If you can wait 4 or 5 days, try using the Windows Nokia Qt SDK beta. AFAIK the PR1.2 firmware should be released next week...

Does that mean you can simply compile programs on the desktop and zip them across? if that is the case, wont programs be a slow cos they're not compiled for the N900 cpu?

If you use a compiler that generates ARM binaries, it will be as if you had compiled the program ON the N900.

I do this all the time and that's what you use cross compilers for.

@TheAccountant: What graphics drivers are you using? I haven't done any recent research, but last I checked, the open source ATI drivers didn't do 3d acceleration, so performance (for me) was always generally poor. The proprietary drivers are a must IMHO when running ATI.

I'm on a HP dv9000 laptop that runs @ 2.2Ghz intel pushing 2GB ram and would call it anything but slow.

Are you running the distros in a virtual machine, from a LiveCD or straight off of your hard drive? The former two will always be slower. In that case I'd suggest running something like openbox which is light weight and eat less resources than full DE's.

If it helps, I'm running ArchLinux with WMII, but even under KDE 4.4 it didn't take "a few seconds" for menu items to load.

[edit]
I don't think it has anything to do with the graphics drivers. I just downgraded to vesa drivers and Qt was still as responsive as ever.

The Nokia Qt SDK has cross compilers to create applications for Maemo or Symbian devices. When you build an application on your PC, you choose the target (Maemo, Symbian or the Simulator). The Maemo target will generate native code to run on your N900.

The Nokia SDK is supposedly the new "right" way to create Qt applications for Nokia devices, so I recommend that you give it a try.

For more information, see the official page (including the download link).

ATI.. I believe open source. 3d is enabled.

Thanks for the reply. I built a new system and Qt is snappy. Muat have been the rubbish CPU and mother.

Now iv just got to get my first "hello world" program onto the N900.... now where is google....

Thanks guys.

@TheAccountant: C++ or some other bindings?

If C++ and it's already cross-compiled, you can either move the file via mass storage mode, or copy via ssh like I do. Or if your computer and N900 are on the same LAN, you can do this from a computer that has python installed:
Which will start a file server @ 0.0.0.0 on port 8000 by default. From Microb you can navigate to your servers address (probably 192.168.x.x:8000) and download the file from there.

That's what I love about this device: more than one way to do something.