Mer Linux

Mer is a good choice as it is optimised for small screens and hardware support is good. However Mer is now essentially a legacy project and MeeGo will be the platform for ongoing development.

Mer will be installed on (and boot from) a USB stick and your Joggler's main OS should not be affected (although the usual caveats apply and there is a risk that you may brick your device).

Mer is still at alpha level so here are some notes on the OS once it is running to set expectations


 * Web browsing in general seems a bit broken in Mer. Here's a quick rundown of the browsers and their issues:
 * Tear - (the default browser) can't tap screen to follow links
 * Dillio - Blisteringly quick browser, but can't get it to bring up the virtual kbd
 * Fennec - Freally slow, but can't get it to bring up the virtual kbd
 * Midori - Can't tap screen to follow links
 * Midbrowser - Doesn't fit the screen very well and can't get it to bring up the virtual kbd
 * Links2 in graphical mode - Can't get it to bring up the virtual kbd
 * Netsurf - The only browser that you can tap to follow links AND get the virtual kbd. However it's so slow to render pages it's almost useless.

Note, if you use a kbd and mouse with your joggler and Mer then many of the browsers listed above might be fine, the issues are mostly around virt kbd and screen tap to follow links


 * The o2 Joggler has no backup battery or whatever for the hwclock. So we need to set the time once when mer is installed and later after each login and working network connection using "ntpdate" to always have the correct date. This is currently realised through the rc.local file, which updates the time 4 times in steps of each 30 seconds after login. So watch out to have a working wlan/lan connection during this period.


 * There is no opengl support yet.


 * Other hardware works now completely: WLAN/LAN/USB/Sound*/Touchscreen - that's all the o2 Joggler offers.


 * Sound is still a bit noisy initially, however several users have reported cure of editing the grub config file to add idle=halt to the kernel arguments. Long term fix is in the kernel patches and updated efi listed elsewhere on this wiki.

mkdir fat mount /dev/sda1 fat vim fat/efi/grub/grub.cfg

then change the line: linux /vmlinuz-2.6.30 root=/dev/sda2 ro acpi=force

to: linux /vmlinuz-2.6.30 root=/dev/sda2 ro acpi=force idle=halt

umount fat

then just reboot the joggler to discover no more sound problems!

The mer-linux image for the joggler: A first "alpha image" can be found at:

http://www.gforums.de/juggler/mer-juggler-alpha_015.tar.gz

Please download/only use this if you own a Joggler device.

You also need a second file which contains the bootloader:

http://asdfghjkl.me.uk/files/joggler/efi.tar.gz

(tested and working on Mer and Ubuntu MID)

Your USB stick should have 2 partitions: a 64Mb FAT16, a 512M (or larger) ext3 (not ext2)

After downloading the archives, untar them to your usb stick.

The efi.tar.gz goes to the first FAT16 partition of your USB drive, mer-joggler...tar.gz to the second ext3 partition.

To do this on the command line in linux cd to the path of your USB stick's first partition (the FAT16 one)

eg. cd /media/partition Then

Run "sudo tar pzxvf /path to ware you saved the tar files/efi.tar.gz" to untar the efi.

Then cd the path of your USB stick's second partition (the ext3 one)

eg. cd /media/partition2 Then

Run "sudo tar --numeric-owner -pzxvf /path to ware you saved the tar files/mer-juggler-alpha_015.tar.gz" to untar the mer OS. note: The v in the -pzxvf above is optional, it just gives you a running list of what it is untaring as it goes.

Having done this, 1.) unmount your USB drive partitions and wait until you can remove them.

2.) turn off your joggler

3.) insert the usb stick

4.) turn on the joggler

5.) wait for mer to boot

6.) you should see the console screen. Wait some seconds and the welcome guide comes up. Enter all things needed.

7.) when done, you should see the desktop of mer Linux. Congrats!

Trouble Shooting: Some people have encountered problems booting Mer when using a USB hub. If you encounter read errors during the boot process then try connect your USB storage device directly to the Joggler without a hub.

To see, which files are changes in the x86 mer image, you can have a look at: http://www.gforums.de/juggler/mer4juggler-fix.tar.gz

Here is a list of all changes I have made:


 * modified the startup script (99wizard) to ask for timezone, time, date
 * modified x11 org file to work with the Joggler
 * modified hildon menu entries (including two pixmaps) (added one for display standby and one to start the Joggler original software)
 * inserted kernel modules from 2.6.30 as we use this kernel to boot
 * added ntpdate for catching dater from internet
 * added a modified rc.local and fsstab
 * added a test mp3 for sound tests