Hi,

I would like to discuss Maemo 5 / N900 on the one side vs an Android-phone with similar hardware (e.g. Droid) with a chrooted Debian-installation on the other side (e.g. http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comm...otorola_droid/)

The interesting thing for me is that you can have a fully functional Debian-system TOGETHER with an Android-System, so in a way you can have the best of all world (for phone-functionality Android is clearly better than the current Maemo).

Would that not be a better solution than Maemo (with unclear future)?

Evidently a few cool things you can do on Maemo would not be possible (e.g. listening on the D-Bus for incoming calls or SMS etc) but I think I could live with that. In the Debian subsystem I could still run an sshd, do apt-get, and run scripts that access the network (I don't care a bit for facebook-widgets).

Can someone please provide some more insight as to the various pros and cons?

Why would the N900 neverthless be better?

Many thanks!

Moving to "Competitors" since "Alternatives" is for other OSes running on Maemo hardware.

Google is today what Microsoft was in 1994, only huge.

I have the same question.

I googled around and all I have seen is a picture of an android device with a debian console, without a windowing system.

What would the differences in device capability be?

i wonder. Android was a project google basically bought from the guy that started Danger back in the day. And android is pretty much designed in the same way as the firmware on the hiptop was, so in a sense its a remade hiptop os.

all in all, it seems to be running its own game, under the google banner, with little to no influence from the rest of google. Heck, i keep wondering why google went with making chromeos, when they could just as easily modified android for much the same effect (and third parties like lenovo is currently doing just that for the smartbooks).

basically, android seems to be a rock thats somehow gotten tied to googles leg, and is dragging them down in terms of reputation.

Pretty big, since no GUI application in Debian would be useful due to the lack of X11.

You should compare with chrooted Debian installation on either side, since the N900 has Easy Debian, which is a full-fledged Debian system (complete with LXDE, and e.g. openoffice, gimp,...) that takes full advantage of the connectivity of the N900.

But I'm sure there's VNC clients for Android, so it'd be straightforward to set up a virtual X server. Better performance, but also more work, would be writing an X server as an Android app.

Well you can run chrooted Debian installs in Maemo too, so I guess it's up to personal preference. Maemo is a more open and far more technically capable OS, but Android has better phone capability, more commercial apps available and is more noob-friendly.

If I had to choose between Maemo alone vs. Android + Debian, it would be a really tough choice but I'd have to go with Android + Debian.

OK - that exists. Android devices can run X11 with a local VNC server.

So - to revise the above question:

Compare and contrast the capability of LXDE on N900 vs LXDE on an android device (putting aside any emotional attachment to either device).

EDIT - forgot the link. http://hackaday.com/2009/02/22/x11-on-android/