linuxuk.org Adventures in Linux Land

Entertainer 0.2 Release Candidate Available

Its been nearly 4 months since the last release of Entertainer but now version 0.2 RC (Release Candidate) has been made available. This release has many bug fixes, some minor enhancements (slide show feature, video playback eye candy among others) and some code clean-up but the real story is how Entertainer is progressing.

This release indicates the Entertainer projects approach to early development. Instead of rushing off adding feature after feature at the expense of code cleanness and correctness, Entertainer is building up slowly on a solid base. It is progressing with a test driven development approach which is ensuring that as Entertainer grows, the code quality doesn't diminish.

So whats planned for version 0.3? Well some things the developers have talked about are a more agile development approach, more code clean-up, bug fixes, complete Clutter 0.8 support, a new backend indexer, and we may even see an appearance of the plug-in architecture, but that one is more likely to be postponed until 0.4.

As 0.3 is being worked on by the team, my personal goal is to get the interface as finger friendly as possible for the Maemo supported released. The infrastructure isn't really there yet to allow the touch interface but with some work it will come.

With the Maemo 5 Alpha SDK slated to be released November time, and the Beta some time early next year, now is the perfect time to get this excellent Desktop media center application tablet friendly.

So what are you waiting for, go get the software from launchpad or wait a little while for the PPA archived version which will be made available soon.

Maemo Summit Lightning Sessions – Day 2

At the 2008 Maemo Summit there were more lightening talks planned for day two, along with some from day 1 that had technical problems. Here are a hand full great talks that showcase what Maemo has to offer.

liqbase, by Gary Birkett

liqbase, by Gary Birkett from Jamie Bennett on Vimeo.

WorldTV99: Watching TV on your tablet by Bunanson

WorldTV99: Watching TV on your tablet from Jamie Bennett on Vimeo.

mCalendar advanced syncing with google services - Benoît Hervier

mCalendar advanced syncing with google services - Benoît Hervier from Jamie Bennett on Vimeo.

KDE on maemo by Marijn Kruisselbrink

KDE on maemo by Marijn Kruisselbrink from Jamie Bennett on Vimeo.

CELF Embedded Linux Conference Europe

I will be attending the CELF Embedded Linux Conference Europe next week (Thursday and Friday). This time I'll be taking in the sights and sounds as I won't be speaking at the event. If anyone else is there and would like to meet up for a coffee/tea/beer then get in touch, it will be nice to catch up with old friends and hopefully meet new ones.

Googles Android

So, Google has released the code to their mobile operating system, Android. Now I know this has confused some people who already thought that the code was open, but it wasn't until yesterday. Although several revisions of the Android SDK have been released over the past year, the actual guts of the code had remained closed, until now. It was released to coincide with T-Mobiles release of its G1 mobile phone, the first Android powered device.

As many people did, I rushed off to download the source from the git repository at kernel.org. Its been about 24 hours now since I started looking at it.

So is this the 'next big thing'? Will Google dominate the mobile space with Android? Will this change the world? Well, yes and no.

First off, the code itself. A quick peruse around shows that its in pretty good shape, modifications to the standard Linux kernel, Python, Java, the usual suspects. Its well documented and nice to read as you would expect from the talented engineers at Google. Speaking of documentation, the contributor documentation sets out Googles intentions for the platform. This is where the interesting idea's start to spring from. Not what Android has to offer today, but what it will be like in the future.

Yes, technically Android is strong. It's backed by one of the most powerful companies in the world and one would expect it will do well. But where the platform shines is in none of that, its the fact that the platform is open.

Within 4 1/2 hours of the source code being released, the Google Android team accepted their first patch from the community. Within 24 hours that number was up past 10. That's the beauty of open source. Even with Google's engineering man power, they will still over look bugs, they will still break things. In a closed source company this is always a problem. In an open source one, the famous old Linus quote applies, "Many eyes make all bugs shallow".

Android will succeed, but it will be more to do with its open nature than anything else. To paraphrase a famous companies slogan, "The futures bright, the futures Orange Android".

Introducing the Maemo Community Council

Wow, who would of thought it; 65gb of video takes a long time to edit and transcode.

So here is another one. From day 2 of the summit comes a very interesting video, the introduction of the first ever Maemo Community Council.

Introducing the Maemo Community Council from Jamie Bennett on Vimeo.

Well worth the watch, if only to see the rest of the guys introduce General Antilles.