Thanks Rainer. I've been using modrana for a while as it has generally met my needs but i haven't given up on the hope of a polished vector map app. I installed from your repo using the freetype-navit option and tested this newer release of navit.

This release seems stable and the search actually appears to work in a reasonable way now. I also tried the QML UI, which i haven't been able to make work previously. The QML UI fixes three problems:

• Using standard X close icon properly exits the program.
• Full screen button works and doesn't cause a crash.
• Keyboard works.

However, it also brings some problems of its own, specifically there are textbox focus and layout problems in the menus, and a few options seem to be missing.

It would be interesting to know whether the qtpainter or gtk renderer is faster (any volunteers to benchmark?), and likewise whether the qml or internal GUI is better when properly configured. I suspect it wouldn't be too hard to fix most of the issues with the QML -- perhaps simply a matter of tweaking the skin or enabling svg.

Here are simple instructions for installation. With a repo available it's definitely the easiest it has been. Unfortunately, configuration is still the hardest part.

This should be used instead of my earlier script-based instructions from last year
To install:

• Add the repository to the sources list in FAPman (Manage repositories) as follows:
  URL http://bokomoko.de/~rd/maemo/
  Distribution unstable/
  Components (leave empty)
  Don't forget to enable the repo with the checkbox at the bottom!
• Choose "Install Applications"
• Click on the C icon (Category filter) and scroll down to select All packages (ADVANCED)
• Type "navit" to find packages
• Mark libfreetype6-navit, navit, navit-graphics-qt-qpainter, navit-gui-qml for install*
• Install.

* This is if you intend to use qpainter and QML. If you mark the navit package only, it will pull in the default navit-gui-internal and gtk renderer packages iirc. There's no harm in installing all of them if you want to try different renderers or GUIs.

At this point you have a working install of navit, but need to configure it and download a map from the Navit Planet Extractor. Make sure you grab as small a map as will meet your needs, because the size of the map definitely affects navit performance. You can get multiple maps and enable/disable them as needed.

You will need to grab one of the configuration file archives kicking around here and uncompress them to /home/user/.navit (aka ~/.navit). Then modify maps.xml to point to the map that you downloaded to or copied to your N900, and modify navit.xml to choose the appropriate renderer and GUI. You should be able to do so following the existing file and comments. I recommend leafpad for this. Be sure not to do any of this as root!

For QML we have to specify the skin and icon directory as described on the navit wiki. The QML line will end up looking something like this:
Good luck!

Edit: You will need to download new maps if yours are as old as mine were. If navit opens and you see the map display before it crashes, the map format is the problem.