Recently moved to a new house, and accidentally caught sight of my old favorite cellphone, n900. It has been collecting dust in a drawer since 2012. Plugged it in, booted it up, maemo worked, wifi connected, surfed the web fine. it is kind of slow with today's standard, it took a sec or two on refreshing web pages. The bottomline, it still works.

But what really impresse me is the Nitdroid, running android 2.3.4, developed, I guess, singlehandedly by e-yes. Nitdroid booted up without problems. And android apps updated with the play store, that is impressive, for a 3 years old technology, still works! wifi caught on, and surfed the web fine. And most excitingly, is the app xplore still works. Xplore allows a seamlessly connection with your window PC, exchange files, streaming files, audio or video, silk smooth. And this is running an alternate OS, not even its native OS, and connect with the windowsPC, and a 3 - 4 years old technology. I would call this marvelous. Some of the new tablet I bought, crashed on xplore when connect with windowsPC.

Any oldtimers around found any other alternate OS worth to implement on this old gadget?

TIA,

bun

??? I don't understand why anyone would want an alternate OS; Maemo is a pretty complete and open Linux distribution, and has the fabulous Qt SDK available for simplifying GUI creation. It's far more fun to write your own Maemo apps than to mess around with some lesser, more closed OS.

It sounds like you're more impressed with android than with the n900

I remember this youtube video that showed an old Apple graphical OS (not the OS X 10.3.) being booted on the N900, I wish I could find it and check if it was usable for a demo aspect.

Other than that Easy Debian chroot is the most usable "other OS" I can think of. Ok, Libreoffice Writer takes about 30 - 40 seconds to ready to accept input but that's better than most other phones can do, especially since once started productivity is very high thanks to keyboard and stylus.

Regarding Android, is there not something like apkenv that allows android applications to be sideloaded and run on the Maemo OS?


These stories always attract my attention because I personally I rediscovered the N900 as a homecoming relief after taking sideroads through Jolla (interest in the OS) and Nokia 808 (for multimedia features yet unbeaten in terms of photography and DAC music playback) and occasionally Android via a tablet and family members phones.

Reason why I appreciate the N900 so much is that I find myself less demanding to towards the "poor old N900" than I used to be in early 2010 and towards 2012 when the N900 had awoken a hunger for an alternative future with Maemo: faster, bigger screen, better -> one phone to rule them all vision.

Today I know this N900 is all I will likely ever get and being a lazy tweaker I finally got to tweak the max out of it in 2014, almost 5 years after my original purchase.

-Swap to SD on fast SD Media and not depending on flash and javascripts helps a lot to appreciate the device.

to save me some style and typing effort I 'll borrow the original text, hope you don't mind..

But what really impresse me is the Maemo, running Community SSU version 21.2011.38-10.1+thumb0, developed, I guess, by multiple gifted community members. Maemo booted up without problems (not that I ever doubted that it would). And Maemo apps updated through the original repo's, that is impressive knowing that Nokia pulled the plug out of Maemo long time ago and that the original repository hosting needed to be migrated and funded by the community , for a 5-6 years old technology, still works! wifi caught on, and surfed the web fine. And most excitingly, is the apps Cutetube, Qspot, Fahrplan, all depending on external API's still are update and work.
N900 allows multiple ways of seamless connection with your window PC, exchange files, streaming files, audio or video, silk smooth.

Plenty of other stuff just works without side annoyances like advertisements or having to weed through endless playstore me too app lists and misguiding reviews to get that one gem of an application: The Nokia N900 will complement your old FM radio gear once the FM broadcast will stop, your old IR equipment (I have lost my JVC amplifier remote and Pierogi came to the resque)
Orichiette is an example of how easy life can be: just record any stream, be it Internet radio, voice or phone calls - this application does it without demanding anything back from the user! Just like the old tape recording days.
Even the form factor of the N900 starts to have something "vintage" or ahead of its time. What used to be a "brick" is now a cute compact package. It is not the most powerful but it does not take too much space either.

The things that currently bother me about the N900 is the slowness of the camera interface and the musical rendition could be better when connected to a HIFI setup.

Being a Neo900 backer I feel not bothered by its probable release or not. Now I enjoy the N900 without the waiting for better and I will continue to thank the people who still support with updates and active development it by showing up now and then on this forum.

Even being a Jolla tablet backer I feel no anticipation for the tablet to be released.. I know what it won't do the N900 can and that's a lot.