To me and probably most of us the n900 represents the ultimate in portable computing. It is more than a phone (in fact it is a lousy phone) it is a full on computer in your pocket. The likes of this product has not been repeated. While I will agree there are windows phones, that is phones that run windows as oppose phones that run windows phone, they all have appalling battery life and an interface that is not suited to form factor.

In my opinion you cannot really shoe horn a desktop interface into such a tiny package. This is not a strict generalisation as I use easy debian day to day when I have to do some 'real ****' on the go. (thank you Qole, I owe you over 100 epic beers. Next time you are in Scotland, just come and get 'em! (this invite is extended to all maemoians who have made significant contributions to the n900, you know who you are. If you are passing through scotland and need a floor to sleep on for the night...))

The n900 is my mobile computer. I never take a laptop anywhere as it is just too much bulk and commitment, however I often find when I am at where it is I was going and want to check my emails, fix digital photos and browse and stuff I WOULD like the comfort that comes with a full size keyboard and screen. There was a post a while ago by Geneven(?) who explored the issue. How can I use my n900 as desktop? I cannot remember the outcome of the discussion but I think it can be summed up with the following solutions:

1. TV out cable and bluetooth mouse/keyboard.
This requires you to carry:

• TV cable
• Mouse
• keyboard
• charger
• USB hub(?)

You also have to find a TV.

2. USB VGA adaptor and bluetooth mouse/keyboard.
This requires you to carry:

• VGA cable
• VGA adaptor
• Mouse
• keyboard
• charger

You also have to find a monitor.


Both of these require you to carry MOAR STUFF. This is the absolute antithesis of what a mobile computer should be. 'Chill out bros, we do not need any space. I have my mini mobile computer and THIS HUGE BAG OF CABLES AND ****.'

I have a suggestion, an aspect of the n900 that has not really been explored to deeply. I want to be able to plug my n900 into some stuff I can commonly find to get the big screen/keyboard etc AND not have to carry much more than just the n900.

One relatively unexplored idea is making the SD card as a bootable liveCD. It will allow you to simply use any computer at you disposal as the screen and keyboard. You will have full access to MyDocs, uSD and even /opt if you boot it from backup menu. Consider that the phone aspect of the n900 will still be available for you to make receive calls even when you have mydocs mounted as an external disc elsewhere. Of course the ULTIMATE would be to run the easy debian session on an external screen however I can not see how to do this without the huge pile of accessories required to connect to an external or a whole bunch of X over IP shenanigans that would be destined to fail.

I have already installed backtrack 5 to my SD card. This allows me to boot BT5 on other people computers from my phone to fix/hax/show off on the move. I am looking for a linux distro that fulfils the following requirements:

• Ability to 'copy to ram' i.e. copy to ram then boot (running from ram for teh mega lolz speed)
• Firefox (or perhaps opera) with flash player.
• Light window manager, preferably LXDE.
• The gimp.
• VLC
• All those non free codecs the freak stallman out
• A mail client
• Abiword, gnumeric, etc.
• Zip/rar/7zip etc etc support.

Any suggestions for a livecd that fulfills the above requirements?