Hello,
I notice that both offer 2 downloads, see here and here - a .tar.gz and an .img.xz.
The installation instructions only mention the .tar.gz as a zipped filesystem I guess.

What is the .img.xz image for? It unzips to an .img file.
Can this be flashed to the device directly?
How? I tried the Devuan version with flasher, but IIRC it complained about the file being incompatible.
I am a little reluctant to try again now beause I'm in the middle of the long & weary process to install Maemo Leste through Ubiboot.
So I thought I'd ask instead.

It can't be flashed directly. It is a raw partition file you can dd it.


Then I guess you had already a look into the wiki?

https://leste.maemo.org/Nokia_N950

Thank you for that information!
No need to go after the .img files then.

Yes, I managed to install Maemo Leste as described in the wiki.
The system seems to be up and running OK - I ssh'd into it and tried some things - but the UI is completely unusable?
The same with Devuan.
I also managed to boot a 2013 version of Sailfish OS. Not perfect either, and why bother for a system that is almost as outdated as Hramattan itself?

What else can I try?

Currently I'm thinking that the original Harmattan works well enough, and could be made safer by

• removing apps
• updating a few core apps, like openssh for example, to current versions

??
Maybe even enable some mainline Debian/Ubuntu repos?
But I don't see anything for the phone's architecture - which says it's "armv7l" - here? Is it compatible with armel, armhf, arm64?

I am hooked.
Never before have I had a truly hackable Linux phone.
I bought another N9 (a SIM adapter got stuck in the first one's SIM card slot ), and also an N900 while I was at it...

I think nothing. Maemo leste is not usable for ui and telephone support regarding the N9.


Yes this is atm the way with the lowest work. Or you have the knowledge to bring maemo leste to a usable state that would be the right way and the best for the future.

You can install maybe some packages from old distributions but never add a repo. But this I never tried so can't give you hints about it. I recompiled everything what I needed.

OK, thanks for clear words.
This is imprtant information even if it's negative.
At least it saves me from further trawling the forums/wiki.

May I ask about the compilation, some hints?

I still wonder what the architecture of the N9 actually is.
It says "armv7l".
By trial and error, I now found out that I can (try to) install packages for the armel architecture.
Where can I look for those, suitable to run on Harmattan, i.e. some sort of Debian-ish archive from 2011/12?

Please feel free to point me to relevant forum discussions/wiki articles.

Compilation has some limits for some newest packages, thats why people working on maemo leste. But with a lot of effort you can still update harmattan or compile packages which doesn't exists in harmattan.
You will need a sdk there you have two choices qt/madde(windows example) or scratchbox. I would recommend scratchbox for compiling packages but it exists only for linux. For qt gui applications I would recommend qt/madde.

When you are not so experienced I would go for a vm image.
I personally created two and never tried something different so I can only explain my images.
The first vm image which has already a toolchain configured for harmattan, has both qt/madde and scratchbox installed, which makes it really huge.
The second small vm image has only scratchbox installed there you need to configure the harmattan toolchain.




Debian archive look for the dates:
http://archive.debian.org/debian/pool/main/

You could try packages from N900:
http://maemo.org/packages/

You could try from Ubuntu look for the dates:
http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/

Thank you once more!
Nice.
Testing with dpkg -i dillo*deb.
The ubuntu version (3.0.2) has unfulfilled (unfulfillable?) dependencies.
The maemo version (3.0.5) installs & starts on the N9, but appears unusable.

But, my N900 has now arrived, so I guess I'll be more busy with Maemo Leste for some time.