The best os on the n810...
 

hey guys,


I have been combing the threads in search of some simple answers. as a new user ( tablet on its way in the mail ) I have all the basic questions pretty much answered but one has been a bit ambiguious from thread to thread unless you have a certain level of system knowledge already. I want to find out the best operating system for the n810, (I know most ppl will direct me to some wiki or say find a thread on it before you create a new one asking about it:mad:) . well I looked and didn't find the answer I was looking for and really dnt mean to be rude but just need a few responses that can help give a better idea since there are no updated videos on youtube to illustrate what the available OS's can do compared to the one that comes on the device. I know its really a personal preference as to which OS to chose but I figured with a few ppl saying which they use and what they use it for i would get a better idea then just reading a wiki on one and still not fully grasping what it does, because i already know what and operating system is per say but specifically ( Mer, Debian, ect...) is a bit different.


any help is much appreciated, Thanks:)

Re: The best os n810...
 

While you say you know what an Operating System (OS) is, I'm not convinced you understand the concept of a distribution (distro).

In basic terms from a Linux perspective (ignoring the technicalities of GNU + Linux kernel and/or each BSD has its own kernel and/or Android's java vm within a Linux scratchbox scenario) you have a collection of software maintained generally by more or less a certain group of people with certain architecture in mind typically and while any distro "can" technically be turned into another distro (this is rarely the case, tends to brick installs)...

Ok I lost you, showing not telling is key for this - particularly people who are used to the tunnel vision of Windows or OSX for that matter.

The entire [software] project around which the Nokia 770, N800, and N810 has been created is referred to as Maemo. The default OS on the tablet is Linux. The default distro on the Nokia N810 is "OS 2008". The default release is codenamed "Chinook". You are going to want to upgrade to the "Diablo" and the most recent kernel (and other stuff that comes with these "Software Security Updates"/SSU). This is designed with a touch screen in mind as well as the rest of the hardware associated with the "Internet Tablet"/tiny computer. There are quite a few repositories (you can kind of think of these as FTP servers containing program installers all in one place; note I am dumbing this down for people that haven't used Linux before - devs please along, no need to critique this post) and has "hildonized" applications, which ranges from applications ported to the platform that play nice with the window manager all the way to games like Bomberman with big finger-friendly buttons. It's a nice environment and you'll want to stay. But there are limitations...

Ok moving on...Debian...oh Debian...Debian is one of the main foundation Linux distros, known for its stability. Ubuntu, Knoppix and others have been derived from Debian (and continue to suck at its teet - can I say that?). Once upon a time "Maemo" more like OS 2006 was [loosely] derived from Debian. Or so they say. It has evolved into a beast of its own that's for sure. Now there are several proper Debian ports for the tablets, with .deb repos filled with the proper ARM packages - of course several of those projects are long-dead. There is always the option of "EasyDeb Turbo-charged" a virtual install that can be accessed if you want to get your Deb on real quick. You get Java support, Firefox (excuse me Iceweasel due to Debian's squabble with Mozilla) and OpenOffice. You also can move windows around - yes "Maemo" has multitasking support but each window is treated like it's in its own private virtual desktop. With Debian and even EasyDeb windows can be moved around and you can have multiple windows on screen simultaneously. Deblet might be worth it if you want to play around with keymaps and other usability configurations.

Codename Fremantle is the next release from Nokia for project Maemo. It's designed for OMAP3 hardware a.k.a. the successor to the N810 and can't be run on the N810 due to the difference in architecture. Mer is a project starting by the community to implement all the features from Fremantle (or most of them anyway) into our own "distro"/release for N800/N810 (perhaps 770 owners too? Haven't looked into that, maybe they'll get Mer Hacker Edition). Mer is a work in progress and its going to be awhile before everything gets ported.

Android as I'm sure you've heard is Google's foreway into a mobile OS. It is basically a custom Java virtual machine running in a Linux "scratchbox" - that is it runs on top of Linux. Applications are "Java"-based and thus should be architecture independent. There is a release for pre-1.0 Android virtual install for the N810 that has been completely unusable for me. There is also project NITdroid which is full Android (1.0 not 1.5/"cupcake") with work-in-progress custom drivers to get the touchscreen to work, keyboard to work, reverse-engineered wifi driver, etc. No gps, no bt, no audio atm. Oh and something that no one ever seems to point out.....gonna go bold for this nugget.

Kernels must be flashed to the device, there is no true multi-boot action going on. There is no Grub boot loader that loads the kernel of your choice. The kernel is flashed on the device as if it were a digital camera and not a friggen portable computer.

Yes there is dual-boot support. You can have Chinook on a SD card and Diablo on the internal flash memory but you can't have Android on an SD card. No. You can chainload some distros perhaps, rig that to work, but for the time being Android and other radically different OSes, no - have to flash the device. And in doing so (unlike flashing to get screen rotate working) Diablo/Chinook won't boot. Have to re-flash to get them to boot again. Frustrating is what it is. There are all kind of little frustrations associated with the device but there are more positives to it than negatives at least for me.

Garnet VM is a Palm emulator, it runs within "Maemo" much like the Gameboy emulator does. It can't run every Palm app because of hardware limitations but it can run quite a few and perhaps not use all functions but hey it's something.

VMware - vmware is not currently available on the device (though virtual machines of the device are). And no technically this isn't true. VMware quite awhile ago showed off a demo of Windows CE and Android running side by side on the device booted from some custom VMware environment - and no we can't get our hands on it, cause VMware is holding out on us. Teasing us.

I guess there is yet another group of things, applications with plugins, full-screen, virtual Window Manager types - Canola, Carman, Mediabox, etc. Which act kinda of like XBMC, essentially overlayed KIOSK-esque environments to do things such as play media.

I'd also like that I've never understood the fascination behind screenshots and videos comparing Linux releases - the real differences are behind the scenes, the only features shown in a screenshot are the wallpaper, window manager and theme. Hands-on (plus perhaps a feature list or changelog) really has no substitute here.

If someone would like expand on the above rather than redirect to a broken page or unrelated thread please do so.

Re: The best os n810...
 

Since you haven't yet received your tablet, it's a bit early for you to even ask this question. When you get your tablet, just update what you've already gotten on the tablet with the most current version, using the Nokia updater.

None of the other stuff is worth doing yet, in my opinion. You could add some Debian stuff, but you shouldn't even do that in the early stages. You can be perfectly happy without it -- I have the extra Qole stuff on my tablets, and I never use it.

Re: The best os n810...
 

well thank you @linuxeventually for giving me the fundamentals of OS's(other than windows), I wasnt thinking about it at the time but you pretty much nailed it when you said I had tunnel vision from using (windows OS) for so long that its no wonder i have the slightest clue about an open platform like Linux. It was a bit to process as an intermediate NIT user but you did a great job breaking it down from the level you are to mine so kudos to you and thanks.

@ geneven, it is very early to ask those type of question and if you only knew how much I look up all types of info on the n810 to figure out what this or that does and what program I'll need to do something, you'd know I'm a little overzealous and really would like to be an active participant of this community but from the the reply i can see it was like trying to find a spot at the dinner table and getting redirected to the children's table lol, so as much as i would love to learn (once i get it) it will be a very long time. no worries though, I appreciate all help even constructive criticism knowing its in good taste. I guess i have no choice but to wait until i get it and do the proper updates and if i have any further queries I'll ask...

Thanks guys,:)

Re: The best os n810...
 

@jalladin:

stick with maemo (diablo).

I've tried a bunch of them, and diablo is definitely the least buggy / most user friendly.

However, if you want to get adventurous, install Easy-Debian from qole's repository. it not only allows you to run open-office (among other things) inside diablo, but you can also load the Debian desktop.

I myself am only running diablo atm. after trying everything i could figure out how to set up, i resolved that diablo was all i needed. maybe i will install easy-deb again, but for the meantime, i am content. (waiting for Mer ;))


and whats with all the windoze hatin' on here? i love windoze. i'm runnin vista home prem. sp2 64 bit right now. it runs all my games great (my consoles: ps2 and my pc :D).

Re: The best os n810...
 

okay thanks,

mer did look nice, what are your main uses for the tablet that make you want to use "Mer"...

I have windows Vista home edition as well 32bit and a PS3 ( which i never play). I really cant say vista has ever done much to make me hate it, but it gets such a bad connotation from other peoples experiences ( "vista business edition" from what I here) but personally I have nothing bad to say, but I am not a very "heavy" user either.

Re: The best os n810...
 

Once it's out of beta, and is ready to go, Mer should be the logical upgrade from diablo. I don't know many of the specifics, but if some of the things that are Fixed in Fremantle [*drinks* (juice, it's only 3pm!)] are fixed in Mer, that would be saweet. (working flash, for instance).

I use the tablet for basic things, light browsing, heavy mp3 playage, very light video watching. I also like boxar... it lets me make zelda-like music! I also, on occasion, get down on some iNes and Doom (like when I'm waiting somewhere).

Re: The best os n810...
 

@JayOnThaBeat:

"I use the tablet for basic things, light browsing, heavy mp3 playage, very light video watching. "...

any ideas why none of the mp3 players have an EQ? Is this a tough thing to do or are Linux minds just not in need of this functionality?

Curious because on every other platform, Palm OS included, it is a standard feature.

thanks

Re: The best os n810...
 

want EQ: XMMS

Re: The best os n810...
 

no idea. i'm not a programmer, just a hardcore end-user ;)

i've never had any eq problems. stuff always sounds good thru my earphones, and if i run it out to my stereo, it has its own eq, so i've never needed an onboard one.

Re: The best os n810...
 

@sondjata: are there issues with XMMS? buggyness...

@JayOnThaBeat: thanks, good point on the stereo output!

Re: The best os n810...
 

I think I'll step in here for a second. I flat out hate Windows with every fiber of my being, even if I have to use it for certain programs I've already grown accustomed to.

Now, I have every right. I've used Windows since Windows 3.11: WFW and yes, I've used just about every OS.

Windows 3.11: WFW *
Windows 95
Windows 98 First Edition
Windows 98 Second Edition *
Windows NT 4.0
Windows 2000 Standard/Professional
Windows Millennium Edition
Windows XP Home/Professional *
Windows Vista Home Premium/Business

Any Windows version that has an asterisks (*) is my favorite of them, but that's not saying much. I've never had the displeasure of using Windows CE/Mobile and that's a good thing. From what I was told by many users, crashes too much and it's too slow. MAYBE the new Windows 7 (Mobile and x86) will fair much better, but not since the end of Windows 3.x has there really been a "stable" Windows OS.

Anyway, think what you will of Windows. Even if they had a free mobile version that could be put on our devices, I wouldn't use it, not even for testing. Still, I use Windows XP Professional on my PC because:

1.) It's a "decent" OS for this PC
2.) Some of the really good programs I work on everyday don't work under WINE in Linux
3.) I got it for free from M$

Anyway, that aside, I'd Mer is going to be really awesome once it's out of Alpha/Beta and is basically on the same level as Maemo with initial end-user release. :D

Jesse~

Re: The best os n810...
 

Oh boy, okay I post-poned this reply cause I was looking for a chart that I thought I had seen floating around on the 'net (it turned out I was thinking of another image entirely)

All the "hate" for Windows here is simply the closed nature of it compared to OSes such as Linux. Now as far as this thread is concerned OS choice is simply personal opinion.

The issue is a user that has only ever used Windows their whole life and then takes the plunge into Linux needs to know a few things.

A lot of the things they "take for granted" of how an OS works, looks, etc. is thrown out the window because there are no hard-coded defaults (technically).

For instance in Windows you have Windows Explorer, yeah there are some third-party file explorers but very few people use them and they tend to only be useful for specialized functions such as batch file processing and not day-to-day use (or more importantly don't incorporate all the features of explorer.exe), on Linux you have Nautilus (gnome), Konquerer (KDE), Thundar, Midnight Commander, etc.

Next window managers. Ok so there is Redmond classic (or w/e from the Win 95/98 era). XP's luna. And Vista's Aero. All of which are basically the same except for graphical improvements down the line. Of course there is a great third-party suite call Stardock that offers all kinds of theming and uses a lot of system resources to get around that "unsigned" theme thing. But really these aren't different window managers at all, they are just different themes - and there are themes a plenty for Linux, only about 20-30 for Maemo though. In Linux popular wm include Gnome+gtk+metacity (or emerald for compiz support), KDE+qt, IceWM. For Windows XP you can use an alternative shell like Litestep (there are several others including X WM ports), "However the level of customization which is even possible in Windows XP compared to X is severely limited due to the tight integration of the various components" (Wikipedia).

I could go on and on but I think one more, command line intereface. In Linux you can boot into a computer and utilize the CLI without starting X (interfaces with monitor to allow graphical User Interface) and then when desired run a command such as $ startx. You can also access a virtual console with CTRL+ALT+ (1 through 8 depending on distro). Now there is DOS on the Microsoft side but that's very obsolete. Of course there is MS-DOS a virtual implementation within Windows and for Linux xterm, gnome-terminal, ROXterm, konsole, etc. similar but more user friendly and more powerful. You can even ssh which is like using a terminal on a computer remotely (among other things); yes there is telnet but that's not exactly know for it's security.

Now obviously most of the above applies best to desktop Linux and obviously desktop Windows which is different from the mobile Linux versions available for the Nokia Internet Tablets.

The point of this post is that you logon to a Windows install and you know what to expect, Windows explorer, the Luna theme in XP and Aero in Vista, etc. While Linux, BSD, and others are all about choice in every respect.

Speaking of choice rather than flame wars, just multi-boot (desktop/laptop; true multi-boot isn't there yet for the tablet :( )

And on the EQ note, I personally never use EQs cause my hearing isn't that sensitive/picky. However, it's a reasonable feature, though please don't expect those features on the included/default media player because that's a half-assed POS. I'm currently about to download the maemo port of VLC which should have an EQ.

So uh, jalladin, let us know when you receive your tablet :)

Re: The best os n810...
 

@Linuxeventually:
Your postings have great content, and should be a great help for newbies, but (no offense) it might help if you cleaned up the punctuation, run-on sentences, and excessive abbreviations. Don't take this the wrong way - I'm not trying to be a jerk, but I had a bit of trouble following some of it, and I already knew everything you mentioned there; newbies finding this thread in the future would have likely get more out of it if it was easier to read.

Re: The best os n810...
 

I used to be into WIndows shell mods a few years ago. There are many way to replace Explorer and the windows "theme." You can install alternative shells (like KDE or Gnome in a way) such as lightstep, darkstep, etc... There is a ton of ways to modify Windows, but obviously not as much as Linux.

The composting engines on X are much better than Aero, but Aero does a good job.

Re: The best os n810...
 

Yeesh. My windozing goes back as far as your does, and IMHO, it keeps getting stabler and stabler (...law and order svu spinoff?).

I used to get BSOD's all the time in older versions, thru and including XP. Since I've been running vista 64, not one *knocks on wood* , and i'm on it 8-12 hours a day, running all kinds of progs.

maybe it's cuz i'm not a programmer, i dunno. what i do know is that until they start making games for linux (like the ones i have for windoze), i'll stick with ms. (mlb 2k9 is the bomb, yo :D)

EDIT
oh, and I run it aero off. not sure if it's faster/better, i just don't need it to be that fancy.

EDIT2
hey, who hijacked this thread? ;) i should start an off-topic "what do you think of windoze?"... i wonder how that would turn out :P

Re: The best os n810...
 

@linuxeventually the very last line was just about all i was able to understand, as much as i wish i knew what you were exsplaining, but( I most definatly will let every one here know when i get it).Thanks:D


Not to sound to redundent in my questions, I know they are two different OS's but will "Mer" more or less be like the Fremantle for n8x0 tablets once its ready...:confused:

Re: The best os n810...
 

Mer is not Fremantle. Mer is/will be based upon many components of Fremantle, but also on Ubuntu, rather than normal Maemo. I believe the initial inspiration for Mer came from the question of "how could we make a better Maemo, if we were to do it again?", and, as such, it is bound to be somewhat different than where Nokia is going with Fremantle. Secondly, being a community-run distribution, based on Ubuntu, born from the minds of hackers in the Maemo community, Mer can be many things; yes, there will be defaults, but it won't be difficult to say, run LXDE instead of Hildon-desktop, etc.
So... in some ways, the answer is yes - as far as Nokia is concerned, it's a "Fremantle Community Edition", but the actual experience may be different. At any rate, Mer will make sure your N810 doesn't get left behind, and in the mean time, Diablo should meet most/all of your needs.

Re: The best os n810...
 

thanks Jaem, for clearing that up and also giving me something to look forward too later, I knew "it wasnt fremantle" but i was only trying to verify, for myself, if it was similar to or like Mer at all. because i hear a lot of things in other blog/forums saying how the tablets are old and pointless, which to me is ubserd when software is what makes devices like the Iphone seem so appealing IMO when compaired to the n810 but to me its just the software that scare ppl off for ease of use and not being as up to date as the latest apple stuff. :mad: sorry i just really like the tablets

Re: The best os n810...
 

jalladin, I won't pretend to be a sage on this topic, however I will give you an idea of my natural progression with Maemo and the N810. First I think the N810 is the best toy I've ever had. Now I say that because I really like Linux. For me, i started out with the default OS installed then did the first upgrade after a few hours and was pretty happy. I tested the device with Android and that was fun for a little while however I haven't played with that in a very long time. I've since been using the Diablo release and have cloned the OS to an SD card because I wanted to have more room for installed applications. I've been using Linux for just over 10 years and this little machine runs Linux well. There really are a lot of applications out there and a lot of options such as downloading a big file and loading Debian as you have read previously. I use mine primarily for hacking/penetration testing for work, navigation (both car and hiking) as my personal computer for all times traveling/my communication device (this device is great for that), and as my remote control to my home computers/DVR boxes. So far I've been able to do all of this within Diablo. Also for less common, but not infrequent uses it is my mp3/ogg player, movie player and book reader. I, much like jaem, believe that Mer is something to look forward to and will probably move to it when the time comes. It is Linux so if you need to do something you can always find someone to help you or you can figure it out and post your process. Either way to me it is not an issue as to what OS should i put on it, but which one should i start out with first. To me that is the fun part.. IMHO that is where the Iphone fails and Windows based devices suffer. You can try to tweak them but you have serious difficulty replacing the OS completely. This device comes with an invitation to really explore. Just to be clear I like the Iphone, just not willing to pay for it.

Re: The best os n810...
 

Pliz leave windows alone. we all passed through windows before we understand what a computer, OS... are bout. because of windows even small kids are able to use a computer. do u think it would easier for them to starts learning using a computer with the x-terminal and all those stuffs? come on!
each OS has his adventages and disadventages. it's just a matter of the context in which u are using it.
Personaly I don't have any thing to reproach to windows because all the games i'm playing are under windows.
and linux i'm using it because of it's security and it's cost lol.

Re: The best os n810...
 

I "learnt" computer with DOS. My dad built our first computer, and he loaded an ABC program onto it. I loved that thing, but loved banging the keyboard even more.

So yeah, kids CAN use DOS. We are just spoiled.

And seriously Mer will be the best OS for the tablets, hands down. Built by users for users.

Re: The best os n810...
 

izzox haha sorry I can't resist "Windows are for kids......" haha anyway sorry to hi-jack the thread. Mer is going to be great! Thats me getting back on topic.