This is awesome, sorry I’m really excited about this little geeky mod that I found over at talk.maemo.org.
If you are getting bored of the old “nokia handshake” boot video as I’m sure most of you are (it’s been going on for how long now?), never fear because Maemo is near
If you have rootsh installed on your N900 you can now change the boot video, in fact if you wanted you could have multiple boot videos.
So how is this all done and where do I get the videos from? It seems that also long as the video can be played by the native media player on the N900 then you can use it at boot, which means we could potentially use any video, provided it’s not too long. Personally I’m a creative monkey so I won’t be creating my own videos, once again this is were our community friends have stepped in to help us.
There are many threads flying around over maemo.org about boot videos including a small post over on the wiki.
These are a few of the videos that I have like so far:
This I think is the original and thanks to @Claesbas for sharing:
Now we get to the how. This is simply the method that I found easiest for myself, and some of you might find better/different methods within the above threads.
Before I start let me tell you that I am not a linux guru, and take no responsibility for any damage you may place upon your beloved N900.
Firstly you will need to download your avi file to your Documents folder.
You will then need to download a default.conf file to the same location.
Now the most important thing to remember for those that don’t understand the file system for maemo, is that this code will work if and only if you have saved the above documents to your Documents folder.(NOTE NOT your MyDocs folder)
In the above code I have called my video myboot.avi, which means that the default.conf file needs have the same name for the AVI inside, for example my conf file looks like this:
[hildon-welcome]
filename=myboot.avi
I have noticed that some people have add issues with the above x-term code at the stage of the first mv(move command). If you have a problem try do a copy instead. Note this will mean that you default.conf file will still be found in your Documents folder after the code is run:
So if this hasn’t made you happy or the idea of using the x-term to change your boot video scares you then check this thread out. @Claesba has started brainstorming/discussions regarding creating an application to help make this process easier and code free.
Now that we got all the geeky-coding stuff out the way , lets go and show off our new boot videos.
A few weeks have pasted since our friends over at Rovio release the awesome Angrybirds game for the N900 over at the ovi store:.
The game is already being downloaded 6 times more than the original sales of the same game on the iPhone. The first world of Angrybirds is free as I mentioned in my first review of the game here.
Most of you may also know that there was an issue with the release of the level pack on Ovi store, which allowed users to directly download the Level pack from their N900’s without having to pay.
Rovio promtly removed the pack, and now most people are left waiting to part with their £3 pounds so that they may enjoy more awesome levels for this graphically beautiful game.
Fear not my little friends because a few of us over at Maemo.org have started a thread for a Level editor. Another great thing is that @Miika over at Maemo.org is also an employee of Rovio and has been good enough to get us clearance to create our own levels and begin work on a level editor, head over and see how things are getting on.
I’ve also added a post to Maemo-freak here.
Quote from @Miika
First of all, wow! We anticipated requests for level editor but didn’t quite expect the users to put effort to reverse engineer their own. It’s very nice to see the level of interest Angry Birds has received from the Maemo community.
As for any possible legal issues no worries, go for it!
So while the level editor is being worked on, myself and @cgarvie have created some levels for you to spent your time on.
I must say that all credit goes to @cgarvie, for all his help on teaching us how to make levels and edit files etc.
He has now release a level pack of 10 custom levels: up and over (@cgarvie) 3 little pigs (@cgarvie) through the wall (@cgarvie) mind the steps (@stobbsc) drop (@cgarvie) pyramid (@cgarvie) oh piggy where art thou (@cgarvie) bounce left right (@stobbsc) roll over miss piggy (@cgarvie) birdhouse of my soul (@cgarvie)
There is a video below of the levels in action:
Here are the instructions of how you can go ahead and install these levels:
First you need to download the attached file:HERE
You can either use WinRAR to extra the file on your PC or Type the following in your N900 terminal if you download it directly to your device:
root
tar xfz /home/user/MyDocs/cag_level_pack.tar.gz
This will extra a mypack folder. Copy this folder to the internal memory of the N900 if you unpacked in windows.
Then open X-Terminal (you will need rootsh) on the N900 an type in the following:
I’m very excited about this up and coming game, that is being build from the ground up, by a couple of Maemo.org community members.
How did it all start you may ask. Well if you head over the official thread you’ll find it’s pretty cool little story:
Lcuk and I came up with an idea for a simple acclerometer game on the bus to Barcelona Airport. Unfortunately we got to terminal 2 before we got to the coding..
The concept is simple. You have a field of sheep, with a few pens. You rock and tip the device to get the sheep into the pens. Then as you go through the levels, the game develops complications. You are the ’sheepdog’ rounding up the sheep. Once a sheep has been penned, it becomes inert (and therefore cannot be bounced or scared out of its pen)
Level 1: Pup
Six sheep, two pens. You must get three sheep in each pen. Responsiveness relatively slow. If user takes too long, the sheep get a bit bored and occasionally stop to eat flowers: they can only be dislodged with a ‘bounce/flick’ of the device. This will also move any other unpenned sheep.
Level 2: Training dog
Twelve sheep, three pens. Four sheep in each pen (you can’t put more than 4 in any one pen). Medium responsiveness. If you are slow the sheep will stop and eat flowers, or lift their tails and poop. Bounce/flick to dislodge them. This will also move any unpenned sheep. Introduction of ‘wolf’ concept: wolf icon appears from one side of the screen and all unpenned sheep scatter in the opposite direction. Repeat if the game taks too long.
Level 3: Man’s best friend
Twenty sheep, four pens. Five sheep in each pen (and only five). Responsiveness maximum. Sheep occasionally stop to eat flowers and poop and need to be bounced. Wolves may enter from all sides and scatter the sheep. Wolf may move across the field, scattering unpenned sheep in all directions away from it.
When all sheep have been penned, game over screen shows a bone and “Well done, good dog!”
This is what we can expect to see in the future
The reason I love this story so much is that it truly highlights, the enthusiasm of the Maemo community and it also shows that anything is possible.
Now as the project has moved through the various phases of brainstorm to graphic requests to development etc, I’ve found myself following the thread and updates So I’m sure you can guess how excited I was when on the 4th Jan @Hopbeat posted the following comment:
Anyone care to gather some sounds together? I have basic baaah (or whatever the English sheep do) when they are penned. It would be nice to have some various quiet baahs that could play randomly in the background. mp3 preferred (any others formats I will simply convert).
So being the crazy geek that I am I took it upon myself to spend a week-end practising in the shower. Last night I final managed to record a few demo sheep sounds just to give the developers a taste of my vocal talents.
Before are a few examples:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Before I start please note that at the time of writing this game is in extras-testing, please check out my games/app page to see the current state of the game. (Game moved to Extras as stable this morning)
If you didn’t already know PrBoom is a port of the brilliant old school game Doom created by id software. To get this working on your N900 you will need to do the following:
Install PrBoom
Get your IWAD or Doom data files (you can get free IWAD files from here)
Copy the above files to this location on your N900/opt/doom/wad
Go to the application manager and click on PrBoom
This game has now been released so check out this linktry this link.
I have found that the game runs very very smoothly, I’ve yet to have any problems. Without the use of a mouse it will take some time to get used to the controls. If however you are not happy with the default controls you customise the controls as you see fit.
The default keys are as follows:
Key
Function
ctrl
fire
q
fist
w
pistol
e
shotgun
r
chaingun
t
rocket
y
plasma
u
afg
i
chainsaw
o
ssg
backspace
back
enter
enter
left arrow
turn left
right arrow
turn right
up arrow
move forward
down arrow
move backwards
.
best weapon
shift
strafe left
z
strafe right
fn
using in combination with arrows to run
m
map
p
Pause
ctrl – fire
q – fist
w – pistol
e – shotgun
r – chaingun
t – Rocket
y – plasma
u – afg
i – chainsaw
o – ssg
Backspace – back
Enter – enter
Left arrow – turn left
Right arrow – turn right
Up arrow – move forward
Down arrow – move backwards
. – best
Shift – strafe left
z – strafe right
fn – using in combination with arrows to run
m – map
p – PAUS
The only problem that I have noticed so far with the game, is when I try and close the window without using the quit, I get a message saying this application has stopped responding do you want to close…
Yesterday was a very good day for the many N900 owners out there. The first major firmware update arrived. The release was done in phases with some countries being luckier than others with regards to who received the updated first. My UK device was ready for it’s update at about 2pm.
I must admit that the update didn’t go as smoothly as I would have liked. I recieved the below message which I thought was not helpful at all.
Luckily my friend @SirMutley helped me out, by mentioning that this message was related to not having enough space in the rootfs as he posted here. 45mb is required for the update to work OTA. It was worth the hassle of removing apps(mostly Qt and devels apps) because this meant that all my settings stayed in place after the update. Please note if you use NSU for the update your settings will be restored, and you may have applications removed.
(left is too little space, right is enough space) (You can check rootfs space in x-term by typing “df -k”)
Personally I think this is something that needs to be sorted out in the future, with a 32Gig harddrive I expect there to more space allocated to rootfs in the future.
Now this were things got weird for me. After the update I went back into the Application Manager and noticed that there was still a Maemo 5 update available, but this time the size of the update was 0mb. Once again I had to go through the process of clearing out rootfs. At the time of writing I am the only person that I know of that has come across the issue of the double update.
(second update with a size of 0mb)
The release of the Change log is HUGE and done in a really great way, in comparison to the way Nokia used to do some of the s60 ones in the past.(in fact sometimes we didn’t even get a change log)
I’m also happy to boast that one of the bugs that I logged with regards to the N900 birthday calendar has been fixed. To me this highlights one of the great advantages of the N900 and the Maemo community that continues to move this device forward with it’s great support.
Another bit of advice is that if you having some small issues I have found that a simple reboot of the device smooths things out.
Before I go over the Change log I would like to highlight some of my favourite updates:
When in the web browser if you press ctrl+shift+o and close the keyboard your webpage will turn to portrait.
(Left is Landscape, Right is Portrait)
Maps GPS locking is extremely fast in about 3sec I got an indoor lock. (I’m still not happy about the app load time though)
My Mail box is now on steroids and as a result is lightning fast.
The web browser seems to faster and smoother from what I can tell, and the over performance of the device if you can believe it is faster and smoother.
And final the birthday calendar bug fix regarding duplicate entries is now fixed which made me very happy.
Below is the full Change log which I’ve taken from the Maemo.org Wiki. My comments where possible about the new features are in read.Red comments are things I don’t like and Green are things I do like.
New features
Hutchison SIM cards are supported.
MS Exchange 2003 support.This has put a smile on the faces of many people.
Maemo Update
Bootloader (Nolo) can be updated over Maemo Update.
Cellular software can be updated over Maemo Update.
Icon cache removed to allow more memory space for Maemo Update.
Application Manager: Available space check moved to apt-worker for more accurate results. I’ve definitely noticed that the app manager is now faster
Reliability
Improvements in SGX performance and reliability.
Use-time and power consumption
API for status area applets to detect if they are invisible/absent.
Fixes to Pulseaudio timer increasing power saving when starting/closing apps.
Browser: Removed unnecessary serial logging.
Reduction of wake-ups in Desktop, Connectivity, Conversations, RSS Feed Reader,
Backup handles correctly directories containing pairs of symlinks.
Less CPU load caused during video recording.
Support disabling Virtual Keyboard in input field.
Performance improvements in Browser. I’m very happy with this the browser is now even more awesome than it already was.
Lock: “swipe to unlock” will not stay on.
CPU idle latencies and thresholds updated.
Fixing eMMC data lines while sleeping.
CellMO power consumption reduced.
Usability
Volume button operation in call flipped based on audio routing (no more on screen orientation). To be honest I find this very very irritating, but I guess it’s just a personal thing. I would like the volume keys to always work the same direction
Browser: Downloading & rendering of page content runs promptly.I’m very happy with this the browser is now even more awesome than it already was.
Helping to avoid capacity limits of rootfs when installing apps (make Docpurge aware of /opt).
Stability and usability fixes to the Profiles applet. Selection, usage and restoring of ringtones.
Fast call from home shortcuts. This is confusing cause I can’t find the functionality, I think they mean the call log for this one.
Fast SMS rejection of incoming call. This is very cool, you can custom type an sms to reject the current incoming call.
Avoid false alarms in pocket.
Silence ringing by flipping face down. This is a nice feature, funnily enough I thought it was already there.
Fix to Camera photo orientation problem: correct orientation is now written to EXIF.
Performance
X: performance of GLES apps improved.
Lower RAM consumption while capturing video.
Phone-UI & Msg-UI always ready to appear. I still find when I turn to portrait that it takes to long to switch to phone.
Application Manager UI speed improvements. WOW yeah the application menus are so fast now, it’s the first thing I noticed after the update.
Email faster with large mailboxes.
Large file copy (SD->MMC) doesn’t degrade system performance.
OVI Maps
Route calculation and search performance improved. BIG UP on this one. I still prefer the maps on s60 but the speed here is awesome.
Connectivity
BT Secure Simple Pairing fixed for Windows Vista.
BT transfer progress indicated.
Improving WLAN connection stability.
Improved WLAN negotiation when going out of reach of access point.
Phonecalls
Add voicemail shortcut support.
Showing call forwarding correctly when busy forwarding is not set.
Call log improved. This is cool, there have been some quick SMS buttons added so less clicks to do what you want.
Audio & Video
Audio volume control works with +/- keys in full-screen playback of flash. This did not work for me
Handling corrupted ring tone files better.
HW volume keys always have same orientation.Yes they do butnot for the phone which sucks
Media Player UI now provides feedback when tapping control buttons in video playback.
MIC input not clipped when loud voice in VoIP call.
Pulseaudio: Ringtone is heard from the loudspeaker if BT connected.
Ringtone played both to headset (BT or wired) and to internal HF speakers. WHY WHY would they do this, now everyone hears my phone ring on the train while I’m listening to music, Nokia PLEASE add a setting to turn this on/off.
AV sync fix for recorded videos.
Camera
ISO EXIF value for images saved when automatic sensitivity in use.
Vignetting test of 2nd camera fixed, VGA sensor stability.
Battery and Charging
Improved charging in case of low charging power (PC USB charging).
USB
Fixing the USB detection and card mounting issue related to quickly attaching/detaching the cable.
Able to format corrupted eMMC properly.
Hang fixed in case of WLAN disconnection while copying files.
Synchronization
Activesync supports now MS Exchange 2003. This is big change for the N900 and one that the community has been waiting for. Big brownie points here
Activesync – fixes the forwarding of attachments showing incorrect sizes (Exchange server 2003).
Content copier of PC Suite enabled. Whole content backup (including Notes) can now be restored from PCSuite.
3rd party applications
Policy-settings: Fixes rotation transition in for 3rd party applications.
Policy-settings: By default, 3rd party apps should have the same limits as our applications.
Calendar
Public API for color picker. Home widget is now translucent. It is nice to pick you own colours isn’t it That pink for b-days was getting old.
Set/get alarms API.
Syncing of task alarms supported. AT LAST. I was going mad not having an alarm on my task. I’m a very happy man now
Image Viewer
Thumbnailing faster. Super fast I’m very impressed
Application Manager
Rename Maemo Extras to maemo.org and enable by default.
Grid view applied for the categories in download view. Added API for filtering packages.
Development Platform
SDK content and tools updated.
SDK GUI installer updated.
New sharing-dialog-dev package added to enable Bluetooth and email sending.
New wappushd-dev package documenting MMS interfaces available.
If you have an N900 and you don’t have this game, you NEEEEED to head over to the ovi store and get it now.
The game is described in ovi store as:
“Angry Birds – Free The survival of the Angry Birds is at stake. Dish out revenge on the green pigs who stole the Birds ’ eggs. Use the unique destructive powers of the Angry Birds to lay waste to the pigs’ fortified castles. Angry Birds features hours of gameplay, challenging physics-based castle demolition, and lots of replay value. Each of the 21 levels requires logic, skill, and brute force to crush the enem y. Protect wildlife, or play Angry Birds!”
The game was created by a company called Rovio the same company that introduced us to the graphically brilliant Bounce on the N900
When playing the game the further you advance, your’ll find that new birds get thrown into your armoury for the various levels.
The Red
Bird – Is just a normal bird to shoot at targets.
The Tiny Blue
Bird – Splits into 3 birds when the screen is touch (while the bird is flying)
The White Bird
- Drops an Egg bomb when the screen is touch (while the bird is flying)
The Yellow Bird
– Speeds up like a nitro bird when the screen is touch (while the bird is flying)
The Black Bird
– Will explode when the screen is touch.
The aim of the game is to shoot your various birds through the air and kill all the little green monsters on the screen.
Sounds easy does it? Well with Stone, Wood and Glass walls in your way you may find it trickier that you first thought…
At the moment the game has 3 worlds, the 1st of which is free and then for £3 you will get the remaining two words. £3 seems a lot when you compare it to the 59p the iPhone users paid for the same game, but trust me it’s worth it.
Now even though I have finished all the levels in each world, the fun is still not over. I am now faced with the challenge of trying to get 3 stars for each level.
Stars are given to you for each level based on how many points you get while finishing the level.
I’m sure anyone with an N900 is already aware of the firmware update that became available yesterday for download.
The talk on the www-vine is that this is a minor update in preparation for the major PR1.1 update which everyone has been eagerly awaiting. As of yet there is no Change-log for the update.
I have noticed that that my email is running slightly faster, and the most noticeable change is the new look in the Download section of the Application Manager. As you can see below we now have some nice icons instead of those ugly grey bottoms.
The other thing that we have noticed is that the ovi store catalogue paths have been added to the Application manager. On top of this the Ovi Store is now open via the web browser for the N900 so head over and check it out for yourself.
This update is available using OTA or NSU. I would definitely recommend using the OTA method, because using the NSU method will restore/remove some of your applications and/or settings.
My Friend Alex has also written a post about some people having issues with “no space on rootfs” if you having this problem head over and check out what he has to say.
Where does one begin to try and describe what a great evening we had on Thursday 7th
Jan 2010? Well lets begin by mentioning the massive headache that I had the next morning and a mailbox full of new twitter friends.
The night began fairly relaxed with people slowly arriving to a warm welcome of snacks and drinks. I meet some great people I must say and the conversation was really interesting and open with regards to mobile opinions. It wasn’t simply a night of praising Nokia and all that is has to offer, but rather a night of sharing with like minded people what we really think, and even a chance to say what we really don’t like about Nokia. This to me is was made the night a success.
I was very happy to finally meet @xMichaelSFx from Thoughs from Hell, in saying that it was a breath of fresh air to meet a blogger and an industry fan, who loved to speak the truth and was not afraid to be honest about his thoughts even if he knew they turned a few heads and sparked a few controversial conversations. Michael I must say thanks for the inspiration, and I hope I can continue to write in the spirit that you described to me last week.
On top of WOMWorld/Nokia getting us drunk they also gave everyone USB sticks with some free Ovi Apps on them. There were plenty of gadgets to play with, including some TV out gaming, with Pacman and some various N900 emulator games.
On of the coolest things of the night (call me a simple man) was when the guys wanted to show us the N97 mini mariachi video, but the laptop that was plugged into the TV would not give out a usable level of volume. So what happened you may ask. The N900 is what happened. They ditched the laptop and plugged in the N900 and we happily watched the youtube videos. (Another reason I love the N900).
Please check out the following twitter tag #wwnmeet, since the meet up loads of pictures have been tweeted, trust me you going to want to see some of them.
Here are some of my pictures.
Oh and not to forget here is a list of some people that come to the meet. I’ve tried to link to there sites were possible.
