Sailfish OS is a new mobile operating system based on the Qt platform that will soon end-up in mobile phone near you. Until now it was possible to build the SDK yourself, but it was pretty challenging since the documentation was lacking, as Jolla, the company behind Sailfish OS, focused on development. The good news is that you don’t need to build the SDK yourself anymore, since Jolla has just released Sailfish SDK Alpha for Linux 32-bit & 64-bit, and Windows & Mac OS versions will come later.
You’ll need a computer that meet the following requirements:
- A host machine running a Linux operating system
- Oracle’s VirtualBox version 4.1.18 or higher pre-installed on the host machine.
- About 5GB of free disk space
- 4GB of RAM or more is recommended
You can get started in two steps:
- Install the SDK – Download the 32 bit or 64 bit Linux installer. (~650 MB), change the permissions, and run it to complete the installation
- Run your first application – You can choose to start the IDE (Customized version of QtCreator) automatically right after the application, or launch it from a terminal window:
1~/SailfishOS/bin/qtcreator
Go to File-> New File or Project to start a new application based on a template that gives you a quick way to create your first Sailfish OS application. Detailed steps are available here.
Sailfish OS SDK is a collection of tools for developing Sailfish OS applications:
- QtCreator integrated development environment (IDE)
- Mer build engine for cross compilation
- The Sailfish OS Emulator
- Tutorial, Design and API Documentation
- Repositories for additional libraries and open source code
If you’re used to develop Qt/QML applications for Symbian phones or other platforms (it seems most new mobile operating systems such as Ubuntu for Phone, Tizen,… are now using Qt/QML), you may feel comfortable developing apps for Sailfish because it makes use of familiar building blocks: Qt Quick, Qt Mobility 1.2, Qt Webkit 2.2. The SDK also adds “Sailfish Silica” QML module for Sailfish UI components.
For more information, check out sailfishos.org.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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