Thanks a lot for your ffedback!<br>hey and waht about Noko? :)<br>CU<br>Sylvain (aka GarthPS)<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2010/7/8 Nicola Mfb <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:nicola.mfb@gmail.com">nicola.mfb@gmail.com</a>></span><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 10:12 PM, Michal Brzozowski <<a href="mailto:rusolis@poczta.fm">rusolis@poczta.fm</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
[...]<br>
<br>
> I'd like to hear how the N900 compares to the FR in hackability. Like<br>
> replacing pieces of software, like keyboard, window manager, etc. I<br>
> wasn't able to find much information about this. It seems there is<br>
> only one distribution that fully works on the N900, which is quite<br>
> worrying.<br>
<br>
Hi Michal,<br>
<br>
I have an n900 too since last November, here my (hoping agnostic) review:<br>
<br>
Hardware:<br>
<br>
Great, overclockable to 1Ghz (seems without problems), battery life of<br>
several days *without* suspend, 3d accelerated graphics, 32 GB eMMC (+<br>
slot for SD expansion), 256 MB flash, 256 MB ram, nice screen<br>
resolution of 800x480, good TS (even with finger only), FM receiver<br>
and *transmitter*, proximity sensor, IR transmitter, accelerometer,<br>
5Mb zeiss rear camera, front camera, *superb* audio quality and "3.5G"<br>
module, wifi, bt, video output, stereo speaker, etc.<br>
<br>
End User Experience:<br>
<br>
Not comparable to the freerunner one. Maemo has a lot of defects but<br>
using it you feel immediately it has a common layout, defined api and<br>
gui guidelines. This may appear as a limit, but from the End User<br>
experience is very nice!<br>
All apps (nokia, community or thirdy part) follow this principles, are<br>
integrated with the DE and with the middleware quite nice.<br>
<br>
The phone application is based on telepathy, so due to its<br>
multiprotocol nature supports gsm voice calls, skype, voip, and so on.<br>
The same for sms and chat integrated in the "conversation" app. There<br>
are a lot of plugins (google, msn, etc.) to extend it.<br>
<br>
The DE has a nice 4 pages home, you switch by dragging them, on every<br>
page you may add shortcuts to applications, contacts (that shows the<br>
picture and the IM online status, so it's easy and natural using a<br>
skype/voip call instead of gsm one and save money!), web bookmarks and<br>
widgets that make the user able to highly customize the desktop.<br>
Finally there are pluggable "status" area and power button menu.<br>
Task switching is performed with a very nice composite dashboard where<br>
you see thumbnails of current running apps (that are updated in<br>
realtime).<br>
All that is full finger friendly and there is a stylo inside the n900<br>
when you need, (actually I use it only for precise web browsing<br>
without the need of zooming in/out).<br>
The virtual keyboard is full integrated with customized input methods<br>
of gtk and qt (I do not know about other toolkits), so when you tap on<br>
a text field you'll have a qwerty (not transparent) portrait keyboard<br>
showing the current editing text.<br>
If you open/close the HW keyboard the virtual one will hide/show.<br>
<br>
As you may guess peoples does not feel the necessity to change the WM<br>
or the VK because you loose the high number of pluggable widgets in<br>
the home, the status area and the toolkit interaction with the<br>
keyboard.<br>
<br>
The package management system is apt, there is an integrated GUI that<br>
will show only a specific section of the available apps, so the end<br>
user will see only good sense applications with descriptions and icons<br>
(of course the power user may use xterm or ssh to see the full<br>
contents of the repositories). The status area will signal with a<br>
blinking square where an update is available, so you may be uptodate<br>
with a couple of finger taps.<br>
<br>
The network manager works very well and handles wifi and 3g connections.<br>
<br>
Just a concrete user experience (a my tipical day):<br>
<br>
I have a voip public telephony (like skypein) account (eutelia) and<br>
skype configured, a 5euro/month 3GB umts data option on my sim, wifi<br>
networking at home and at work, google contacts synchronization and 3<br>
email account configured. My network manager is configured to "always<br>
on".<br>
<br>
The alarm wakes up me every morning (and works reliably), then I put<br>
the device online, automagically it connects to my home wifi network,<br>
signs up to skype and eutelia, check for emails, does the first sync<br>
with google, updates the weather and the rss and the "personal ip<br>
address" widgets on the desktop.<br>
<br>
When going to work, as my home wifi is not more reachable the n900<br>
automagically start a 3g connection. I may check the sent/received<br>
statistics with another widgets that updates informations in real time<br>
on the desktop to be sure I'm not reaching the 3G/month limit, and<br>
anyway in the settings manager I may set to be advised every time x MB<br>
of traffic was generated.<br>
<br>
While using my car I start the mediaplayer and the FM transmitter<br>
(with another desktop widget), put the device near the car stereo and<br>
listen for some music or use sygic voice assisted gps navigation where<br>
going to unknown places.<br>
<br>
When I arrive in the office it automagically stops it and connects to<br>
work wifi and so on until I put it offline in the night.<br>
<br>
Every x minutes it continues to update widgets, and signal incoming<br>
email, IM messages, alarms, phone calls (of course ;)) and so on.<br>
<br>
Every with this intensive usage my battery may survive to more then a<br>
day, note that it never suspends, and this is a big feature as I can<br>
always open an ssh connection.<br>
<br>
If I need to transfer files at high rate I simply put the usb cable<br>
and it shows a popup dialog asking you for "PC Suite mode" (usb<br>
cdc-ether networking) or "Mass Storage" that exports the data<br>
partition of the eMMC like a normal pen drive at usb 2.0 speed.<br>
<br>
Browsing experience is very nice, real time zooming with side keys or<br>
tap gestures to help finger usage, and has flash support.<br>
<br>
Using it as a modem is very easy, I just plug the usb cable and the<br>
network manager connects to the 3g network (there is also dun support,<br>
but I do not have bt on my laptop).<br>
You may use it as a router too and share the connection with free<br>
applications or manually with nat iptables/ipforwarding over usb or<br>
wifi in ad-hoc mode.<br>
<br>
Developer experience:<br>
<br>
Very easy, you have at least 3 ways:<br>
<br>
* scratchbox, a chrooted debian like environment with x86 and arm<br>
support, qemu previewer, etc. to build an app you select the "arm"<br>
target, apt-get install your *-dev packages, and go with configure,<br>
make, etc. with debian tools is trivial to create .deb packages. I was<br>
able to cross compile, package, deploy and run asterisk in few minutes<br>
and use it with the phone application without any problem.<br>
<br>
* madde (I do not know it much)<br>
<br>
* Nokia Qt SDK, with automatic cross compilation, deploy and run, on<br>
dev box, qt simulator, and the real device over ssh. I configured<br>
public keys, and due to my "always on" profile, I simply open<br>
qt-creator, write some code, hit "control+r" and see the app running<br>
on my n900 without doing other things!<br>
<br>
API changes are *rare*, only very few low-level packages suffers after<br>
a firmware upgrade.<br>
<br>
Python lovers are welcome, and application load time is not critical.<br>
<br>
Software and repositories:<br>
<br>
The OS is debian derived, many peoples complains it's not full debian,<br>
anyway a phone or tablet is different from a normal desktop linux box,<br>
software has to be patched to provide a good user experience and<br>
integrate with the system. For example here apps request internet<br>
connection with the icd deamon and its libraries, and uses maemo api<br>
to access contacts etc.<br>
So the "forked" debian is not critical for me, on the freerunner the<br>
99% of users uses patched or scratch-written software in many cases<br>
adapted at least for FSO, debian users access the entire repository<br>
but a lot of apps are not suitable for the tiny display, while OE<br>
derived distro does not provide a big number of upstream packages.<br>
Geek users that know how to patch or tweak an upstream application are<br>
for sure able to run it over maemo ;)<br>
<br>
About repositories you have nokia official ones, third part and<br>
"extras" (community), the last is subdivided in:<br>
<br>
* extras-devel<br>
* extras-testing<br>
* extras<br>
<br>
Typically the developer submit sources to the autobuilder without the<br>
need of contact maintainers, after that there is a QA and vote mech to<br>
"promote" the package to testing and finally to extras (default<br>
enabled).<br>
<br>
The user may choose to enable or not testing/devel repository to stay<br>
with unstable/testing or stable packages.<br>
<br>
Available packages are good quality, and some of them enhances maemo a<br>
lot, for example FMMS.<br>
<br>
In addition there is the "garage" where you'll find a lot of more<br>
experimental apps (and above all some debian upstream repackaged for<br>
maemo).<br>
<br>
Stability:<br>
<br>
If you stay with extras only, and enable devel/testing only when<br>
needed (and know what you are doing), the system is quite stable, no<br>
calls/sms losed, the maximum uptime for me was ~30 days, I had to<br>
reboot becouse trying to take a shot with the camera resulted in<br>
"Operation error". With the older firmware I had to reboot at least 1<br>
time for week, but I installed a lot of experimental application<br>
without much care, so I'm not sure if the actual stability of my n900<br>
is due to PR 1.2 or my care ;)<br>
<br>
Hacking experience:<br>
<br>
Maemo has some userland closed sources components (of course kernel is<br>
free) that prevents you to run a 100% free linux distro, I was able to<br>
run debian on the external SD card without adding those components but<br>
you'll be not able to use the phone or charge the battery.<br>
<br>
Things is going to be different with meego, here only BME (battery<br>
management) and SGX (3d acceleration libraries) are closed, and rumors<br>
seems to confirm that at least BME may be opened. All the other is<br>
openend (wip), for example the closed modem control will be integrated<br>
in ofono, the pulse audio routing path is now free, etc.<br>
<br>
So I'm quite sure that in very few time peoples may port that to FSO,<br>
the only critical step may be the BME that has to be replaced in some<br>
way (if it will not be freed).<br>
<br>
IMO the n900 is a good hackable device and a perfect candidate for a<br>
new reference platform for FSO (I remember an old thread to cofund and<br>
donate an n900 to Mickey).<br>
And would be very nice to write an FSO plugin for the qt-mobility<br>
framework in order to run thousand of maemo/meego applications on<br>
debian or SHR!<br>
<br>
If your hacking needs is compatible with maemo meego/harmattan and<br>
full meego, you may prefer do not install a new linux distro, but<br>
install "easydebian" with a couple of finger tap, and run a chrooted<br>
environment in Xephyr with your preferred WM, I was able to launch<br>
openoffice in that way on my n900. Of course you may always use<br>
debootstrap and tweak all yourself.<br>
Actually I have maemo on the internal flash, meego and debian +<br>
neophysis specific apps on an external sd, I can decide which of them<br>
run with bootmenu that is activated taking the hw keyboard out when<br>
powering up the device (but uses always the same flash in kernel), and<br>
I'm waiting for git pushes of the modem control part and audio routing<br>
to see if neophysis may run nice on the n900. When I want to try a new<br>
kernel I use the flasher util that has a nice one shot kernel load<br>
option.<br>
The bootloader is closed, but meego devs are working to fix kexec<br>
problems, when done the bootmenu will be able run every linux distro<br>
with the preferred kernel without the need of an usb cable ;)<br>
<br>
It seems all good, but of course there are some bad things:<br>
<br>
* Nokia seems to support its devices only for some months with a<br>
couple of firmwares upgrades and then abadone them<br>
<br>
* Nokia maemo project management was quite closed, community is not<br>
much involved in inside decisions (but this seems be happened in the<br>
openmoko age too), it seems meego is a different story with the<br>
influence of Intel and the Linux Foundation that have a different<br>
story, but before trusting them they have to demonstate their openess<br>
with facts!<br>
<br>
* software is not always complete, and at least the maemo platform<br>
laks for high press community needs (free gps navigation with ovi maps<br>
and flash 10), that should be addressed with meego or meego/harmattan<br>
but...<br>
<br>
* it's not sure if meego/harmattan will be available for the n900<br>
<br>
* it's not sure if meego will be official available for the n900, for<br>
sure it's the arm reference platform<br>
<br>
* feelings is much better with freerunner, OE, debian, gentoo, FSO,<br>
etc. and the hard community effort against the multinational payed<br>
employeers ;)<br>
<br>
* the above mentioned organizations are really open to external contributions!<br>
<br>
Hoping this will help!<br>
<br>
regards<br>
<br>
Niko<br>
<br>
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</blockquote></div><br>