See tl;dr section below.

Here's the thing. Disregarding the caveats of some of the hardware, like the awkward design idea of the placement of the SIM card, held by the battery, and the fact that the SD card slot can only be accessed from removing the panel; and the fact that the Micro-USB port and kickstand magnets, and the kickstand itself, sometimes need a fix; and that the CPU has a potential to have a decreased life at 1.0Ghz; and the fact that the battery can only last up to 5 hours this way (with an ondemand governor), it all sucks. But you know what? It can run GNU/Linux.

You see, the only reason I bought my N900 was for the software capabilities. And now that it's 2012 and Android bloatware is taking over people's minds like iOS. You admit it, too.

If I could, I would buy something like the Galaxy Note II, but only if it could run GNU/Linux or other free software on it on the ARM CPU architecture, and the newer Tegra chips. The fact that the portable devices have a highly controlled market that is separate from people's rights to freedom of choice and software freedom is completely wrong, and it must be corrected. Anyway,
I was looking for the near perfect device with near perfect functionality, but because of the deficits, I am not seeing it in this device. I can only create a new one in my mind.

Well, enough about that. I'm going to discuss my real problems with Maemo 5. My phone feels incredibly unstable with this software after playing around with it. I have no idea if I have been accidentally installing software from extras-devel. Even though I have set the pin-priority, it seems like I have been using extras-devel packages, more so. The testing CSSU may also be causing problems. I think, since I use this phone for many reasons, I am sticking with the stable CSSU...

And my other problem with Maemo 5 is that is still is not 100% free and open source, Libre software. I would expect after 4 years of the N900's release that the Maemo community would be happily hacking away at this device, making a fully functional, alternative OS, and that at least some people outside of Nokia, would know the ends and outs of it. But instead I find a community that now feels abandonment for it, or hasn't worked hard enough towards it, and I can only fear for that.

So after trying to remove proprietary software from Maemo, it seems to be more unstable. It crashes and turns off after a couple hours, my Mobile signal now has to be activated every time I boot it up, charging problems happen, there's really annoying temporary freezes and slowdowns, that I never get with Android, and many other minor irks, like not figuring out to remap the volume buttons in portrait mode... Some of these might just be third-party software problems, but it's annoying, and I can't figure it out.

I really hate how Maemo has a lack of flexability. It can easily be broken, and you have many notices that say "WARNIGN THIS SIHT CAN BREAK YOU DEVICE FOOL!!" blah, blah, blah. I never see this warning/disclamer sh*t on the OpenMoko Wiki. Come on, guys.

Another example is if you change one config file, the whole thing "breaks", and you can't boot up anymore. Hello? This is why GRUB Rescue and Busybox was invented. Why doesn't the N900 use that during the boot process? What can't the N900 use a proper init process so I can see what's going on? And it's annoying to have to keep backing up with backupmenu because it takes a long time.

Maybe I'm complaining too much, but the amount of problems has started to pile up, and the low battery life really stresses me out every day that I go out with my N900. And I feel that if I just replace the battery again, it might just last 5 hours again. I don't carry a spare battery because I don't drive or anything, I bike and take the transit, I don't have the time or privacy to take off the back cover like a fool, unless the OS freezes up, which, consequentially, happened more with Android.

When I boot kernel-power from Multiboot, it always have to boot it twice sometimes. And then I still haven't figured out how to use CPU frequency scaling without an app, and have ACPI events trigger with the screen locked.

Here's another huge, huge problem. Nokia thinks that they can F--- up the device by putting in non-standard GNU software replacements specifically designed for the N900, which breaks most compilation for real GNU/Linux software, forcing people to use a SDK and be compatible with the proprietary software in order to be able to compile "Apps", basically. Why can't I just have a real GNU/Linux environment with Xorg/Wayland and the Enlightenment GUI, or something, with a free software "app dock" thing, which already has preconfigured button and font sizes, and stuff. And have it properly work with GNU/Linux software, like Plasma Active. Why do we need an SDK like Android has?

All of the caveats are hopefully what the OpenMoko device is good at, but I don't own one yet, and it still has shittier hardware than the N900. Life really sucks when you know too much, and you know that certain things do not exist that you really want.

tl;dr section:

Okay, so I want to replace Maemo 5. I barely use it for phone calls, but it would be nice. (And, gee... wouldn't it be nice if most companies also stopped using the traditional telephone, SMS, and snail-mail in favor of VoIP services, IM, IRC and E-Mail? Whatever.)

I want to know if these operating systems are completely usable, and have the phone, SMS, FM Radio, IR transmitter, HW keyboard, etc... all working.

• Mer/Nemo
• Plasma Active
• SHR
• MeeGo
• Debian for ARM+Ofono+firmware
• Something else?

I'm really interested in using Mer/Nemo and SHR, since they seem to be up to date and rely mostly on free software.

P.S: I have also installed NITDroid on another partition already. And I am not worried if the above OSes need to use proprietary firmware to enable most of the functionality on the N900, I am willing to deal with that.

Well, I think that according to the links below, Debian team hasn't had much progress on getting Debian to work fully on the N900 (yes, I already know about Easy Debian Chroot, but I'm talking about booting into native Debian.)

http://wiki.debian.org/Mobile
http://wiki.debian.org/pkg-n900

Any suggestions for a new OS?

No suggestion for your main question, but on a side note, please be aware you can indeed run gnu-linux (in a chroot) on the Galaxy Note: http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=1585009
It works well.

EDIT: of course you know you can do the same on your n900 thanks to Qole. Or you didn't? You can have your beloved Debian in all its glory, and it's deadly easy to install. Try it http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=34550

**cough*android*cough*worthless vnc hack*cough*cough**

vi_, it's not X, OK, it's X in VNC, on localhost. But it's not a problem if you want to hack your way in coding or in applications that don't need astounding graphic performances.

See this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TXVS...2&feature=plcp
and this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa2tsu1B_0o

Well it is a chroot. And I can already do that with Easy Debian on Maemo, and there's also Linux Installer for Android along with your post. The problem with a chroot is that it still adds overhead, unliek running it natively, so it's still slowed down. It's almost like running a VM, except it's more exposed to the userspace area, if that makes sense...

Anyway, the problem I was gawking at, was that there is still no good way to run GNU/Linux code natively and safely on an Android device with everything working. Let's forget the chroot and VNC methods.

P.S: Wow, last time I looked at the XDA Develoeprs website, it didn't look as shitty before.

Did you have a run at this? https://elektranox.org/n900/index.html
(see also http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...ghlight=debian)

1. You have tried to remove all proprietory software.
2. You overclock to 1GHz and beyond.
3. You only have a 5 hour battery life.
4. You suffer extreme instability.
5. You have loaded your phone up with nitroid and god knows what else.

This sounds like a self inflicted wound. You have borken your n900 software. Stop blaiming the n900 and re-flash your device.

You hate flexibility. You mad? This is the MOST flexible device available. Flexibility is the reason you have busted your N900 so well and it still runs.

Your complainig about warning messages that indicate to the user rough/exprimental stuff is ahead? See your symptoms above.

It does use init. How do you think backupmenu works? Add KP and you can even have a pre-init framebuffer console to fix whatever your deranged mind decided to remove last.

You are upset about the SIM being covered by the battery? find me a device that allows you to yank the sim while powered up... You are distressed by the fact you have to take the back off to get the mmc? The mmc HAS to be behind some kind of door, otherwise people would be yanking it out without unmounting it! On the few droids I have used, you could not even change the mmc withput rebooting the phone!

The N900 is not without it's flaws however the problems you have listed above are of your own creation.

2/10 - Trollage not recommended.

Yes, granted. I deserve some of that criticism.

I just had a realization though. I can't remove Maemo if I rely on it for Multiboot, and U-Boot and Backup menu... So I pretty much just have to use another partition, probably on an SD card, for a new OS, unless I can use the flashing tool to reflash just u-boot, Multiboot or some other bootmenu, a kernel, and Backupmenu, without Maemo, which doesn't sound very possible.

For some reason, I think I don't have U-Boot installed anymore since it only shows the white Nokia logo when booting up, but it just used to flash really quickly and show U-Boot, but I think something uninstalled it.... probably Multiboot.

Have you ever had an OpenMoko device and can confirm this?

How do you activate this?

Yep.

Que?

And here we come to the point of all your problems.
Installing stuff from devel without knowing about the consequences!
Reflash your device and stay with extras repository, and you will have an open (mostly) free and stable device.

Read forums, especially recovery console and kernel-power thread.

Install Arch or Debian, cross-compile the 2.6.37 kernel for ARMv7 softfp, grab the GLES drivers and use your favorite DE of choice.

And make sure to install U-boot with that kernel.

Your device won't be as useful as a phone (Text messaging kinda works, if you can find a suitable client) and battery life will suffer slightly (IIRC some PM stuff on Nemo isn't as worked on as Fremantle's), but it will be quite open (with the exception of the ImgTec SGX drivers) and as snappy, if not snappier than Maemo.

(P.S.: Fremantle Hildon-Desktop works quite crappily when built and used on its' own. Hopefully some people can find time and make it polished as it is on Fremantle.)