! Now I'm not going to do a review per se on the device, as there are loads of them about - ranging from loving the device to loathing it.

I thought I'd share some observations on it and how it works with Linux. I have used similar devices for many years, starting off with the first Nokia Communicator the Nokia 9000 and went through all the various models of communicator bar the E90. My next Nokia device was the venerable N95 and then moved onto the fabulous E71. I have also had Sony Ericsson's P800 & P900 as well as the M600i, and several of their "standard" phones finishing off with the k850i.

As you can see I've used Symbian powered devices for some time both S60 and UIQ, and I was even more inclined to use Symbian devices due to the fact that Symbian is opening up. This was not the only reason but it did play a part in my rationale. As a Linux and OSS user and contributor (OK I haven't been doing as much of the later lately but...), I'm keen to support other OSS projects as much as I can; I think this is one reason why Android is pretty popular amongst the OSS community too, yes the Google brand/marketing machine/$$$ does help too

Talking of brand, I think this is an area where the Symbian Foundation in partnership with their partners need to do some work. Yes Symbian is well known (is the most prolific mobile phone/smartphone OS), but there are markets where it is viewed with a fair amount of scepticism (/me looks across the pond to our North American friends). One reason I see for this scepticism is national pride, this may sound antiquated but many people that deride Symbian are staunch followers and users of Apple/Google/Palm/RIM, and as such they want to use and promote homegrown products. Which is fair enough, but let's not deride something because it doesn't come from our own land. Maybe this is down to me being an OSS user where products I use are very much multi-national?

Anyhow onto the device, firstly it is very well built from a hardware point of view. The keyboard works great even with the placement of the spacebar on the right (might not be so good for all you lefty's out there); key travel isn't great, but once you get used to the small amount of travel you can actually get a decent typing speed up; the camera works well even if the focus on close up objects isn't as good as it can be (hopefully a software issue). The fact that it uses the USB port for charging is a godsend as I've almost always got a computer nearby, and when travelling means I have one less plug to lump around. Also having 32GB of storage built in means I can carry a shed load of files (media and others) and potentially leave my dedicated MP3 player at home. My only hardware gripe is with the built in speakers, they are way too tinny sounding, and really does ruin the audio that is being played.

Now onto the software. The N97 runs Symbian S60 5th edition, also known as Symbian^1. I'll take a moment to look back on the E71 which runs S60 3rd edition FP1; this release of S60 is very tried and tested and has been around for quite some time which lends itself to being chosen for an enterprise focused device. Symbian^1 on the other hand is very new there are only a handful of devices available at the moment that run this release. Having such a new OS will invariably introduce bugs, thankfully none of which have caused any pain or detracted from using the device.

My two big niggles are the accelerometer and GPS; the accelerometer can be a bit finickety in detecting whether the phone is in portrait or landscape mode, a quick shake and tilt tends to let it know which way you want it; the GPS seems to be a bit slow on keeping track of your position when travelling, I tried it last night on my way home from the train station and on several occasions it would say I wasn't actually on the road (I know some people think my driving is bad, but it isn't so bad I can't stay on a dual carriage way ), another issue is that it couldn't keep track of my speed and would display the speed as 0mph for a good chunk of the 15mile trip and as such it would misplace me on average about 500 yards behind my actual position. Now I'm not sure if GPS issue is a result of Symbian^1 not talking properly to the receiver or if it has something to do with the new version of Ovi Maps (version 3 was released as an update), I'll try tonight with an external bluetooth receiver and see. The built in Music player works pretty well although I do recommend changing the equalizer from default (very little bass is set). All in all the default application set works well, yes there are opportunities for improvement but aren't there always?

Now onto the whole does it play well with Linux. In a nutshell no Symbian device regardless of version plays well with Linux. Even though Nokia have a pretty large Linux and OSS division they don't seem to get consulted much, actually saying that even the Maemo based N770/N800/N810 don't play that well with a Linux desktop and they're Linux devices! As with most Symbian phones you can turn it into a USB drive which does get picked up correctly by Nautilus or Dolphin, so you can shunt files around (you can use bluetooth too for this). One issue with doing this I found is that if you have your messages (SMS/MMS) set to use the "E" drive (the 32GB of storage) it will reset the setting to use the "C" drive (internal phone memory), so make sure you check it once you disconnect.

I've not found any way of synchronising PIM data with Evolution or Kontact directly from the phone, which is a real PITA!!! Hopefully Nokia will release an update to their new and still in beta Ovi Suite 2 which can overcome this issue - this new release has been re-written in Qt for maximum cross-platform compatibility apparently. Saying that, aren't we supposed to have an openSUSE GSOC project to support mobile phone syncing etc, what's the status of it and why have we not heard anything? The only way I have found to sync data is to use a third party web service, now unfortunately Nokia in their infinite wisdom have decided to not allow desktop apps to sync with their Ovi Service, why I have no idea but this means I can't use it with Syncevolution One service that does work, and works pretty well is Funambol and their My Funambol portal. This doesn't provide as much function as Ovi but at least I can get most of my data in sync.

Also as with other Symbian devices you can't sync your music or video with applications like Banshee or Amarok. Hopefully the right reverend Riggwelter can assist me in getting this issue sorted, and we'll submit the necessary upstream to make sure it works for all users. Video is a real PITA on the N97 as it is with almost all devices, not all containers/codecs are supported which means you have to go through the whole file conversion circus which annoys the hoohaas out of me. One disapointment at the moment is the lack of Ogg Vorbis/Theora support, if I remember correctly there was some talk a while back about Nokia being scared of submarine patents about it - hello Nokia, if someone wants to sue you for using Ogg they're going to have to sue every Linux vendor and believe it or not the Linux community will rally behind open formats! Hopefully a the release of Symbian^3 can rectify this. Lastly the N97 isn't recognised by NetworkManager as a modem yet, this is another aspect that I hope to contribute a fix to (with Father Riggwelter's and Tambet's help).

What about updating the device's firmware/software? Previously you could only do this using Nokia's PC Suite which is locked into proprietary OSes. Not now (the desktop suites are still locked in) you can do it all from the phone! Thank you Nokia, this is a positive step forward. You can update the firmware direct from the phone providing you have a decent connection (I highly recommend using a WiFi connection over 3G) and a decent charge. You can also get application updates and certain feature add ons directly from the phone.

What if you want to develop applications for it (isn't that a popular pastime for all you hackers out there?); let's see what your options are, would Sir/Madam prefer Java (J2ME), Flash (Lite), Python, Ruby, C#, JavaScript, C++? Yes they are languages that you can use!! So people, there's no excuse not not have some pretty damned brilliant OSS apps on your mobile and on your desktop, oh OK and on your server

All in all would I recommend the N97 to you? The answer is yes most definitely, it's a great device with huge potential that is being capitalised on (maybe not at lightning speed but it is happening).

I'll do another post shortly on a couple of HackWeekIV ideas that are Symbian related, one of which I have already started on.

Well it's been a while since I mentioned Goblin (almost a month ), and I thought it about time that I let people know what's happened in that time.

The first noticable thing is that I haven't managed to create any usable image either via SUSE Studio or the Build Service.  This isn't due to lack of trying or anything, but one down to technical and code issues.  As with all things new, especially in Linux, the latest versions of libraries and applications are needed.  This isn't an easy or quick task, and as we are aiming to have the spiffy Moblin User Interface running on the current stable openSUSE release this means a lot of work backporting and fixing breakages due to these backports.  This is where we are basically - fixing breakages; this does have the advantage though that when we push things into Factory we will be in good stead.  openSUSE 11.2 will hopefully be a natural choice for netbooks when it is released later this year.

I suppose it would also help if I give a bit of insight as to what will be in Goblin (powered by openSUSE), yes I'm sticking to this name as Moblin is the upstream distro with the spiffy UI and IMHO calling our release openSUSE Moblin would be wrong.  Anyway back to the topic of insight.  Novell have got a lot of people working on Goblin, there's the relatively new team in Taiwan and the usual spread of people from the US west coast to Japan and all points in between (going west to east).  I have been fortunate enough to be shepherded by the distinguished Michael Meeks who has shown an immense amount of patience (as have most others) when it comes to my attempts to help.  Thankfully I think I'm actually learning something, as I managed to have a patch accepted (with help from Vincent Untz).  The guys and gals at Novell have been busy not only porting the UI but also creating applications to compliment it. 

The first big one is Anjal, a webkit based UI to that stalewart of PIM apps evolution.  This has been submitted upstream to Moblin and is now the default mail client - great work by Srini Ragavan.  The mighty Aaron Bockover has created a netbook optimised front end to Banshee called Cubano which is an alternative to upstream's Hornsey media player, and will be the default for Goblin.  Aaron has been busy with Guy Lunardi and co, and has created a FireFox plugin that optimises FireFox for netbook's smaller display called Meerkat, again a compliment to the upstream Moblin Browser.  Tambet Ingo has been busy creating a NetworkManager backend for the UI, which means that you can enjoy all the NM goodness out of the box (the big one here is cellular connection, 3G/UMTS/GPRS/CDMA etc) which will be the default for Goblin replacing upstream's connmanager backend.  The kernel in Goblin has had a fair ammount of love from Greg Kroah-Hartman, who's been rolling new kernels with the same attention that torcedores show those fine leaves of a Cohiba.  Another difference that Goblin has over upstream is with Empathy, you'll be able to connect to MSN/Y!/AIM/etc protocols out of the box as we will be providing telepathy-haze by default.  You will also have all the upstream applications available to try and use, as well as OpenOffice.org and F-Spot (both of these are not in upstream's release).

Everything is being built on the Build Service, which is showing signs of being a victim of its own success unfortunately as it gets very busy.  Personally I blame Henne Vogelsang for opening things up and really making openSUSE open .  It does get a bit frustrating, but there are moves a foot to clean things up and try and improve the service so hopefully we can see some benefits soon.

So just to recap, currently we're working on getting the latest and greatest working together on an openSUSE 11.1 base which inturn enables Novell to use the work in their SLE based offering.  As a parting gift I'd like to present to you another fine creation by that artistic maestro who knows no bounds (well maybe he does but he's hiding them well) Jakub Steiner.  He was gratious enough to create a new wallpaper/background for Goblin which you can download from here:


So if you'd like to help out come and join us on #opensuse-moblin where most of the guys and gals directly involved with Goblin lurk.  A lot of the peeps also hang around in upstream's #moblin.

I've just dropped the source to the openSUSE on Symbian widget into Git. You can grab it from GitHub.

I'd love it if I could get some help with the authentication side of things, also I need to replace some of the artwork - the likes of the progress bar, change the colour of the highlighted object etc. So if anyone wants to chip in please, feel free

Yes people you can now get a good dose of the Geeko on the most prevalent Operating System on phones, well sort of

I present to you the openSUSE.org WRT widget application. Firstly I have to give credit to the guys and gals over at the Symbian Foundation,after all I did borrow (or should that be fork?) their idea. I based my app on their "Symbian on Symbian" widget, modified it slightly and hey presto!

Now I'm no legal begal, but I couldn't find any reference to a license for the original widget, so I may be treading on one or two toes here - if I am please let me know (in a nice way without the bailiffs and heavies ) and I'll remove the app. I don't think it will come to that as the source is posted for the original in Symbian's Mercurial repository so I have a feeling it would be under the Eclipse License. Once I get confirmation I'll update all.

Anyway enough of the boring stuff, let's get onto the widgety magic. This is a work in progress, I'd even go so far as to say this is an ALPHA product! Yes that means I take NO responsibility for frying your phone, absolutely zero, nada, zilch One of the reasons why it's probably so rough is that I'm not a web developer, so my knowledge and understanding of javascript is very very thin. Thanks to the original source I was able to change things enough to get a working application (thanks Symbian for the clean code).

So let's have a brief look at it:

When you run the application you will be asked to enter your login details:


Once that has been done you'll be presented with the Main Page:


As you can see I have set up multiple items, unfortunately not all work properly yet. The Wiki option is meant to show you new pages but doesn't; and I can't seem to get the Bugzilla component to display anything, it keeps going back to the login page so obviously a setting is a miss. Although our dear friend iPain err I mean iChain could be to blame too

The Forums component funnily enough takes you to a feed from the openSUSE Forums. You may get a little error message pop up but not to worry.


You can then select the Latest Posts to show you a feed of all the latest forum posts:


The blogs component takes you to a feed from our dear Planet SUSE:


The openFATE component shows you all the changed feautres:


I would like to add components for the available items in Hermes, so people can easily track their build status, features that they are subscribed to and also any build service submit requests that they're involved in. I need to work out the best authentication method first and then a way of personalising feeds taken from the credentials.

So you want to try it out? Good! You can download the widget here, and it should work on most S60 3rd edition FP1 and above phones - I'm using it on my E71 and N95. I'll be uploading my source shortly, but in the mean time you can just extract the .wgz and see all the files there. I'd love to hear your feedback especially any requests. Enjoy.

I can finally release my super secret project to you the lovely community: Project Goblin. You may well be asking "WTF is Goblin?!" and the answer is pretty simple really - our illustrious mascot Geeko + Moblin = Goblin

It was pretty typical really, I start working on my Netbook images again and before I can finish at least one of them I'm pipped to the post by the great work by Intel, the Linux Foundation, Novell and the whole Moblin community. I however didn't let this dishearten me, no no. I actually viewed it as a natural compliment to my existing/planned images, and as such I present to you Goblin. Many thanks to the artistic supremo Jakub for the artwork, he knocked it up in a very short space of time and yes that is indeed fifth leg being used as the font

This is not an officially sanctioned project in any shape, form or matter (not yet at least ). I am not trying to fork Moblin at all, I am purely allowing people to get the Moblin experience running on an openSUSE base. I am in the process of getting some installable images (both USB and optical) but there are one or two issues that need to be overcome first, hopefully I can get it out the door soon.

I am however running Moblin now on my eeePC701 without too much issue. There are various things to keep in mind:
1. Moblin is still in beta so expect some bumps - I take no responsibility for any fragging of your hardware/data
2. Make sure you check before you update your kernel.
a. If you are NOT using an Atom chip, make sure you only use the kernel from the "Updates" repo.
b. If you ARE using an Atom chip, make sure you use the kernel from the "Moblin:UI" repo.
3. Do NOT upgrade module-init-tools
4. You will need to run Sax2 to reconfigure X (this tripped me up for a while).
5. Moblin has a bit of an appetite for disk space, I'll hopefully be able to get the package list sorted so it isn't so bad.
6. Ideally a 9" screen or above, for some reason some apps don't like the 701's 7" screen
7. I can't remember what else, but there's probably something else

So how does one get this new fangled experience? Pretty easy really, install your choice of openSUSE 11.1 (I went with my GNOME Image and then add the Moblin:UI repo. OK great but what packages do I need, there's a lot in that repo?! Yes there is and this is my selection (it isn't 100% correct I'm sure), these are just new packages and NOT including upgrades to existing packages:

anerly
anjal
carrick
dates
empathy
hornsey
meerkat
moblin-branding-opensuse
moblin-gtk-engine
moblin-icon-theme
moblin-session
moblin-ux-settings
moblin-web-browser

As I said these are just new packages that I needed to install, in addition to a lot of upgrades. If you use the gstreamer packages from Packman then don't be surprised if you get dependency conflicts and it asks to uninstall some packages. It hasn't stopped me from watching video/listening to music.

Feel free to discuss/correct/comment/add/$WHATEVER but the usual no flaming applies Enjoy!

As I promised I now present the KDE release of my Netbook images. I'll try and get the XFCE release done soon.

So a simple changelog for those curious:

:- Based on openSUSE 11.1
:- Installable from USB - yes it does work!
:- KDE 4.2
:- Fits onto a 2GB USB Stick
:- Application selection changes

Function = Application
Terminal = Konsole
Text Editor = Kwrite
Web Browser = FireFox
File Manager = Dolphin
Music Player = Amarok
Video Player = DragonPlayer
PDF Viewer = Okular
IM Client = Kopete
IRC Client = Konversation
Social Networking = Choqok
e-Mail Client = Kmail
RSS Reader = Akregator
Calendar = Korganizer
Addressbook = Kaddressbook
Notes = Basket
Photo Viewer = Gwenview
FTP Client = Dolphin
Flashplayer = Adobe
Java = Sun
Moonlight = Yes
Bluetooth = Yes
Codec Framework = Xine
Networking = NetworkManager

As before I used SUSE Studio to create them you can grab the USB images for ASUS eeePC (tested on 701), Dell Mini 9, and a generic image (this should hopefully work on Acer Aspire One, MSI Wind etc.)

In case you don't know how to get the image from the tarball and onto your USB stick, have a look at the wiki.



As always your feedback is welcome and wanted. Tips, tricks and even opinions are welcome; but please try and not flame me

After a long hiatus (I think it's been almost 5 months) I have finally got round to creating new netbook images. I've also made some changes to the application selection, potentially aggravating some but at the end of the day this is what works for me so tough chippolatas . Up first is the GNOME edition, yes I said first as I'm creating these when time permits and as I use GNOME more often it's easier for me to do. I'll be doing KDE next followed by XFCE, and in less than 5 months - I promise!

So a simple changelog for those curious:

:- Based on openSUSE 11.1
:- Installable from USB - yes it does work!
:- GNOME 2.26
:- Fits onto a 2GB USB Stick
:- Application selection changes

Function = Application
Terminal = Gnome-Terminal
Text Editor = Gedit
Web Browser = FireFox
File Manager = Nautilus
Music Player = Banshee
Video Player = Banshee
PDF Viewer = Evince
IM Client = Pidgin
IRC Client = Pidgin
Social Networking = Gwibber
e-Mail Client = Anjal / Evolution
RSS Reader = Evolution
Calendar = Evolution
Addressbook = Evolution
Notes = Tomboy
Photo Viewer = EoG
FTP Client = Nautilus
Flashplayer = Adobe
Java = Sun
Moonlight = Yes
Bluetooth = Yes
Codec Framework = Gstreamer
Networking = NetworkManager

As before I used SUSE Studio to create them you can grab the USB images for ASUS eeePC (tested on 701), Dell Mini 9, and a generic image (this should hopefully work on Acer Aspire One, MSI Wind etc.)

In case you don't know how to get the image from the tarball and onto your USB stick, have a look at the wiki.



As always your feedback is welcome and wanted. Tips, tricks and even opinions are welcome; but please try and not flame me

I feel it my duty to knowledge share this excellent Management course. It is very quick and easy to digest and makes perfect sense, it also dispenses with the usual Marketing/Management rubbish.

It is broken down into 6 easy to consume lessons:

Lesson 1:
A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower, when the doorbell rings.

The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs.

When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next-door neighbour.

Before she says a word, Bob says, 'I'll give you £800 to drop that towel.'

After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob, after a few seconds, Bob hands her £800 and leaves.

The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs.

When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks, 'Who was that?'

'It was Bob the next door neighbour,' she replies.

'Great,' the husband says, 'did he say anything about the £800 he owes me?'

Moral of the story:
If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure.


Lesson 2:
A priest offered a Nun a lift.

She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her gown to reveal a leg.

The priest nearly had an accident.

After controlling the car, he stealthily slid his hand up her leg.

The nun said, 'Father, remember Psalm 129?'

The priest removed his hand. But, changing gears, he let his hand slide up her leg again. The nun once again said, 'Father, remember Psalm 129?'

The priest apologized 'Sorry sister but the flesh is weak.'

Arriving at the convent, the nun sighed heavily and went on her way.

On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to look up Psalm 129. It said, 'Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory.'

Moral of the story:
If you are not well informed in your job, you might miss a great opportunity.


Lesson 3:
A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp.

They rub it and a Genie comes out.
The Genie says, 'I'll give each of you just one wish.'
'Me first! Me first!' says the admin clerk. 'I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat, without a care in the world.' Puff! She's gone.

'Me next! Me next!' says the sales rep. 'I want to be in Hawaii, relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas and the love of my life.'

Puff! He's gone.

'OK, you're up,' the Genie says to the manager.
The manager says, 'I want those two back in the office after lunch.'

Moral of the story:
Always let your boss have the first say.


Lesson 4
An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing.

A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, 'Can I also sit like you and do nothing?' The eagle answered: 'Sure, why not.'

So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Moral of the story:
To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.


Lesson 5
A turkey was chatting with a bull.

'I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree' sighed the turkey, 'but I haven't got the energy.' 'Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?' replied the bull. They're packed with nutrients.'

The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree.

The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch.

Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree.

He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.

Moral of the story:
Bull Sh*t might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there..


Lesson 6
A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground into a large field.

While he was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on him.

As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, he began to realize how warm he was.

The dung was actually thawing him out!

He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy. A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate.

Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him.

Morals of the story:
(1) Not everyone who sh*ts on you is your enemy.

(2) Not everyone who gets you out of sh*t is your friend.

(3) And when you're in deep sh*t, it's best to keep your mouth shut!


THUS ENDS THE FIVE MINUTE MANAGEMENT COURSE

Those that have been following my tweets and dents will have noticed I've been moaning about my todo list growing, and also the fact that I managed to misplace it a few times. I tend to use the great Tomboy for most of my note taking tasks, and tend to use Tasque with the EDS backend for my todo, this works well on my main laptop but not too well on my little eeePC due to space limitations which has led to a serious lack of any Mono love.

Lionel Dricot and Bertrand Rousseau have created an alternative that I can use - GettingThingsGNOME affectionately known as GTG. As always you can install it either via or by adding the GNOME:Community repository.

Happy task/note management

Or lack thereof.

There are a couple of reasons as to why I have been very quiet on the Netbook front. One big issue is lack of time, I have moved accounts with work and as such I'm now on a client site with fairly restricted net/machine access; also the fact that I'm very busy with money generating activities (yes I need to pay bills too ). Another issue, that to be honest is effectively a bit of a blocker, is the fact that I have run into a bug. The offending blighter is BNC #449785 .

Unfortunately I don't have a great deal of free time to troubleshoot, so I'm asking for some help from you, the great community. It isn't fair to expect that it will be fixed purely by the paid members of the community (you know the guys and gals from Novell), if anyone can help please do so. This will benefit everyone not just me and the fellow netbook using community. Patches are welcome as is additional output, just added it to the bug.