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On Maemo you could do that, among other things:

http://maemo.org/packages/view/bluemaemo/

When you get XWindows and Gnome/KDE to run efficiently on ARM, you let me know and THEN we'll talk about portability

Heh... You mean, with this?

Maemo.

Or, perhaps, you mean with this:

Meego

Or even further...

OpenPandora

The only thing that Android has over those is that the mobile companies got behind it FIRST. Nothing else. XWindows isn't the problem. Hell, even GNOME/KDE isn't really the problem, especially with the class of resources you'll find with most of the ARM devices you're finding in the handhelds or tablets. It's only a sort-of problem with something that has 128MiB of RAM and then only sort-of.

Putting it simply, you haven't a clue about what you're talking about if you're basing this all on what you just tried to run up the flagpole here.

Seriously? Nokia's bad application design has nothing to do with touch screen usability. The beauty of the N900 is that it sets no limits to what you can do and you can easily use the command line to do everything. If you don't like Nokia's alarm application, install cron and use that.

I could not agree with you more, especially when one considers Elop clearly had access to something pretty close to the released N9 waaay back in February when he wrote the burning oil platform memo, as justification to sleep with Microsoft and kill off All Direction and Resources up to that point in time.

How would Steve Jobs have made the world know the N9 was The Latest and Greatest Nokia phone (until the next one of course)? He'd Sell it! Yet the very next day Elop hacks together something so lame, it certainly speaks for itself, actions being louder than words and all; with that hindsight clarity.

What grieves me is it is so clear the team that delivered the very fine N9 is not being praised to the highest for what they managed to do, and the day after the announcement the CEO does everything he can to belittle their most-solid straight-on-target deliverable. This lame public presentation and its timing must not look good to the board. (And that video was shot with 2, sync'd tripod'd cameras, anyone can see that it isn't a cameraphone video that 'leaked')

How could the N9 team have done any better? I hope the market answers in a most solid way, without Elop's further interference. Elop's tenure is a matter of time, and I hope it is short because I can't wait for whatever happens in the post-Elop era. Who would want to work for this guy?

I don't really need a new phone, both my N95 & N900 are still perfect machines, with SIP, etc. But now I want an N9 bad, and I want to develop apps for the swipe single-handed GUI. I can envision web-clients to my OpenAtrium development that crackberry CEO-types might like; and the single-handed interface development seems like a good investment once iOS and Droid adopt it too.

I've been telling my friends about the N9 Linux phone, and I'm gonna buy Mom her first smartphone, N9. And I don't see why not, I mean really? Why do people say it is like buying a dead technology? If I like the phone and it works and it lasts, it isn't dead at all. It isn't like someone will make it stop working because something else is coming later. As far as apps go, my N900 does very well with the free open-source apps available at repo http://maemo.org/ and when Apple talks about 'over the air sync' I gotta laugh, since linux does this like a normal thing. I trust the ongoing linux community for support, and I want to support the effort that went into this particular, open, product.

http://talk.maemo.org/ ...Or you could always donate it to me ;) :P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8Tiua4BNQo
This is running MeeGo, and we were able to confirm the screen is 720p and has a 12MP camera. So, that's pretty exciting...

Today, I would not recommend it. In fact, it stands clearly as a Developer Version.

If you want to 'upgrade' your n900, I'd recommend you to try CSSU. Maybe you have already.

Meego is meant for hardware more powerful than the N900's, which was already rather antiquated at the time of its release. While Meego can be installed on an N900, it's only meant for developers to try out Meego handset software on. As a user, you're better off installing the Maemo Community SSU if you want to see further bug fixes and new functionality for your N900.

Now the n900 wasn't perfect, but if it had a capacitive screen, 3g on AT&T, and a 1ghz+ chip, it would have been.

You can overclock the N900. I've not tried it, but some people claim to get it to 1GHz. As for the touchscreen, I kind of like being able to use my fingernails. The lack of 3G on AT&T sucks, but then AT&T sucks in general. I switched to T-Mobile and while I don't get 3G where I live (in the boonies), I regularly get 3.5G in more populated areas.

I've been able to program on my phone since my Treo 650. The Nokia N900 just takes it to a whole new level.

I've been able to program on my phone since my Treo 650. The Nokia N900 just takes it to a whole new level.

Hook it up to your TV at home and bam! You've just saved yourself from buying a whole other device.

Especially when you can use a bluetooth keyboard and mouse with it.

Yeah, Maemo on N800 is a pile of suck, I hoped the N900 would be better, but I jumped ship when I saw that it wasn't. When you have bugs like #463 still open after 5 years, you know they had a loooong way to go to get competitive with Android.

Would that give the highest n900fly score OF ALL TIME?

http://maemo.org/packages/view/n900fly/

I need some background noise too. I think it has to do with the way I've never bothered investing specifically in quiet fans on PC's I've built, and as they've become more and more powerful they just became louder until the point where I need some background noise to fall asleep. Otherwise I can hear a bit of stuff from neighbors and such, and those background noises overlaid on the "loud scilence" is annoying. I recommend Sleep Analyzer http://maemo.org/downloads/product/Maemo5/sleepanalyser/, (THere's also the iPhone app), so you can see to some extent what the noise looks like during sleep, my comfort zone is with a constant hum.

Speaking of UI quirks/misfeatures, is there a way to get to the end of a list of files other than using the "inertial scrolling" repeatedly? I've got waaaaaay too many pictures to be scrolling through ALL of them when attaching more than one to an email.

You can start typing out the filename and it will narrow down the selection list. Or the date such as 02/17 is good enough for all pictures that day. But yes, it would have been nice in the picture attachment example to reverse sort by date, that's the most likely picture to be attached.

If you want a change like that here's the place to do it. http://wiki.maemo.org/Community_SSU/ That they've already fixed the terminal enter problem was all it took for me to install it. Changelog here

Speaking of UI quirks/misfeatures, is there a way to get to the end of a list of files other than using the "inertial scrolling" repeatedly? I've got waaaaaay too many pictures to be scrolling through ALL of them when attaching more than one to an email.

You can start typing out the filename and it will narrow down the selection list. Or the date such as 02/17 is good enough for all pictures that day. But yes, it would have been nice in the picture attachment example to reverse sort by date, that's the most likely picture to be attached.

If you want a change like that here's the place to do it. http://wiki.maemo.org/Community_SSU/ That they've already fixed the terminal enter problem was all it took for me to install it. Changelog here

I'd believe that only Maemo offers moderately convenient gpg encrypted mobile email, not via the default email client sadly, although maybe you could hack that. Afaik, Maemo boasts the only mobile OTR messaging solution too. Android and Symbian beat out Maemo when your talking encrypted voice calls however since only they boast Zfone implementations. If the country is evil enough though, they might not even have access to skype conversations, not sure how skype handles baddies.

Afaik, all modern mobile platforms support virtually all VPN protocols. Android will handle ssh tunnels once you jail break it, presumably the same for Symbian. iPhones, Blackberries, etc. will get messy wrt port forwarding. I'd imagine that only Maemo will offer seamless SOCKS5 support, but maybe Android. VPN also offers the most plausible deniability if they catch you using encryption.

I've cannot comment on encrypting the contents of the phone under Android and Symbian, but Maemo supports some encrypted file systems from Linux and Easy Debian offers all the others. We're hearing about dual core phones running Android and Debian simultaneously. So maybe you should get your encrypted filesystem running on your N900 now, but plan on buying a dual Android & Debain device once your N900 gets long in the tooth?

In practice, you shouldn't really worry too much about your random comments or encryption usage. American citizens won't get harassed too badly unless they're clearly a threat, i.e. an activist, journalist, etc. If your not America, then you should seriously check into the country. Saudi Arabian employers love keeping people there as slave labor by taking passports, even heard about them doing this to French people.

... would be brutally competitive, low margin. ... Any of the other options, save MS, would consign them to the Nokia ghetto, with few apps, no significant community.

• low margin - So how is WP7 going to give them better margins than Android when they can't customize it or otherwise differentiate themselves from other WP7 phones?
• Nokia ghetto, with few apps - Um, since when did WP7 have a nice app ecosystem? I think you mixed up Androids app ecosystem with WP7's.
• no significant community - Again, like the apps. What are you smoking? WP7 - community. Ha! Maemo has a better community than WP7 maemo.org

If you switched Android and WP7 in your argument, it would make sense. How did so many people mark this insightful?

Mappero is superior to Ovi maps, so that's not really an issue. Otherwise I agree to your post.

The whole Meego thing was a disastrous decision for Nokia.

Maemo (as on the N900) works great as an OS. The UI is decent enough too. The "only" thing missing is applications.

Have a look at talk.maemo.org. The main complaints there are things like the old version of Ovi Maps (no turn-by-turn voice navigation), the old version of Flash (no version 10.1 with hardware acceleration), the poor email program, missing support for a few "nice" features like per-caller ringtones.

Nokia found themselves suddenly trailing behind the iPhone and Android, but they had an alternative which was 90% ready. So in a very-time-critical market did they decide to finish off that last 10%? No, instead of allocating resources to providing the missing apps and features, they decided to ditch it completely and start again from scratch. Which also, understandably, pissed off a lot of Maemo supporters.

Nokia were so close with Maemo, but they threw it all away.

- Nokia also announced it will ship its first MeeGo-related device in 2011, which will rely on the Qt ecosystem – and then will continue with MeeGo as an open source project for future disruption.

Uh... "for future disruption"? What does that mean?

And "will continue with MeeGo as an open source project".... Does that mean the community of folks who buy it have to provide their own updates, much like what has happened with the N900?

It seems like almost everyone around here is heralding this is a horrible move. Does anyone actually have a suggestion for what Nokia should have done instead?

They should have stuck with Maemo. Seriously, it's rock fucking solid. I don't care what anyone says, it's a perfectly usable out of the box end user OS, and with the amount of effort they put into MeeGo, they could have very easily tuned and tweaked Maemo to make it into a combined Android/IOS killer.

I love my N900, but it's the only Nokia I've ever owned, and probably the last, after Nokia's clumsy shift to MeeGo (bad) and now WinMo7 (worse). And no, Android isn't open enough for me, not to mention that Android is far too insular. Why should Linux software have to be completely rewritten to work on a "Linux" phone? It doesn't. At most, the UI should need a makeover for the different V and C of the MVC, but not on Android.

I've know many die hard Nokia loyalists that've tuck with Symbian phones as iOS and Android surpassed them, as well as many Maemo fans, both Nokia loyalists and new blood. I've never know anyone who actually liked Windows Mobile however. And all these high -end Nokia users are among the least likely WM7 converts. All will now migrate to Android.

You're almost exactly right:

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=69671

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=69673

I've know many die hard Nokia loyalists that've tuck with Symbian phones as iOS and Android surpassed them, as well as many Maemo fans, both Nokia loyalists and new blood. I've never know anyone who actually liked Windows Mobile however. And all these high -end Nokia users are among the least likely WM7 converts. All will now migrate to Android.

You're almost exactly right:

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=69671

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=69673

This "Armel" flavor is used, among other things, as a base for Maemo (and I guess for MeeGo too).

Nah, Intel based their Moblin on something RedHat/Fedora-ish, and Nokia joined in with that for MeeGo. No more apt-get for future Nokia phones. :(

This "Armel" flavor is used, among other things, as a base for Maemo (and I guess for MeeGo too).

MCE, which has long been a bone of contention. dsme was closed until they moved all the juicy bits out into MCE.

There's a listing of all the infrastructure bits that are closed:

http://wiki.maemo.org/Open_development/Why_the_closed_packages

None of this is an issue in MeeGo aside from BME (annoyingly) and the 3D drivers.

Yes, on the N900 if you use the hostmode kernel mod the normal microUSB it comes with for connecting to your PC can be used in reverse with a female/female adaptor to connect any USB device. I've used it with a USB keyboard, and I've seen it used with a USB DVD drive to play movies.

Not Debian enough for you? Chroot it: http://wiki.maemo.org/Easy_Debian

Oh look what's this?

http://maemo.org/packages/view/fmms/

The N900 can do it:

http://maemo.org/packages/view/recaller/

1) yes, no multitouch. i got over it. I could connect a mouse & keyboard via bluetooth if I really wanted to though, and I can use a real stylus. It's not all bad.
2) what's a store? I'm glad this "store" thing with apps that cost money is nearly empty. Okay, so they have some free stuff there too, but the real place you should be looking is HERE. That's the "extras" maemo repository, full of the free apps that made it through the community based testing & voting process. They're mostly written for the platform, not generic gtk stuff. There's other repositories with even more "apps" that are still in development or testing, and companies and individuals can host their own as well.

Attention N900 users:

If you don't want to totally disable your flash plugin, you can either install adflashblock-css for combined ad and flash blocking, or if you don't want to block ads, use my custom flashblock:

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=625937&postcount=3

I've used a Bluetooth keyboard on my N900, just a little custom command line work is required. I then hook up the N900 to a TV to play games like Descent :)

http://wiki.maemo.org/Fremantle_Bluetooth_Keyboard_Layout

It's also possible to hook up a mouse, DS3/Sixaxis or Wiimote.

I would poke around some of the N900 focused forums, they may already be capable of what you're looking for and if not someone may have figured out how to add it already.

talk.maemo.org would be a good starting point.

And a few pointers:
Concerns about the calendar; closed-source UI [WONTFIX], backend component open though.
HOWTO: Syncevolution with N900 and wiki.
status of Ubuntu One Client
Meego on N900 may offer better possibilities, but it's not there yet.

I would poke around some of the N900 focused forums, they may already be capable of what you're looking for and if not someone may have figured out how to add it already.

talk.maemo.org would be a good starting point.

And a few pointers:
Concerns about the calendar; closed-source UI [WONTFIX], backend component open though.
HOWTO: Syncevolution with N900 and wiki.
status of Ubuntu One Client
Meego on N900 may offer better possibilities, but it's not there yet.

I would poke around some of the N900 focused forums, they may already be capable of what you're looking for and if not someone may have figured out how to add it already.

talk.maemo.org would be a good starting point.

And a few pointers:
Concerns about the calendar; closed-source UI [WONTFIX], backend component open though.
HOWTO: Syncevolution with N900 and wiki.
status of Ubuntu One Client
Meego on N900 may offer better possibilities, but it's not there yet.

I would poke around some of the N900 focused forums, they may already be capable of what you're looking for and if not someone may have figured out how to add it already.

talk.maemo.org would be a good starting point.

And a few pointers:
Concerns about the calendar; closed-source UI [WONTFIX], backend component open though.
HOWTO: Syncevolution with N900 and wiki.
status of Ubuntu One Client
Meego on N900 may offer better possibilities, but it's not there yet.

While it's true that Nokia isn't providing much support for the N900, it shouldn't require much "hacking" to get a working sync solution because it's already been done. The Maemo community has really impressed me with their ability to provide functionality well beyond what's available on a stock N900.

I believe the N900 is soon to be discontinued. Maemo is depreciated in favour of Meego. AFAIK Meego will not be officially supported on the N900. Finally the N900 has been plagued with USB failures. There are claims that a design flaw makes the USB port weak and prone to falling off.
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=37107

For varying definitions of "run." See this thread.

For those who want to appreciate how horribly slow is starting openoffice.org on the n900 device, here's a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMSrtdX5fu8
Don't start viewing unless you have something more than 5 minutes spare.

My favorite part:

I've tried the actions of the video by not starting debian first, but starting OO3 directly via xTerminal ("debbie ooffice").

This boosts the speed approximately by a factor 2.

I've started OO3, than selected "new Textdocument" and typed the same sentence as in the video.
The last letter has shown up after 3min 36sec.

Apparently later they reduced startup to 50 seconds.

After the latest Maemo 51-1 distro upgrade, Openoffice.org seems waaaay faster. It's ready to work in 50 seconds instead than 5minutes+

Video

...but 50 seconds is still 48 seconds longer than is acceptable.

...battle for control over our mobile devices. Fuck it, I don't care anymore. The war certainly won't be won in its current direction. It needs fundamental change at the consumer level.

This is why I recently bought a n900 after reviewing the current situation and comparing many devices with articles, reviews, asking friends or colleagues about their models. Albeit with a (around) 450 € sticker price it was not cheep. But out of the box I do have to worry about changing carriers (if I do), needing to get root (if I want to), app prices, and app licensing.

Oh did I mention it has been out for little over a year and is stable and has a really cool community constantly building open source apps ?

http://maemo.org/

Mappero works perfectly for this purpose on my Nokia N900, it's OS, based on OSM and Google bike router: http://maemo.org/packages/view/maemo-mapper/

You mean like Maemo?

I just got a Nokia N900, which has Maemo, and I'm very happy with it. Finally, a phone I can code for using my extensive experience with Unix programming.

I always laugh when I hear about people paying for phone apps. The N900 has thousands of free FOSS apps, and I'm fairly certain that they're combined functionality exceeds that of all the iPhone apps, both free and paid. There are some things you just can't do on an iPhone, even a jail broken one. e.g. replace the kernel (the alternative Maemo kernel has a lot of useful features)

The correct answer is neither: Ovi apps are rubbish and Debian apps often have issues with the interface (with the exception of the GNU utils, SSH, and anything else intended to run from the terminal)
I get all my apps from the Extras and Extras-testing repositories. All of them are free and open source, and there are quite a few superior replacements for the native N900 packages. e.g Faster Package Manager, Leafpad, HDR Capture, etc.
Extras-testing is intended to be RC quality, but many apps stay there because the developers couldn't be bothered to promote them. I haven't had problem with any of them, not even the alternative kernel (it says a lot that gaining root acess or replacing the kernel on the N900 is as easy as installing a text editor (and rebooting))

You may find the following helpful:
http://maemo.org/packages/
http://maemo.org/downloads/Maemo5/
http://wiki.maemo.org/Extras

If anyone seriously thinks that an iPhone is more fuctional/powerful than a N900, they're using it wrong.

The correct answer is neither: Ovi apps are rubbish and Debian apps often have issues with the interface (with the exception of the GNU utils, SSH, and anything else intended to run from the terminal)
I get all my apps from the Extras and Extras-testing repositories. All of them are free and open source, and there are quite a few superior replacements for the native N900 packages. e.g Faster Package Manager, Leafpad, HDR Capture, etc.
Extras-testing is intended to be RC quality, but many apps stay there because the developers couldn't be bothered to promote them. I haven't had problem with any of them, not even the alternative kernel (it says a lot that gaining root acess or replacing the kernel on the N900 is as easy as installing a text editor (and rebooting))

You may find the following helpful:
http://maemo.org/packages/
http://maemo.org/downloads/Maemo5/
http://wiki.maemo.org/Extras

If anyone seriously thinks that an iPhone is more fuctional/powerful than a N900, they're using it wrong.

The correct answer is neither: Ovi apps are rubbish and Debian apps often have issues with the interface (with the exception of the GNU utils, SSH, and anything else intended to run from the terminal)
I get all my apps from the Extras and Extras-testing repositories. All of them are free and open source, and there are quite a few superior replacements for the native N900 packages. e.g Faster Package Manager, Leafpad, HDR Capture, etc.
Extras-testing is intended to be RC quality, but many apps stay there because the developers couldn't be bothered to promote them. I haven't had problem with any of them, not even the alternative kernel (it says a lot that gaining root acess or replacing the kernel on the N900 is as easy as installing a text editor (and rebooting))

You may find the following helpful:
http://maemo.org/packages/
http://maemo.org/downloads/Maemo5/
http://wiki.maemo.org/Extras

If anyone seriously thinks that an iPhone is more fuctional/powerful than a N900, they're using it wrong.

"There is an app for that!"
There is an app called "Cellular Modem Control Buttons" which turns off the cell phone circuits.
Once off you can have the N900 connected to Wifi and use Skype, Browse the web (including YouTube) ... use it as you please :)
http://maemo.org/downloads/product/Maemo5/cell-modem-ui/