[Kde-mobile-users] Bjorn's diary request, n900

[Adriaan de Groot]

Hi All,

Following Bjorn's request (at http://www.opensource-usability-
labs.com/kde/2010/08/02/when-did-you-last-keep-a-diary-kontact-mobile-is-
asking-you-to-share-your-experience/ ) I installed the KDE PIM-mobile packages 
on my n900. The device is one that was handed out at the Maemo summit in 
Amsterdam, it's been updated to whatever the latest release was. Uname says

	Linux Nokia-N900 2.6.28-omap1 #1 PREEMPT Thu Apr 15 09:47:09 EEST 2010


and the "about" info says Maemo 5 version 10.2010.19-1.

I tried installing the experimental packages. Those -- after a 70+ MB download 
-- got me a "broken package" error message, and a "yes / no" question. Cicking 
"yes" downloaded an additional 98kB, then repeated the question. Sorry, I 
don't remember exactly what it was.

The unstable packages installed in one go.

Starting KMail took a long time. So long that I thought it had crashed, but 
eventually it came up. It showed a black screen labeled KMail for a bit, then 
returned to the desktop for a while, then gave me a white screen with a black 
rectangle or other rendering error for another 15 seconds, then showed kmail. 
There's no first-run wizard, so it took a bit for me to find out that you have 
to drag out the left-hand slider and choose new account.

Grabbing that slider/tab thing is  difficult because it doesn't react quickly. 
Item selection in the menu that then shows is fiddly because it uses a light 
blue highlight on a light grey background. I can't see very well if i've 
tapped on something.

The new account wizard .. yesterday I got it to start, and on the first page 
(name, email address) I noticed that the email entry is difficult because the 
keyboard isn't handled correctly. If I enter "groot" and then want an "@" I 
press and hold the spacebar. In every other (?) application this types a 
space, which then shortly thereafter is replaced by a "@". Here, the space 
gets eaten (isn't displayed) and the "@" overwrites the "t".

Today, the new account wizard doesn't want to appear, so I can't say what 
happens after that first screen.

After running KMail and exiting it again, the device feels very sluggish in 
other use. There's still a virtuoso, a mysqld, 13 akonadi processes and 7 
nepomuk stubs and a nepomukserver left. Killing all the akonadi's and nepomuks 
(kill `pgrep akonadi` `pgrep nepomuk`) makes the device acceptably snappy.

So I haven't managed to use the PIM suite on n900 yet, but once it runs (at 
all) I'll be happy to keep a diary for it.

[ade]