Hello all..greetings from malaysia.. i have yet to own a nokia n900..cause the salesguy from Nokia told me the price has gone up from RM2280,to RM2600++..almost a hundred dollar price hike..so i'm still saving for it..

to be honest,i've read many discussions in maemo.org about N900..the goods,the bads..and i'm pretty sure that i've done a lot of research about it since 5 days ago(when i first saw N900). And yes,from the specs,the videos,the reviews,the user reviews,i'm pretty sure that this device suits me. I even bookmarked some important things about N900 such as basic commands,how to flash firmware and so on(even though i just flick page by page)

However, i'm just wondering (as a non-owner) how difficult is the learning curve for a noob like me(i have zero,actually below zero knowledge) to handle this sophisticated yet so powerful device?Without the knowledge of even the basic commands,like apt-get,clean,root..?I have yet too many to understands..and i mean too many..lol..

sorry for the long intro..thx..

It is pretty simple. If you aren't sure, don't do it. When you are sure, do it.

Knowledge of the command line is not necessary, provided you stay away from the extras-devel repository, and act carefully with extras-testing.

Use of the command line is not required for day to day use.

Well first you should ask yourself. Are you willing to learn if something goes wrong? Though in most if not all normal operations (e.g. staying out of extras-testing and extras-devel, not installing random software you find in threads here) you won't need to use the terminal (those commands).

But if you start installing extras-devel software or test software people post in threads but are not in the repository you should be prepared to learn how to use the terminal (in case to revert any problems) or be willing to at least read through the thread for tips, and what not.

You may also wish to evaluate how long you will own the device, how you feel about Nokia's support of it, etc..

For example, Meego on the N900 will eventually be available, but not supported officially by Nokia. If your interested in that possibility you should either be prepared to be able to do things by yourself, or just wait for a Meego device if your interested in it.

it is pretty easy ...
and when it not your first phone , and you realy understand what this "phone" is ,then it is realy easy =)

Wow..what a warm welcome!thx for all of your replies..

yes,i'm willing to learn. I came from Windows Mobile (still owning HTC Touch Pro)..before that, i used O2 Xda Zinc..lol..so obsessed with qwerty keyboard i guess..back then,i didnt know anything about windows mobile..then slowly i learned and learned..

well i still dont understand a couple of terms u were using such as extras-devel repository..but i'm sure that i'll understand it when i own one..

btw,what does the command line actually does?sorry guys.. =(

The command line is the a way of interacting with the operating system using text commands. Basically a GUI (what you usually interact with graphically) is overlaid on top of that. The problem with using a GUI sometimes is the lack of feedback information (for example, say an application crashes, with a GUI you may not know what caused it, but if it's in the terminal you will get a detailed error message).

It's not necessary to use the command line in day to day basic operations. Although if you do alot of software testing or install software still in development (from extras-devel) then you should likely learn it just as a backup (and to give feedback to the developers. For example, posting a detailed terminal output versus saying the application crashed).

Extras-devel, extras-testing, and extras are basically the source of the majority of community apps. They are placed in what's called a repository in the Linux world (basically a server that hosts all the files). Extras is the one most people will install apps from, and is the most stable. Extras-testing is applications that developers have promoted from extras-devel, basically applications are ready to be tested in a testing stage (to move them towards extra).

Extras-devel is the developmental state. Applications may not be finished, buggy, may not even work, may break some of your N900's functions until you uninstall the software, reflash, etc..

I'd say this is a very well designed phone. It doesn't take an engineer to operate or understand its intricacies

I'd say it's instant.

If you want to do some beta testing or install some developer only apps, then you have to learn 4 or 5 basic linux commands, that means five minutes if you never had linux and again instant if you had linux

I'd agree with all the responses above. We had guys hacking and modding the N900 as part of the PUSH N900 campaign who had minimal knowledge yet still developed some truly awesome hacks.

You can check out what was possible using the N900 and a bit of coding/hardware hacking here: http://blogs.nokia.com/pushn900/the-teams/