MaemoOnUbuntu

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Please check the status of this specification in Launchpad before editing it. If it is Approved, contact the Assignee or another knowledgeable person before making changes.

Summary

Maemo development on Ubuntu is a suboptimal experience currently, as external packages need to be downloaded, and the Maemo SDK needs to be manually installed.

The purpose of this specification is to allow Scratchbox to be part of the 'universe', and maintained in a way that makes it easy for developers both from the open source community, and from Nokia, are able to use Ubuntu for Maemo development in a painless way.

Scratchbox is a tool designed to help in building a Linux distribution from Scratch. The host tools are provided with Scratchbox and therefore it is more or less a small Linux distribution in itself. During the build process a number of libraries are copied from the host system (Scratchbox was never intended to be Linux from scratch in itself) which makes Scratchbox heavily dependent on the build environment. The host tools are compiled on top of these libraries, so building in another system would require updating the host tools inside Scratchbox as well.

Currently the supported build environment is Debian Sarge. Scratchbox won't compile under Ubuntu Feisty.

In the development branch of Scratchbox, Scratchbox 2, this is no longer an issue, but Maemo development with Scratchbox 2 is still in it's experimental stage.

Rationale

  • External repositories are evil

Use cases

  • A developer who wants to develop for his new shiny tablet, selects "Maemo SDK" from "Add Application menu" on the latest Ubuntu

Scope

  • Inclusion of Scratchbox 1.0.7 and latest modular packages into the xxxx repository
  • Inclusion of the Maemo SDK metapackage on the next version of Ubuntu (feisty). How this will be done is one of the object of discussions of this specification.
  • Both Scratchbox and Maemo SDK need to be supported to their latest versions, even after feisty (and subsequent releases) are launched. Updates must be provided via feisty-backports, and possibly feisty-proposed + feisty-updates.

Design

Implementation

Code

Data preservation and migration

Unresolved issues

  • How can Maemo SDK be successfully made available for Ubuntu developers?
    • Directly?
    • Via a stable URL which is used for download
    • In both cases, the Maemo SDK license agreement must be shown to the user, and accepted before installation proceeds
  • What repository (universe, multiverse, commercial) should be used for the Maemo SDK?
    • Universe requires Scratchbox buildable with Ubuntu buildd's
    • Multiverse is reserved primarily for non-free stuff
    • Scratchbox requires Debian Sarge build environment
  • Is "binary-only" scratchbox acceptable as temporary measure?
    • sources would still need to be included, but they will not buildable in Ubuntu setup.

BoF agenda and discussion

Discussion Part

  • Who gives a go/no-go decision if scratchbox can be included as "binary-only" RikuVoipio

  • Which repository would be the most suitable place for Scratchbox?


CategorySpec

MaemoOnUbuntu (last edited 2008-08-06 16:23:53 by localhost)