[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] RE: Nokia 770 sources...

[From: Christian Pernegger]

> Why was [setting up the developent environment difficult]?

scratchbox is not an official Debian package, and as far as the rather
intrusive directory structure goes, I can see why it isn't. It also
needs i386 when my "do your worst" boxes are both amd64. All in all it
was just long and error-prone.

> - Setting up UI environment like Xnest/Xephyr?

Xephyr segfaulted left, right and center when I last tried it, but
only after the first few events. Xnest worked.

The chroot + rootstrap approch itself would be nice enough if the
environment were exactly the same as a 770, that is including
applications. At first I thought something was broken because it
wasn't really possible to _do_ anything in the chrooted environent. So
obviously we aren't supposed to enhance the provided apps ... hmm.

The scratchbox environment has no audio output, no battery indicator,
no "simulated" connectivity, ... it isn't much better than saying
"compile using these header files and cross-compile by changing your
makefile in this way".

I'll admit the last time I played with handheld development was on a
Palm emulator, which felt much more complete - maemo is like flying
blind.

> I think the accepted fact is that development for different processor
> non-PC devices is different.

Yes, traditionally it is. But a RAD approach would get you more
developers from the "hobby" end of the spectrum, while you'd have to
completely open up the software (including applications, bootloader,
etc ...) for professionals to donate their spare time.

maemo just isn't fun to work with yet, but I'm sure you'll get there :)

C.