New member (Questions, suggestions and tips)
 

Hello everyone!

I am a new member to the maemo.org community and by taking a quick look around the site, I realized the great help that the community offers to everyone in need and I am really impressed.

My name is Elias and I am from Athens, Greece.
Linux user and amateur C programmer for over five years, Ubuntu was my first distribution and even though I "migrated" to many others, I ended up with Ubuntu again.
Ubuntu Forums was a great help for me during my first steps to the world of Linux, by guiding me through my troubles.
A year ago, I got inspired by the vast contribution of the Ubuntu community and I decided to get involved myself, by helping people with their problems, just like some other people helped me with mine when I started.
So, I registered to the Ubuntu-gr community Forum and I've been an active member ever since.

I recently acquired a Nokia N900 phone and I am trying to figure it out. Sadly, I'm doing a bad job!
I didn't keep in touch with the technology news and updates and I feel like a newbie regarding mobile phone technology. But, I know maemo is based on the Linux kernel and with your help, I hope to find my way with it soon.
If that happens, I am looking forward to get involved and become a useful and an active member of this community too. :)
But I think I have a long way for that yet. :p

Long introduction...
I opened this thread to ask you for any advice or suggestions for a new maemo user like me.
Are there any repositories I should add besides the one of the community's that I've already added?
I am also very interested in remote connection between my Ubuntu desktop and my N900 (and vice versa), so that I will be able to administrate the one device using the other. I tried to do it via VNC but I failed. Sounds easy though.
I have those, and many other questions but one thing at a time.

Generally, any suggestion or advice would be very useful for me.

Thank you in advance for your help. :)

Re: New member (Questions, suggestions and tips)
 

Hello eliasps and welcome!

First up, excellent first post and introduction :)

I hope this helps you with your vnc issues http://wiki.maemo.org/Remote_desktop

We also have ssh for witless file transfer too http://wiki.maemo.org/SSH (comes in handy)

Re: New member (Questions, suggestions and tips)
 

Welcome.

Coming from a Ubuntu/Debian background you should fit straight in with Maemo.

Any questions, search the wiki pages @ wiki.maemo.org
After that try searching the forum, many basic questions have been asked several times so a quick search is always best.

Re: New member (Questions, suggestions and tips)
 

Hi and welcome to the maemo community.

I could write pages and pages of stuff to do for a new N900 user, especially a linux user. For most of the things you'll need to search. I can however braindump some keywords for you to get started, in order of how adventurous you feel

1. Community Seamless Software Update for the latest bugfixes and features
2. Easy Debian for full desktop apps on your N900
3. Preenv for hours of gaming
4. Powerkernel for mobile hotspot, bleeding edge wlan driver, hostmode etc
5. busybox power for less terminal frustration
6. FCamera for unseen power over your photos (install version from testing)
7. CSSU Thumb for unparalleled speed
8. Nemo mobile for a peek into the future
9. Ubuntu 12.10 for a real desktop in your pocket

Before doing any of this, however, learn how to reflash so you can bail out of any bad situation, and try backupmenu so that you can play around without fearing of losing data.

Lastly take good care of your USB port or as senior members advise Fix it before it's too late. A fine way to take care of it is to buy an external charger and some spare batteries

Have fun!

PS. I forgot to mention, ssh is the best way to administer a remote linux box be it the N900 or your desktop. Even X Forwarding works both ways (not for all applications)

see this too:http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=87519

Re: New member (Questions, suggestions and tips)
 

@MINKIN2 Thank you for your help!:)
I am currently trying to get the remote connection to work, following directions found in the links you gave me!
I'll let you know as soon as I have results!

@sixwheeledbeast Thanks!:)
I've already read many articles on the wiki, but I haven't search the forum much yet. I will though!

@qwazix Wow, lots of stuff to keep me busy reading!
Especially the 9th caught my eye. :p
I am very interested in those kind of things and I will check them out right now!
But the issue with the USB port got me worried.
Thank you for your help and your time to collect all these stuff!:)
I have already reflashed my phone twice, because I got it all messed up trying repartioning and ended up with a boot loop.
So I decided to take things slower, one step at a time, starting from the very basics.

You guys are amazing! Thank you all very much for your help and your suggestions!

I'll keep updating this thread depending on my progress.

Re: New member (Questions, suggestions and tips)
 

Hello again!

I read a lot of stuff about maemo and I think I'm getting used to it.
But I have a lot to learn yet.
What I realized is that nothing is impossible with maemo!
Many choices and so much potential.

I got the remote connection working, using Remmina and vinagre on Ubuntu and VNC Viewer, x11vnc and Presence VNC on N900.
I got it working using SSH tunneling too.
X works perfect. It's fast, even with the GNOME Shell on Ubuntu.

I also installed some useful command-line tools and debian related software.
Also, there are a lot of cool stuff in the extras-testing and extras-devel repositories.
By the way, if anyone can tell me how to make the "pipe" symbol ( | ) on N900 I would be very thankful!

What I'm currently trying to figure out is the differences between the available kernels and boot loaders.
I now use the one provided by the community (2.6.28.10-cssu).
I had a problem on boot with U-Boot so I won't use it for now.

Everything very good so far!

Re: New member (Questions, suggestions and tips)
 

Pipe is Blue Shift and Ctrl together (Sym), then top right corner of screen.

Be careful installing things from devel and ubuntu things.
One main problem with the N900 filesystem is limited rootfs. If you fill root you will cause problems that will end up with a reflash.

Packages promoted to Stable and Testing should be "Optified" this means files are stored in /opt and symlinked if necessary.
Many things in devel are not optifed or stable so beware.

There are a few different non-stock kernels for N900 the most popular being "kernel-power".
If using "thumb" a non-stock kernel is required, so if you are on KP51r1> this is used or kernel-cssu is installed (which is based on KP)

The best benefit of KP is stable smartreflex which provides increased battery life.

If you are starting from dot, install backupmenu and backup a nice clean system with your kernel installed, you then have something to restore to if a devel application goes for the kill.

Re: New member (Questions, suggestions and tips)
 

Pipe: Fn (blue arrow) and Ctrl brings up virtual keyboard. Pipe should be top-right hand corner. This is based on the English/Dutch layout for thw h/w kb.

Kernel: The Kernel-Power (KP) versions that come across from the git to -devel are pretty reliable*. Do you actually need a selection of kernels to boot from, unless you rely on the stock or another kernel?

Didn't see mention of the DSP drivers* - have a look for the 720p thread. The first post contains a number of packages and instructions that allow you to play Main profile films and record video at 720p! (Alas, the screen can only cope with 8 bit colour)

Edit: error - as pointed out by freemangordon below, N900 screen is 16bit not 8bit.

* you need to install a few bits like the latest FCam drivers if using KP or enhanced DSP drivers.

Re: New member (Questions, suggestions and tips)
 

Hmm, no, it is 15(or 16) bpp, not 8bpp, no matter the resolution

EDIT:

@eliasps - see my signature for some more interesting stuff, like keyboard and mouse attached to n900. Also you may search the forum for USB hostmode ;)

Re: New member (Questions, suggestions and tips)
 

The absolute first thing you must do is reflash your device. This allows you to start working from a blank slate with no hidden nasties.

Re: New member (Questions, suggestions and tips)
 

I suggest you read the U-boot thread (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=81613) carefully. Take your time and ask questions (there, or here, as this is your thread anyway :). Once you get the picture, I highly recommend that you install U-boot.

In general you only need one kernel. Kernel-power or CSSU-kernel (which are the same anyway) is sufficient (let's say it this way, stock kernel doesn't have any advantage over kernel-power, but kernel-power has many advantages over stock-kernel).

Even if you stick to one single kernel, it is very useful to have U-boot, especially if you tweak and mod here and there. The possibility of using the U-boot console to boot a specific kernel with very specific parameters has saved one of my N900s, which was unbootable and both SD card and USB didn't work!

Plus it will allow you to experiment with Nemo or any other alternative OS's without having to touch Maemo.

Re: New member (Questions, suggestions and tips)
 

Τhank you for the tips guys!

Got it with the pipe symbol.

I installed the KP and the latest FCam drivers. I had some dependencies problems, probably because of the testing and extras-testing repositories. I disabled them for now and the KP is in use.
I also disabled the devel repository to be sure about the apps I'm installing.

Everything is good regarding the rootfs and the /home usage.
Indeed, some things got optified like you said.

I got the 720p video support working as well. That was a good one!

I will see what is going on with U-boot, seems really useful and I hope to get it right this time.

I am very interested in the keyboard and mouse support, because I work with many devices connected (laptop, TV, phone ... ) and I want to be able to use one keyboard and mouse to control them all. I haven't checked it out yet but those links are marked as favorites on my browser. ;)

Thank you all again!