[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] Alternative platforms ?

[From: Tommi Komulainen]

On Mon, 2005-11-07 at 19:59 +0000, ext Glen Gray wrote:
> Hey Guys,
> 
> The maemo project looks really interesting. Currently it seems  
> entirely focused on the Nokia 770 platform and I'm wondering if  
> that's a valid impression ?

The Nokia 770 was the first (and only) device to use the maemo platform
and some corners were cut in the process, and things like fixed display
size and resolution were assumed. But limiting ourselves to only a very
specific hardware configuration would be a pretty stupid thing to do in
the longer term, so we are interested in making the platform more
flexible.

One of the things we're planning is to check just how far can we push
the screen size before things stop scaling nicely and start breaking.
That would give us a good idea what can be done currently and where the
problems lay. If there's interest in participating in the effort we
could try coordinating it more openly.


> For example, I currently work on a kind of non portable internet  
> table. It's meant to be stationary (beside a bed or on an desk). It's  
> essentially a custom form factor epia m10000 that's mounted in a  
> special case behind a 15" 1024x768 screen. We use a base system of  
> Fedora Core 2 and have our own software stack running a top of those  
> binaries. There's no physical keyboard, just a touch screen and  
> currently HTML driven UI.

You're the more lucky ones. With larger display there are only minor
cosmetic issues that really need fixing (like the status bar width and
TN height) - the rest should stretch pretty much naturally. Changing the
font size might bring up more problems about hardcoded assumptions about
line heights in pixels.

OTOH running maemo on a smaller screen.. :-]

Basically you can easily get a feeling how things would work if you just
run Xephyr with the desired resolution. (We've also had some fun playing
with Xrandr.)


-- 
Tommi Komulainen                            <tommi.komulainen at nokia.com>