Yes. Exactly.

I expect only what I've come to expect from most Linux operating systems that I've used, when properly tunned. If you have PREEMPT settings all turned on in the kernel, they behave closer to IBM's OS/2 2.0 and later used to behave (on 386 and 486 class hardware): you almost never get an unresponsive interface. No hiccups at all, even while printing, downloading and formating disks in the background.

The thing that makes this kind of unresponsiveness in a desktop Linux seems to be classic hard drives seek time plus system locks. But if you install the OS in a SSD partition and change the kernel settings that goes mostly away.

So, the N900 is Debian based, it doesn't have a classic hard drive and it has some (or all?) preemptive settings turned on. I would expect flawlessly multitasking, at least when running just two applications (application manager and email or application manager and browser).

I see that it is brought to its knees. I just wonder why and if something can be done about it.

When using desktop Debian/Squeeze, I never stop anything just because aptitude is updating 300MB+- every week.

Of course I know that the N900 is not quite as powerful as my current desktop computer but it is sure equal or better than old 80386 and 80486-based computers.

Here is another thread dedicated to this:

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=55651