My Opera
Meego, Jolicloud and Netbook operating systems
Friday, August 20, 2010 2:41:51 AM
Meego as a stand-alone OS for my netbook, but with integrated access to Jolicloud - the best of both worlds.
Background
A few days ago I installed Meego 1.0 on my HP 2140 netbook. I had previously installed Moblin 2.1, and admired the interface, but was frustrated by many of the shortcomings of that OS. As a result, my main OS was, as with my desktop, Ubuntu 10.04. Recently I installed Jolicloud as well, and found myself using that most often.
Jolicloud has many of the advantages of Ubuntu (being essentially a shell overlaid on Ubuntu 9.10), but with the new HTML5 interface it offers a seamless integration of native apps and web apps. The web apps are simply chrome/chromium application shortcuts, and as set up in Jolicloud work almost exactly the same as on an iPhone. What I like most about Jolicloud is that my netbook became more like my phone, and in fact many of my favourite iPhone apps like Instapaper, Simplenote, Penzu, My Writing Nook, HootSuite were readily available.
A netbook needs to be more like a phone, or an iPad, as close to instant-on as possible, and the obvious shortfall of multi-booting a netbook is the extra time it takes to boot up. So I decided to try Meego as the sole OS, primarily because Meego's boot speed is very good (typically less than 30 seconds from hitting the power switch to home screen) and it has better integration of key applications, and better integration of selected web services. But to do so, I had to borrow some ideas from Jolicloud, and most particularly, set up My Jolicloud as a web app in it's own right.
Issues
The most critical issue, as I see it, with Meego 1.0 at present is availability of proprietary drivers. Setting up wifi on a typical netbook with Broadcom wifi is a pain. Whereas with Ubuntu (and hence, with Jolicloud) it just works out-of-the-box. Similarly, proprietary codecs to play mp3s and avis etc.
I'm sure I'm not alone in saying all of this would be so much simpler if they had elected to use the Debian apt system rather than the Fedora RPM system for package management. I may be biased, as I am very familiar with apt, but it just works better and has so much more available.
The hurdles I needed to overcome to make Meego a viable OS were:
1. Setup wifi
2. Install proprietary codecs
3. Setup Dropbox integration
Installation
I recommend going with the Chrome version rather than the Chromium version. I tried the latter first and had issues with some websites, critically My Jolicloud.
Installation is extremely simple, and I won't go through the details. As this was to be a single OS system there was no need to set up disk partitions etc. As a result, it took no more than about 10 minutes and a handful of mouse clicks.
Before doing anything else, I recommend running system update in the Applications panel. This will take 15 minutes or so, but I found installation of the wifi wouldn't work for me until I had updated.
Wifi
To get wifi enabled, I obviously needed to be directly plugged into the network. I followed sLAINE's excellent guide here.
Setup proprietary codecs
To setup MP3 and AVI codecs I followed this guide, with a few alterations. After downloading divx.sh, you have to go to the download folder and rename what was downloaded from divx.download to divx.sh, then right-click and put a tick next to "allow executing file as program" in properties > permissions.
The setup took nearly an hour to download everything and install, and did require you to agree to downloads a couple of times.
Setup Dropbox
Setting up Dropbox is very simple, but involves several steps:
1. Download the Fedora x86 RPM from here
2. In the terminal, navigate to the download folder then run install the RPM:
Version 0.6.3-1 was the latest version when I installed, but obviously change this to the version you downloaded if it is different. Similarly, if you downloaded to a different folder, cd to the appropriate folder.
3. You will find the Dropbox application in the Applications panel, simply double click and it will ask to download proprietary features etc.
Restarting Meego will ensure integration, and when you next open Nautilus, it will ask you to login etc.
4. Critically important is the final step, to remove the Dropbox repo from yum, which is automatically added during installation of dropbox. Without removing the repo, Yum won't work.
The Panel, Panel apps and other applications
The panel is the key feature of Meego, at least in conjunction with the "Myzone" home screen.
Meego has two distinct application types: Panel apps which are integrated directly into the shell, so-to-speak, and individual applications. The panel plays the role of a typical toolbar - it shows the time, as well as battery/power, bluetooth and network indicators. In this way it is much like any other toolbar, but it is far more than a toolbar, providing access to a selection of key applications in a tightly integrated fashion. Directly next to the Myzone panel icon is Zones, essentially Meego's application switcher / virtual desktop hybrid which is set up as a panel app.
Then the other panel apps: Applications, Status, People, Internet, Media, Devices. These "spaces" a fully integrated, but may also provide access to stand-alone applications.
All running stand-alone applications will show as animated screenshots in Zones. However, panel applications, such as Status, Internet and Media do not show up in Zones. They are immediately available simply by clicking on the appropriate panel icon. The panel is hidden when a stand-alone application is open (though hovering the mouse at the top of the screen will bring it down), but it is always visible when panel apps are accessed. The best example of this is perhaps the Media panel app, which is a beautifully refined, album art focused version of the Banshee media player, showing only music. Playing music directly from this panel is instantaneous and nothing shows in Zones. There is a Banshee button next to the search pane, which will activate the stand-alone application in order to access videos, settings etc.
The People panel app is a front-end for the Empathy IM app and Status allows logging onto Twitter and Last.fm, both of which show on the Myzone home screen. Status shows a simple list of tweets, and allows status updating. The "Add new web account" button allows only to setting up Last.fm and Twitter at this stage. Other services would really improve this already great feature, particularly Facebook.
The Devices panel shows key folders, and all drives as well as useful settings. Clicking any of the folders will activate Nautilus, the Gnome file manager.
The Applications panel is simple and effectively laid out. Pinning applications will also move them to you Favourites list, which allows up to eight apps to show in a quick-launch on your Myzone home screen.
Adding web apps, including My Jolicloud
The final step, for me was adding a few favourite web apps directly onto the home screen. For me, these were Facebook, Instapaper and Simplenote, and in addition, My Jolicloud.
I simply created the stand-alone apps in Chrome ("Create Application Shortcut..."), and chose to add an icon to desktop, but not applications. If you choose both, the web app will show up in the Applications panel, but the icon is ugly (just the favicon) and I couldn't get them to pin to the favourites and hence show on the home screen.
Once the application was created and on the desktop, I created a .desktop file, directing it to an icon I had created, and copying the command directly from the properties dialogue of the web app I had previously created (right-click > properties)
I then saved the web app, in the above case Facebook.desktop and saved it in /usr/shar/applications. To do so you will need root privileges. I found the simplest way, because I had a series to create was to start by opening the terminal, and type:
to open the Gedit text editor with root privileges, then create the file and save it to the appropriate folder. Then, rather than closing it and starting again, simple change the details required to create a new entry.
These automatically show up in the Applications panel under internet, and I pinned the ones I wanted to Favourites. (once you have created the .desktop file, you can delete the web app you created as it is no longer needed). Creating a web app of the My Jolicloud site means I have access to all my Jolicloud web apps too, though obviously not the natively installed apps (hence chromium is greyed out).
Background
A few days ago I installed Meego 1.0 on my HP 2140 netbook. I had previously installed Moblin 2.1, and admired the interface, but was frustrated by many of the shortcomings of that OS. As a result, my main OS was, as with my desktop, Ubuntu 10.04. Recently I installed Jolicloud as well, and found myself using that most often.
Jolicloud has many of the advantages of Ubuntu (being essentially a shell overlaid on Ubuntu 9.10), but with the new HTML5 interface it offers a seamless integration of native apps and web apps. The web apps are simply chrome/chromium application shortcuts, and as set up in Jolicloud work almost exactly the same as on an iPhone. What I like most about Jolicloud is that my netbook became more like my phone, and in fact many of my favourite iPhone apps like Instapaper, Simplenote, Penzu, My Writing Nook, HootSuite were readily available.
A netbook needs to be more like a phone, or an iPad, as close to instant-on as possible, and the obvious shortfall of multi-booting a netbook is the extra time it takes to boot up. So I decided to try Meego as the sole OS, primarily because Meego's boot speed is very good (typically less than 30 seconds from hitting the power switch to home screen) and it has better integration of key applications, and better integration of selected web services. But to do so, I had to borrow some ideas from Jolicloud, and most particularly, set up My Jolicloud as a web app in it's own right.
Issues
The most critical issue, as I see it, with Meego 1.0 at present is availability of proprietary drivers. Setting up wifi on a typical netbook with Broadcom wifi is a pain. Whereas with Ubuntu (and hence, with Jolicloud) it just works out-of-the-box. Similarly, proprietary codecs to play mp3s and avis etc.
I'm sure I'm not alone in saying all of this would be so much simpler if they had elected to use the Debian apt system rather than the Fedora RPM system for package management. I may be biased, as I am very familiar with apt, but it just works better and has so much more available.
The hurdles I needed to overcome to make Meego a viable OS were:
1. Setup wifi
2. Install proprietary codecs
3. Setup Dropbox integration
Installation
I recommend going with the Chrome version rather than the Chromium version. I tried the latter first and had issues with some websites, critically My Jolicloud.
Installation is extremely simple, and I won't go through the details. As this was to be a single OS system there was no need to set up disk partitions etc. As a result, it took no more than about 10 minutes and a handful of mouse clicks.
Before doing anything else, I recommend running system update in the Applications panel. This will take 15 minutes or so, but I found installation of the wifi wouldn't work for me until I had updated.
Wifi
To get wifi enabled, I obviously needed to be directly plugged into the network. I followed sLAINE's excellent guide here.
Setup proprietary codecs
To setup MP3 and AVI codecs I followed this guide, with a few alterations. After downloading divx.sh, you have to go to the download folder and rename what was downloaded from divx.download to divx.sh, then right-click and put a tick next to "allow executing file as program" in properties > permissions.
The setup took nearly an hour to download everything and install, and did require you to agree to downloads a couple of times.
Setup Dropbox
Setting up Dropbox is very simple, but involves several steps:
1. Download the Fedora x86 RPM from here
2. In the terminal, navigate to the download folder then run install the RPM:
cd Downloads sudo yum localinstall nautilus-dropbox-0.6.3-1.fedora.i386.rpm --nogpgcheck
Version 0.6.3-1 was the latest version when I installed, but obviously change this to the version you downloaded if it is different. Similarly, if you downloaded to a different folder, cd to the appropriate folder.
3. You will find the Dropbox application in the Applications panel, simply double click and it will ask to download proprietary features etc.
Restarting Meego will ensure integration, and when you next open Nautilus, it will ask you to login etc.
4. Critically important is the final step, to remove the Dropbox repo from yum, which is automatically added during installation of dropbox. Without removing the repo, Yum won't work.
cd /etc/yum.repos.d/ sudo rm dropbox.repo
The Panel, Panel apps and other applications
The panel is the key feature of Meego, at least in conjunction with the "Myzone" home screen.
Meego has two distinct application types: Panel apps which are integrated directly into the shell, so-to-speak, and individual applications. The panel plays the role of a typical toolbar - it shows the time, as well as battery/power, bluetooth and network indicators. In this way it is much like any other toolbar, but it is far more than a toolbar, providing access to a selection of key applications in a tightly integrated fashion. Directly next to the Myzone panel icon is Zones, essentially Meego's application switcher / virtual desktop hybrid which is set up as a panel app.
Then the other panel apps: Applications, Status, People, Internet, Media, Devices. These "spaces" a fully integrated, but may also provide access to stand-alone applications.
All running stand-alone applications will show as animated screenshots in Zones. However, panel applications, such as Status, Internet and Media do not show up in Zones. They are immediately available simply by clicking on the appropriate panel icon. The panel is hidden when a stand-alone application is open (though hovering the mouse at the top of the screen will bring it down), but it is always visible when panel apps are accessed. The best example of this is perhaps the Media panel app, which is a beautifully refined, album art focused version of the Banshee media player, showing only music. Playing music directly from this panel is instantaneous and nothing shows in Zones. There is a Banshee button next to the search pane, which will activate the stand-alone application in order to access videos, settings etc.
The People panel app is a front-end for the Empathy IM app and Status allows logging onto Twitter and Last.fm, both of which show on the Myzone home screen. Status shows a simple list of tweets, and allows status updating. The "Add new web account" button allows only to setting up Last.fm and Twitter at this stage. Other services would really improve this already great feature, particularly Facebook.
The Devices panel shows key folders, and all drives as well as useful settings. Clicking any of the folders will activate Nautilus, the Gnome file manager.
The Applications panel is simple and effectively laid out. Pinning applications will also move them to you Favourites list, which allows up to eight apps to show in a quick-launch on your Myzone home screen.
Adding web apps, including My Jolicloud
The final step, for me was adding a few favourite web apps directly onto the home screen. For me, these were Facebook, Instapaper and Simplenote, and in addition, My Jolicloud.
I simply created the stand-alone apps in Chrome ("Create Application Shortcut..."), and chose to add an icon to desktop, but not applications. If you choose both, the web app will show up in the Applications panel, but the icon is ugly (just the favicon) and I couldn't get them to pin to the favourites and hence show on the home screen.
Once the application was created and on the desktop, I created a .desktop file, directing it to an icon I had created, and copying the command directly from the properties dialogue of the web app I had previously created (right-click > properties)
[Desktop Entry] Name=Facebook Comment=Facebook Exec=/opt/google/chrome/google-chrome --app="http://www.facebook.com/home.php?" Icon=/home/sjosul/Applications/Icons/facebook.png Terminal=0 Type=Application Encoding=UTF-8 Categories=Network;Application;
I then saved the web app, in the above case Facebook.desktop and saved it in /usr/shar/applications. To do so you will need root privileges. I found the simplest way, because I had a series to create was to start by opening the terminal, and type:
sudo gedit
to open the Gedit text editor with root privileges, then create the file and save it to the appropriate folder. Then, rather than closing it and starting again, simple change the details required to create a new entry.
These automatically show up in the Applications panel under internet, and I pinned the ones I wanted to Favourites. (once you have created the .desktop file, you can delete the web app you created as it is no longer needed). Creating a web app of the My Jolicloud site means I have access to all my Jolicloud web apps too, though obviously not the natively installed apps (hence chromium is greyed out).
blogsjosul # Friday, August 20, 2010 6:45:08 AM
Anonymous # Thursday, November 11, 2010 6:57:45 AM
Anonymous # Monday, January 24, 2011 9:09:37 AM