Re: [Council] State of Maemo, Q32010.2
 

I'll concede the point that I can't think of replacements that are not based on hildon-desktop itself, but then it's not to say that they couldn't--it is fair to say that there doesn't appear to be a lot of interest in trying to. If the window manager has been replaced with a custom one (as I did with my N900) you REALLY have full control over what window manager you can have loaded and you COULD try put KWin on there if you really wanted to but I don't see the TMO forums ablaze with interest to do so.
...

Oh, patches! Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure. I'm sure there are a myriad of android replacements. Oh, I'm sure.

Ran out of time and patience for the rest...

Re: [Council] State of Maemo, Q32010.2
 

This isn't meant in a snide way, merely curious...what are the "myriad" OSes that run on the n900?

I count...maemo, meego, and nitdroid (sort of). Anything else?

I qualify nitdroid as "sort of" because when the internal GPS doesn't work and audio is one-way for the phone, it's only sort of functional. :)

Re: [Council] State of Maemo, Q32010.2
 

"myriad" (official definition: 10000) is a bit of an exaggeration ;-)

The N900 is a bit poorer in that respect. Options for previous devices include Mamona, Mer, Deblet, Poky, Gentoo, Ubuntu, OpenWrt, and probably a few others I forget.

It also depends on your definition of "other OS", if you include things that run on top of Maemo there's also the various easy-* chroot environments and emulators like Garnet, DOSbox etc.

Edit: there's also some info on the wiki: alternative operating systems, alternative desktop environments, emulators.

Re: [Council] State of Maemo, Q32010.2
 

Mamona seems to be dead (or the server is having issues), and poky seems to have moved away from anything nokia branded.

Re: [Council] State of Maemo, Q32010.2
 

And by the way, "oneclick" z4root is based on http://intrepidusgroup.com/insight/2...-the-c-skills/ . Does anyone believe Google will let it stand? Or maybe it was just the Jailbreakers' move in the Google-vs-jailbreakers game, and now it's Google's turn?

There's a monthly #maemo flamewar about this :).

Re: [Council] State of Maemo, Q32010.2
 

That's part of what Android 2.2.1 closed up. If you have a phone running 2.2, you can use z4root with no problem, but once you move to 2.2.1, you're unable to use that method.

Technically, Google made their move and it's the hacking tinkerer's turn (jailbreaking is what you do on an iPhone and implies a LOT more restrictions than just getting root). BUT...!

My brother finally decided to root his Motorola Droid and I had run into this problem. I ended up manually using adb on the Linux command line to push tools onto his handset and then ran 'rageagainstthecage' to force a root shell to chmod the tools... BAM! Rooted. It wasn't hard either--and I'm sure someone will use this method in a one-click method as well, but it isn't readily available in a one-click tool right now as far as I can tell. I posted what I did to root his phone over on the SuperOneClick thread in XDA, so we'll see what happens next.

I assume it's quickly going to flip back to Google's turn to make the next move.

Re: [Council] State of Maemo, Q32010.2
 

I did expect there was a certain amount of hyperbole to that statement, I'm just surprised to learn that any other OSes were running on nokia tablets.

Thanks for the pointers, I have more interesting reading to do!

I do know about the chroots, I wouldn't count them each as an OS as such, but they do certainly greatly extend the power of maemo.

As far as contributing back to the original topic, I'm frustrated at the half-hearted openess of maemo as well. Thankfully, it hasn't held me back from doing what I want with my n900, at least "yet". So in the day to day I'm happier with my phone than not.

Given that smartphones are pretty much just small portable computers with cellular modems, I'd like to see manufacturers start to release drivers and let people install the firmware that they like. I don't see that necessarily *happening*, it's just what I *want* :).

Edit: I'm not hampered by the semi-openess because I use very little of the included nokia software. I'm pretty much the most boring person in the world, so I don't use the calendar (I don't have a schedule :)). I don't use the email client. I do use the contacts but I haven't noticed any problems with contacts (knock on wood). I just use open source software I'm used to from my linux desktop and laptop usage.

99% of the time I'm ssh'ed into my phone, running tinyfugue, and telnetting out to MUD/MUSH. The rest of the time I'm running around like Gir from "Invader Zim", chanting "What's that do? what's that do?" while trying out new (to me) software in extras.

Re: [Council] State of Maemo, Q32010.2
 

Yeah, I think the latest available is what's shown here. The git tree hasn't been updated since January.

Poky was OpenedHand's own distribution, so after the Intel acquisition a change of focus was to be expected. It (or at least its build system) now seems to be part of Yocto.

Re: [Council] State of Maemo, Q32010.2
 

The thing is, Nokia isn't wrong when they say it's the most open "mainstream" GNU/Linux mobile distribution, so from their PoV there isn't much incentive to be more open. It'd be nice if someone else stepped up and gave them a run for their money. Who knows, maybe this time next year we'll be comparing the relative openness of various vendors' MeeGo products.

Re: [Council] State of Maemo, Q32010.2
 

See, that's the thing. From the looks of things, it would appear that the OS is becoming far less open than Android--which is kinda pathetic given it's whole selling point is being open-source. While Nokia opens up certain portions (which seems like pulling teeth, to start with), they ADD more and more closed-source components to the OS that you can't exclude without harming the system. Whereas Android already has a larger open of open-source to closed, and they're unmarrying a lot of the closed-source as a dependency--so you CAN replace them with open-source without harming the whole Android eco-system. Nokia hasn't got bragging rights to being more open than anyone else lately. Maybe back in 2006/2007, but certainly not anymore--even amongst large mobile OS's that they compete against.

Oh God. Another fellow MU*er. May you never get @toaded. :)