MAEMO Tools and installation

Maemo platform is based on Debian Linux. So you need some Debian distro, for example Ubuntu. You can install Ubuntu Linux on your computer or you can use some virtual machine, for example VMWARE. In our seminar project we used Ubuntu Linux in VMWARE. For developing Maemo software, you need some tools:

SCRATCHBOX COMPILATION TOOLKIT

http://www.scratchbox.org/

Scractchbox is well-documented cross compilation toolkit for maemo development. It includes compilers and other tools and it makes embedded Linux development easier. It is made in Finland: Created by Movial and sponsored by Nokia. Scratchbox creates a kind of virtual sandbox for target environment development.

Some features:

supports ARM + x86 target architecture
easy to install with automated script (see maemo installation instructions)
kind of virtual sandbox, such as Java Virtual Machine
All the software configuration, compilation and installation is done in a sandbox environment exactly like on your target device (Internet tablet)
multiple application developers can work simultaneously on a single host machine through server

CROSS-COMPILING?

basic idea: prosessor (HOST) compiles the software for other prosessor architecture (TARGET)
so you compile your program to another CPU architecture

USAGE

Launching from Linux command-line after installation:

/scratchbox/login

MAEMO SDK

"root image" in scatchbox

X-server (freedesktop.org/Kdrive)
Matchbox
GTK+ 2.6
GConf
GNOME-VFS
D-BUS
GStreamer 0.8
SDL
SQLite
Libosso Framework
Hildon Framework

pkg-config

Pkg-config simple program that provides a unified interface to output compiler, linker flags and
library version numbers.

Virtual X Server (Xephyr)

"The unofficial maemo vmware package"

Some open source people have done unofficial, ready-configured vmware - package for maemo development. Size is about 4 Gigabytes. You can get it from here:

http://maemovmware.garage.maemo.org/

Unfortunaly those packages were corrupted when we downloaded them and tried to install so we currently don`t know are they working or not.

ESBOX - Eclipse Maemo Plugin

Eclipse IDE, one of the most powerful free IDE:s in the market, has a Maemo Development plugin, which helps a lot.

http://esbox.garage.maemo.org/

http://esbox.garage.maemo.org/eclipse_installation.htm

http://esbox.embedded.ufcg.edu.br/help/index.jsp?topic=/org.indt.esbox.help/html/toc.html

Resources

http://maemo.org/maemo_training_material/maemo4.x/html/maemo_Getting_Started/index.html