Category Archives: Maemo/MeeGo

How to install ScummVM in N900

People are asking me just exactly how does one install ScummVM? Well, the answer has changed. With my version, you pretty much had to know some basic Maemo hacking to get it installed. However, now as the official version of ScummVM is available from the Maemo Extras-devel repository, all you have to is:

Some N900 tips

I’ve received some questions and would like to post the answers right here in case others are wondering the same things about the N900:

  • Yes, the memory on the device is partitioned so that you have around 1.5GB or so for applications, and the rest for data (images, videos, music, maps, software you use with DOSBox, etc.)
  • To install Dosbox you have to add one or all of the extras repositories in your device App manager: extras, extras-devel, extras-testing. More instructions about that are available at: https://wiki.maemo.org/Extras

Faster version of running Windows 3.11 on N900

I did some tweaking and uploaded a faster Windows 3.11 running on N900-video to Youtube. The most important changes were setting frameskip=6 in dosbox preferences and installing of S3 video drivers in Windows, which had a huge difference in speed. I would have liked to test how well it would have worked with a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, but I still don’t have any to try it with.

ScummVM for N900 / Fremantle updated!

Just a quick note, i have released ScummVM 1.0.0-rc1-fremantle3 containing the following enhancements:

  • full-screen mode can be entered and left with ctrl-f.
  • Global menu can be entered with ctrl-s
  • SCI games have been enabled. A brief test with Larry 6 and Quest for Glory 2 seemed promising!

 Download it here: http://www.tuug.fi/~toni/blogitems/packages/scummvm_1.0.0~rc1-fremantle3_armel.deb

Download the patch against ScummVM 1.0.0rc1 here

Screenshot with Quest for Glory 2:

Quest for Glory 2

Things TODO left:

  • Come up with new keypresses for the essential features like saving and loading game
  • Upload the binary package to maemo.org Downloads and fremantle repositories
  • Submit things to the mainstream project in case I actually do any
    production-quality code changes, instead of random hacking around
    (though I’m not hiding anything, all my stuff is available upon request
    if someone really wants.)
  • Try to get the screen centered (already happens in fullscreen)
  • Display the mouse cursor (actually already seems to happen in AGI games like Larry 1)

ScummVM for N900 / Fremantle

I have made an initial unofficial build of ScummVM for the N900. It seems to work OK.

Day of the Tentacle

It requires some additional packages, all of which are available in the extras, extras-devel or extras-testing repositories, such as: libsdl, libmad, libvorbisidec, libflac, libasound. 

All I really did was:

  • Apply the supplied patch for the N810 (Maemo 4) devices and added the -lX11 flag to linking, since otherwise it could not find the symbol XStoreName which comes from libX11.
  • Add RX-51 (=N900) into the list of keyboard-equipped Maemo devices in the part where it figures whether or not it’s running on a keyboard-equipped device or not
  • Fix the window focus – due to a Fremantle SDL bug (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5153)
    you couldn’t use the keyboard at all since all keypresses went to
    wherever you launched Scummvm from (homescreen -> calls up the
    Contacts page, xterm -> keypresses appear on command line) otherwise.

I would like to stress out that this is completely based on the previous Maemo porting work and all I did was the abovementioned things on top of that.

Now that I have this running, things to do would be (in no particular order):

  • Figure out which parts of the Maemo 4 patch are still a) necessary b) working anymore. At least the part that adds the application into the launch menu is still working. The part about bypassing GCC 3.x bugs may not be.
  • Come up with new keypresses for the essential features like saving and loading games
  • change the default directory to /home/user/MyDocs (or something) when adding new games
  • Upload the binary package to maemo.org Downloads and fremantle repositories
  • Submit things to the mainstream project in case I actually do any production-quality code changes, instead of random hacking around (though I’m not hiding anything, all my stuff is available upon request if someone really wants.)
  • Try to get the screen centered
  • Display the mouse cursor (actually already seems to happen in AGI games like Larry 1)
  • Enable fullscreen mode with some key combo

Things I don’t think I’ll be able to solve:

  • Music playback is sometimes choppy
  • The file selector dialog is not very usable on a touchscreen device

Screenshots and video!

Day of the Tentacle

Leisure Suit Larry 1 (yes it runs some Sierra games too!)

Youtube video:

Screenshots on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/32856926@N06/sets/72157622620009580/

Oh and btw, first post on my all-new personal blog! Forgive me the boring default look and feel as I continue to tune it to my tastes..