Julian Oliver4d ago

Anyone remember these? Debian-based GNU/Linux OS developed by Nokia (Maemo), decent keyboard, nice little shell environment. Found mine in a box, cleaned & gave them a charge.

Both boot, a century later.

Looking back, the N900 would have to be my favourite handheld of the era. Nokia were truly onto something with these, a reasonably brave attempt to add a 3rd OS to the smartphone mix. A risk they took and lost.

Regardless, for some of us, the N900 was closer to the future we wanted.

Show threadAlyn3d ago
@JulianOliver Yup, still got my one here somewhere. I loved the integrated contact management system it used (I'm pretty sure before Android or iOS had it) so I didn't have to care which app I had a contact stored with. The fact that it's now rendered less useful by the death of 3G networks is galling - can't even use it as a mobile mastodon client unless it's paired with a hotspot. Ooh, I wonder if I can get it to play with #meshtastic ?
Show threadColm O'Neill
@alyn @JulianOliver if I'm not mistaken, the folx @postmarketOS maintain a version of PMos for the N900. I certainly remember it being mentioned as a dev device in its early days. Not sure what to say about the 3g thing, but it might breathe new life into it?
May 26 at 10:41pmWeb
Show threadPureTryOut3d ago
@colm @alyn @JulianOliver @postmarketOS #postmarketOS won't magically make providers support 3G again but it can definitely bring it back to life if you'd like to use it PDA-style (wifi only). Otherwise I can recommend #MaemoLeste, it even ships with the original UI!