I recently installed Mobipocket on the N900 (via the Garnet VM) in order to be able to have paid eBooks on my N900. I particularly like having reference books available and now it's a joy to have various dictionaries like the Oxford and Collins dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc, available right there on my N900. The Mobipocket reader is particularly good for reference books as it has a flexible search system and there are quite a lot of reference books available on their site (the best English dictionary on there is the Chambers and it is the same as the print version).

I figured out how to do this from reading various sites. There don't seem to be consolidated instructions around anywhere that I found so I figured I'd share the procedure I used in case others want to try this. Note that you will be running Palm OS in a VM on the N900, and the screen is nothing like the native resolution of the N900. So it's a bit rough looking, and it's a little clunky to use, but it does work. There are also lots of medical reference works available for the Palm OS; this method should work for those, too, but I haven't tried them.

(1) Download and install Garnet VM (GVM) from this site; use the OS2009 link

http://www.access-company.com/products/gvm/

You will have to fill out a form to receive the link
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe GVM is being developed any more. In any case, in its current 'beta' form it has been working fine for me.

Verify you can now open GVM, i.e. that it is installed correctly. Now close it.

(2) I will assume you have an SD card installed in your N900. The following procedure will allow you to install an unlimited number of eBooks in Garnet (i.e. not being subject to the internal heap size limit in Garnet, which is 64MB - not much for eBook storage). It will also ensure that even if you wipe your Garnet storage area (from within the program), all your eBooks, and the reader, will remain intact.

Open Terminal on the N900, and enter the following lines:

mkdir ~/.gvm/card
echo -e "/media/mmc1\nRW" > ~/.gvm/card/0
mkdir /media/mmc1/PALM
mkdir /media/mmc1/PALM/Programs
mkdir /media/mmc1/PALM/Launcher

(3) There are three files you will need to run MobiPocket Reader: the reader itself, and two further support files. The files are mobireader.prc, mathlib.prc, and bluepalm.pdb. You can download all three files from the MobiPocket site (scroll down about half way, under 'Palm'):

http://www.mobipocket.com/en/downloa...ualinstall.asp

(4) Now copy the file bluepalm.pdb to /media/mmc1/PALM/Programs folder that you created in step (2). And copy mobireader.prc and mathlib.prc to the /media/mmc1/PALM/Launcher folder. Note: the .prc files go to Launcher folder, and .pdb files go to the Programs folder. If you connect your N900 to a computer the path is just Memory Card > PALM > Programs and Memory Card > PALM > Launcher, respectively.

(5) Launch GVM again. Under 'Settings' change the storage heap size to 64MB. You should also choose the screen orientation you want to use. I use Landscape full screen because I have reference books that require entering text to look up and that way I can use the keyboard. However in this mode the text is small and can be hard to read. If you're primarily going to use the reader for non-reference books, i.e. you will be just turning pages, then choose Portrait fullscreen. Later you can choose an option from within Mobipocket reader (click on the top of the screen) that will turn each page on a screen click.

(6) If you see the Mobipocket application already installed, proceed to (7). Otherwise, if you don't see the Mobipocket application already installed, select any other application and press 'Launch'. The VM should open. Now press the little 'home' button on the bottom left---you will need the stylus for most of your interactions with MobiPocket---to get to the home screen and you should see Mobipocket installed. Launch it. Now exit the Palm VM by pressing <ctrl><backspace> to exit to open applications. This is the only way of exiting the VM as far as I know without closing it. Now close the VM (but not the Garnet app) from there in the usual way.

(7) Go back into GVM and select the Mobipocket application and select 'Configure' on the right. Choose a Dynamic heap size of 4MB. You can try playing with the other settings here (Device model and Display compatibility) but I find that everything runs fine with default settings for these, and I haven't been able to see any difference changing the settings makes.

(8) You're now ready to install your eBooks! Note that for encrypted content you will need the PID which you use in your account with Mobipocket when buying eBooks. To find this launch Mobipocket and go to the Library screen (press the little home icon at the bottom left) and then click on the 'Library' text/menubar at the top. Then go to Options and then About Mobipocket. A dialog will open showing you your PID (among other things).

(9) With this PID you can buy eBooks on the Mobipocket website. Download them manually and copy them to the /media/mmc1/PALM/Launcher folder. When you next launch Mobipocket you should find the eBooks automatically loaded, and best of all, you can install as many as you like. I have over 70MB of eBooks and haven't found any compatibility problems so far. They are mostly dictionaries and all are encrypted. Note: I advise you NOT to use the 'Install' option from within GVM to install eBooks. You will run up against the internal memory limits of GVM (eventually) and the more eBooks you install that way, the slower the reader will become. Plus, if you ever have to wipe the memory storage from within GVM (happens if it crashes (rare) or behaves weirdly) it will wipe all your eBooks as well.

(10). A couple of hints. As already noted, the only way I know how to exit from within the VM while using Mobipocket without closing it is to press <ctrl><backspace> which gets you out to the open applications view. When reading a book, there are a bunch of little icons along the bottom. At the far left is a little icon of three books stacked together; this brings you back to the library. About four icons along from the left is an icon that looks like it might be for a DOS program or something. I advise you not to press this. If you do, the handy little row of icons disappears; perhaps there is a way of getting them back, but I don't know of it. Once those icons have gone, it is awkward to get back to the Library from inside an eBook, and do other things the icons let you do. When that happened to me, the only recourse I had was to wipe the disk from within GVM (which is not a big deal; Mobipocket and your eBooks should remain as if you followed the instructions they are installed on what GVM considers an external SD disk). Also on that row of icons is one for changing the font. There is a much nicer and more refined font available there than the default one; click a couple of times and you'll see it come up.

Updates: All the Mobipocket reference books I have installed so far work fine except for the Oxford Dictionary of English. If anyone has any hints about how to get that working please share. In the Launcher folder it is simply ignored. If I try and install manually I get the error 0x30060209.

Another hint: Garnet is not optified, which means it will take up valuable space in /usr/bin. However you can optify it manually using the following commands in terminal (install rootsh first if you haven't already):

sudo gainroot
mv /usr/bin/gvm /opt
ln -s /opt/gvm /usr/bin/gvm

do you know if i can do the same with Isilo?