N900 i3 and maemo / pmos

Hello guys, I'm new to nokia n900,

Tl;dr

1. Install i3wm in maemo and remove hildon or alongside without using chroot distros. (Ram will be taking hit from this if it's alongside, it is not?)

2. Boot to cli before boot to hildon gui in maemo, is it possible to just use maemo with above case. (Startx or maybe some command to go into the i3wm instead of hildon)

3. How long will this device last in the next few years, degraded and stuff, will this still usable in the near 3 -5 years (it might be won't, but if anyone knows more about this stuff, it might help to relieve this nagging curiousness)

4. This will be secondary device, what project might be good to used with n900?


I just bought one near me and I've also read a few things about n900 as a small terminal device using postmarketos as base. I wanna ask if it's possible in maemo (without migrating to pmos) to use i3wm (tiling window manager) instead of using hildon?

I read that maemo is Debian based and using hildon xorg de on the maemo leste, is it possible to remove it and then go into the command line interface first (like most Linux pre-desktop env. installation)? Or will it be possible to run i3wm alongside hildon without impacting performance?

I know it might be on different os, but I hope if anyone will have little bit explanation for this one, I've read some of the pmos reviews, PowerVR (GPU) isn't supported, or might be it is? I thought the GPU Will help with the processing on the maemo and pmos devices, or maybe it won't?

I'm new to Linux, I've been using arch for a couple of months after tinkering with raspi and laptop, I assume it'll prolly helps with watching videos (YouTube dl and mpv).

Also I thought it might be possible to remove or install alongside i3wm within the root env of the n900 instead of doing other distro chroot to use i3wm (cos I think it'll be lighter if it's using i3wm instead of doubling using chroot inside hildon) I'm not using it as primary device, so maybe I don't really bother with call functionality, it might be good if I still can get 2g or 3g despite of not using it to call at all (telegram-cli can be used instead).

Also a random question, how long will this device last (years/decade?) I'd like to tinker with this device, I know it's been a decade since, so it'll probably will hold on either 3 or 5 year most during it's lifetime? (Since technology will degraded as time goes on) but will it last more than that? (I love this kind of device much).


I'll probably used n900 like this

- using terminal to mostly doing terminal stuff (vim and emacs maybe?)

- fm transmitter, I've seen it's possible on the pmos also to stream musics (using spotdl in conjunction aplay or mpd with ncmpcpp)

- ssh to raspi, or stuff (might want to turn ssh on and off now and then for secs purpose?)

- some kali Linux tools for small stuff (nmap and others without the gui if possible), not all might be compatible, since the limitation of ram of this device.

- mutt for email

- maybe using protonvpn to help with the vpn stuff? Since it won't be possible to browse with better browser, or is there any browser better for this? I'm looking fo ungoogled chromium for sometime now, but haven't installed it anywhere on my device, since I've seen that pmos is compatible with chromium, i think it's still possible to use ungoogled project in this scenario.

- and many more (some other stuff for another day, although it will be limited for device like this)


Also I might be wrong here, is it possible to help with the ram management by using vram? I thought it might helps in cases that ram is overloaded (256mb) even the slightest increase I think it'll help with the ram.

I know most of this is much and far easier on Android and especially there's Geminis Pda and stuff that's already been made, but knowing how expensive it is in my place (Indonesia) it'll prolly out of my reach to get that stuff and the tax also higher, I won't prolly catch up with this new stuff.



Also I'm sorry if my words are confusing, English is not primary language 🙏🏼

Any help appreciated 😁 thank you in advance!

I thought I saw this working either on Arch For N900 or DebiaN900.

I've also seen some for the postmarketos, is the PowerVR available on arch and Debi? Cause I think the performance will get a hit for when it used for watching video. I thought it'll be a good device to watch 144p YouTube vids. 😁

If you get someone to make cutetube2 to work again you can watch 720p videos with Hildon desktop if that is something you want to achieve with this device.

I think you'll be losing a lot of functionality when you change the desktop environment.
It would be more like a tiny computer than a smartphone.
But if that's what you want :shrugs:

In any case, you have to succeed to compile i3 for N900 first.

I don't really get the point here... Why would you like to do that...? I mean, of course the RAM is "not enough" but it is not the GUI that couses problems... Or maybe I'm wrong but that is my experience... And as nonsuch said you would lose functionality...
I use my kali chroot wm with i3 and it is working quite well; but using the whole Maemo 5/n900 that way... for me it is a no-go because "hey, this is a phone and a camera as well". But if you would like to use it (and use it only) as a computer... You can try.

Hello, thanks for the answers here!

so I thought about using n900 as "small comp" rather than a phone, I have an android phone for daily use (phone, messaging) I thought of n900 more of a compliment and tinkering device, that's why I would use this more as a secondary device.

I've read PostMarketOS about the stuff that they had. Sadly, PowerVR is not supported. Using Maemo with i3 would probably more sufficient with the help of the keyboard, so I thought it'll be a good reason to just change the wm (I use i3 on my laps) so maybe changing the bindings will help with the usage overall.

as a phone, i thought if it'll be possible to do some tinkering to send message using telegram-cli or signal-cli (though I don't know if JRE 7 is supported or not) or might be irssi (irc client) to do chats; also 2G connection is dead in my country, they migrate to 4G/LTE, some 3G connection still can be used, but maybe it'll also migrated in the future.

I see n900 more as a small terminal device in which you can do SSH and stuff to access anything else in a portable shape. I use my phone to do SSH and stuff to do some project (though since corona virus hit, it's my laptop doing the job), so I see it more as a companion secondary device.

If possible I would prolly bring my old flips (sharp Aquos SHF31) to do tethering or other services like whatsapp.

It might be differ between this site and maemo-leste? I was brought here from the small community I've found in reddit and discord. So I might be on the wrong track here.

Ah, good point, i3 might be available on Leste, or at least easier to compile.

BTW, any kind of (even remotely recent) JRE will be painful to run on that hardware.

I would suggest trying this in Arch rather than Maemo, as Hildon tries to fight back if it's not the current window manager. (I tried to write an alternative one a while back and gave up because I couldn't get it to run for more than 5 seconds before Hildon came back.)

ah, so it might not be possible to use the JRE then, might do another research if anything else is possible.

about the hildon desktop, I've done some digging about this stuff, is it also the one you try like in this link?

links: https://github.com/maemo-leste/bugtracker/issues/51

mv /etc/init.d/dsme /etc/init.d/dsme_

I thought about moving between pmos or leste, but I would prolly install arch at some point. Though is it still supported on the github site? But the hardware it's supporting is as much as leste prolly included the GPU, also, is it using the actual arm repos?

I'll try it when my device arrive, but since the pandemic is growing, expedition's been delayed, so it might take a while, that's why this thread also comes up to existance

Also, for the youtube -> mps-youtube or ytp (https://gitlab.com/uoou/ytp) might prolly be used, since it's based on python; but only if it is feasible to do it on n900.

I really hope this kind of device will be made again, maybe with decent specs with linux in it (like raspi). I also thought the bulkiness is prolly what makes the keyboard comfortable no?

I'll post some projects here or by reddit if I came up with another updates. Thanks for all the help XD