OK, well this is one of those things that I truelly dislike about the nseries!!! When something really cool comes around it is completely impossible to do anything with unless you have been working with them for quite some time. I think that it Android looks awesome and would love to be able to give it a try but there is no way that I am going to take a chance at bricking my n810. I bought this about 2 months ago and I do love it but Its just rediculous how complicated things are to install.

Yea some of them are a little easier but its because there simple little apps. When i installed the rotation support it took me about 2 days to get it and the only way that i did was because it was pretty much copy and pasting.

Everybody in here seems to assume that everybody knows what all of these abbreviations mean. For someone like me that is coming from a strictly windows background i am completely lost at the majority of these things. I have been going through and reading the posts in here for about 2 months now and still feal like im in kindergarden when it comes to most of these discussions about installing something really nice.

I have also noticed that almost all of the threads on this site are conversations with almost all of the same people in them. Im not complaining and if it sounds that way then i do appolagise its just that i get frustrated when i see something like pics of an n810 running Android and when i actually find a site that explains how it might aswell be in a different language!!

Thanks for reading and listening to me rant about being tablet illiterate.

I think that what most posters expect from anyone reading a thread on esoteric or otherwise advanced topics that the readers either already know the terms or are willing to find them out on their own.

I agree with Texrat but maybe we should start a wiki page for term definitions

Well, that's life; it's just a happy situation (for Windows users) that Windows is sufficiently prevalent that everyone knows how to get around in it; when you get to a minority system like whichever UNIX, then only the people who know it tend to know it at all.

I'd probably be equally irritated with a phone running Mac OS (by which I mean the old one, not the one with UNIX under the hood; I can deal better with that...), for a while, then I'd pick it up (or chuck the thing); keep working through the straightforward stuff (like rotation), and you'll get it.

But for this particular issue, it's really complex; not only don't you know Linux, you also don't know Android hacking, which is itself rather arcane and exclusive; I probably could get it working, but it'd take a week to get up to that point, and it's just not worth it. Doing this kind of major hackery is not going to be easy on any device, unless you're a major hacker with some experience with the platforms involved...

One nitpick: I think you're misapplying N-series; N-series is Nokia's consumer (vs. E-series for business) line of smartphones. It now includes the N800, N810, and N810WM internet tablets. The rest of them run mainly s60, so I doubt it's at all similar; and the 770 (no N; not in the N-series) is also an internet tablet, and similarly complex.

A good intro into Linux basics might also be a good idea. I think for many people the Tablets are their first experience with Linux.

If a project looks amazingly cool but incredibly difficult to you, you have two real choices:
1) Roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty (and your forehead bloody from beating it against the wall) and figure it out.
2) Convince yourself that it isn't really that cool and you can wait for someone else to do it for you. This response might include encouraging others to work towards making the project easier for you, but in the end, it just means you busy yourself with other stuff.

If you look at my signature, you'll see that it has both responses in it, so you can see that I can go either way.

There is a third response, but it isn't a very useful or valid one. You can blame everyone else that the project is too hard, you can complain that everyone involved in the first kind of response are elitists and unfriendly, and you can act all bitter that there's such a great distance between the desirability of the goal and your current ability to achieve that goal. That's not a very productive way to live your life.

I am really pissed off that 20+ years of programming on Microsoft platforms doesn't translate directly to maemo or Android.

Well, that's what you get for running with the devil; if you had been programming UNIX (in C, with a text editor), you'd be all set for maemo.

**** you mean Maemo is windows based no wonder my programs don't run.

Alright, you actually came in with a civil tone, so I'll try and answer this as best I can:
Short answer: Making things easy is hard.

Long answer: For the most part, people working on projects or hacking on the N8x0 are doing it for fun. They are spending their (often limited) free time. They do this because they enjoy it, because they are scratching an itch. They also have other motivations of course, but generally they are doing it because they want to; other motivations come *after* that. If a programmer/dev/hacker has time and motivation left over after completing a particularly cool trick, they often come here to brag about it and also share it with others.
Now, when they write up this info, they assume a certain background because it is easier and faster for them, not because they are trying to intentionally leave people out. If I wrote a really complete guide on (for example) how to get Debian onto an N800, I would end up with a novel that started with something like: "The plastic and metal object called an N800 has two sides, a front and a back. The front has a picture-showing device called a screen. Orient the device so that..." and so on and so on. This may seem ridiculous. Of course you don't need it simplified to that degree! But, people writing up their work have to pick a target audience. It's *easiest* for them to use the simplest terminology they can to explain what they did. They think in terms of these acronyms and jargon that they write in. It's just the same as in any profession with specific tools. This goes for programmers as well as car mechanics and doctors. As you've discovered, this puts the burden of effort on the user. In cases with beta software or stuff that's just not aimed at general users, this sometimes *might be the right way to do it,* like it or not.
A "copy+paste" howto is a kind of compromise, as it doesn't require them to explain everything they're saying, just to give exactly the commands that make it work. But still, this only works for very straightforward processes.
Now the other side of the scale is actually just the dev making a nice simple package. When someone does this, *all* the effort rests on the dev/hacker/programmer. Making a debian .deb package is actually pretty difficult. Doing it "the right way" is even harder. (You think all this stuff is hard, go read up on how to make a new Debian package.).
Not only is doing the packaging somewhat difficult, but so is automating the install process. Many times, you end up writing small programs *just to handle the installation of other programs.* This includes things like checking settings, then modifying them depending on their current state.
In the end, writing up documentation is usually mutually exclusive to time spent hacking on the program they're making. When push comes to shove, they'll get the documentation out of the way as fast as possible, and get back to what they want to be doing: making their program better or playing with their kids or going out to a bar.

Here's the fun part: What can you do?
If you hang in there and keep learning this Nokia Internet Tablet thing, you'll probably get better at using it and Linux in general. When you reach that point, look back on all the new users struggling to make things work, and *help them.* Heck, every time you have trouble doing something, then figure it out on your own, make a quick reply, even if no one has asked. For example: "I didn't know what the "cat" command was so I looked it up and found a quick explanation here: link." It *will* help someone in the future.

Sorry for writing such a long post. O_o Hopefully it helps you understand the situation a little bit. We're really not out to confuse you and I hope you stick with it. Glad to have you with us.

-John