The Ultimate MeeGo Dictionary

There is quite a blizzard of very similar terms when it comes to discussing MeeGo and Qt matters, so I decided to put together a small dictionary which will hopefully clear up some terms and help follow up info on them. Don't worry if it's slightly confusing or contradictory at a first read, that's normal. Here we go, in alphabetical order:


DirectUI - see MeeGo Touch Framework

DUI - see MeeGo Touch Framework

Fremantle - see Maemo 5

Harmattan - see MeeGo-Harmattan

Harmattan UI framework - see MeeGo Touch framework

Harmattan UX - the user interface and applications of MeeGo-Harmattan. 

MADDE - Maemo(/MeeGo) Application Development and Debugging Environment, offers the following features:

• Command-line cross-compiling
• Multi-platform support (Linux (32-bit/64-bit), Windows, Mac OS X)
• Configurable for different targets & toolchains
• Client for the device to simplify the development process
• Will be used as part of future releases of the MeeGo SDK, along with QEMU, to enable cross-OS development.

Maemo - a software platform developed by Nokia for smartphones and Internet Tablets. It was initially based on the Debian Linux distribution. One of the predecessors of MeeGo, along with Moblin.

Maemo 5 - the default operating system on the Nokia N900, and current latest stable and independent version of Maemo. Based on the GTK toolkit. Aliases: Fremantle

Maemo 6 - see MeeGo-Harmattan

Maemo 6 UI framework - see MeeGo Touch framework

MeeGo - an open source, Linux project which brings together the Moblin project, headed up by Intel, and Maemo, by Nokia, into a single open source activity. Managed by the Linux Foundation. The important thing to note that you end users will mostly be using an edition of MeeGo, MeeGo itself is not a single product (that’s why "will X run/get MeeGo" is a bad question), just like people are using a Linux distributions, not Linux (as in kernel) alone. 

MeeGo Compatible - something that implements the MeeGo APIs, but is not necessarily based on MeeGo Core (for example Meego-Harmattan).

MeeGo Core 1.0 - the base of every MeeGo system (diagram), contains

• Kernel based on Linux 2.6.33
• DeviceKit and udev for interacting with hardware devices
• Modern 2D / 3D graphics stack including Kernel Mode Setting, non-root X
• Voice and data connectivity with Connman connection manager, Ofono telephony stack and BlueZ Bluetooth
• Qt 4.6
• Universal Plug and Play (gUPnP)
• Media frameworks
• Next generation file system BTRFS, as the default file system
• Does NOT contain a user interface or end-user applications !

MeeGo Garage - A client app installer in the MeeGo 1.0 Netbook release containing miscellaneous applications not part of the official MeeGo release and open for contributions from community. The name "Garage" may be changed in future releases. Ongoing community work is happening to create the official community repositories.

MeegGo Handheld - MeeGo Core + MeeGo Touch Framework + Reference Handheld UX (not yet released).

MeeGo Hardware adaptation project for the N900 - Nokia as founding member of MeeGo project is using N900 as the ARM reference platform of MeeGo at the moment. This means that we have an active project that focuses to make a MeeGo hardware adaptation for the N900. The goal of the project is thus to open as much N900 specific drivers as possible in MeeGo scope.

MeeGo Hardware adaptation project for the N8x0 - a 'skunkworks' project by the maemo.org community and others to bring MeeGo to Nokia N8x0, hence not a vendor-pushed hardware adaptation. Initially focus will be on Nokia N810. Some additional work to add support for ARMv6+VFP is also included in this.

MeeGo-Harmattan - the default operating system of the Nokia N9. Successor of Maemo 5, but based of the Qt toolkit. Originally named Maemo 6, but later rebranded as MeeGo-Harmattan (provisional name). It is MeeGo compatible (that is, has a MeeGo API) but is not to be confused with MeeGo 1.0 Handheld (as it is NOT based on MeeGo Core). MeeGo-Harmattan will not be released as a Nokia product for the N900. Aliases: Harmattan, Maemo 6.

MeeGo Netbook - MeeGo Core + Reference Netbook UX

MeeGo SDK - A software development kit for MeeGo

MeeGo Touch Framework (MTF) - provides the features needed for developers creating applications for touch-enabled devices. Features include standardized window navigation, list and other widget behavior, and common theming for components.

MeeGo Web RunTime - Web Runtime (WRT) allows web developers to use standard web languages — HTML, CSS, and JavaScript — to create applications for mobile devices. WRT exposes the features of the underlying platform so that applications can interact with device data and combine location-based context with web information.

Moblin - short for 'mobile Linux', is an open source operating system and application stack for Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), netbooks, nettops and embedded devices. One of the predecessors of MeeGo, along with Maemo. 

Moblin 2.1 - last stable independent release of Moblin 

Moblin 2.2 - see Meego 1.0 Netbook 

Nokia Qt SDK - A custom version of the Qt SDK, which includes additional functionality for developing for Symbian/Maemo devices (with announced MeeGo support later on). These include tools for cross compiling (see MADDE) and simulation. Not to be confused with the Qt SDK as the two are not interchangeable due to a custom mix of features (neither is a a superset of the other)

Orbit - see UI Extensions for Mobile

QML - a Declarative UI tool, in effect a markup language that defines UI elements and their behavior in a declarative manner, allowing, snappy, whizzy UIs. Present in Qt4.7+

Qt - a cross-platform application and UI framework. Using Qt, you can write web-enabled applications once and deploy them across desktop, mobile and embedded operating systems without rewriting the source code.

Qt Quick - the Qt User Interface Creation Kit, which consists of QML, a specialized editor in QtCreator and all-around support for the declarative approach. Present in Qt4.7+. Aliases: Qt Declarative, Declarative UI, Bauhaus.

Qt SDK - The software development kit for the Qt framework

QtMobility - extends Qt with libraries providing additional features for applications targeting mobile platforms. These include the Service Framework and Contact and Bearer Management APIs, Messaging, Sensors, Camera, etc.


Reference Netbook UX - a reference (example) implementation of a user interface for netbooks, utilizing Moblin’s Clutter-based MX toolkit. It is expected to be replaced or augmented with manufacturer provided user interfaces/system applications on actual devices.

Reference Handheld UX - a reference (example) implementation of a user interface for handheld devices, based on the MeeGo Touch framework. It is expected to be replaced or augmented with manufacturer provided user interfaces/system applications on actual devices.

Uiemo - see UI Extensions for Mobile

UI Extensions for Mobile - an extension library for  Qt, which contains more than 50 UI elements tailored for mobile user experience. There is a proposal to use Orbit and Qt together with Direct UI as a replacement for the existing S60 'Avkon' set of UI elements in Symbian^4, but has been demonstrated to work on Maemo, too. It was previous known as Orbit before getting renamed to UI Extensions for Mobile (uiemo) and open sourced. Aliases: Uiemo, Orbit


That’s it, if you feel there is a Maemo/MeeGo/Qt term that needs clarification and is missing from the list, or that I’m wrong on a term, please leave a comment, thank you.


EDIT: This page is also present on  http://wiki.meego.com/Meegodict and will be merged into http://wiki.meego.com/Glossary (pending review and corrections).