On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 10:10 PM, green
<greenfreedom10@gmail.com> wrote:
Brad Alexander wrote at 2011-03-14 18:02 -0500:
> The N900 is indeed a native Linux phone. Maemo is based on Debian, and in
> addition there is a Debian chroot, which uses the Debian repos.
N900, native Linux? Like, mainline Linux? Compile-my-own-kernel Linux? No.
https://elektranox.org/n900/status/kernel.html
I guess that depends on your definition. No, the N900 is not 100% commodity hardware, so there are specialized drivers which are not in the mainline kernel (yet). By the same token, the N810 had its proprietary hardware bits. And there is a Power User kernel available for those wishing to overclock the n900. However, if your metric is being able to compile your own kernel on the device, then no, it is not "native." My understanding from the OP's question was native Linux being defined as "running Linux out of the box." If this is incorrect, my apologies.
That said, Android also does not run mainline either. However, Maemo is far closer to traditional Linux than Android, which is a java stack atop a heavily modified Linux kernel. All (most?) apps run within this java sandbox.
I have an N810 and would like to run mainline Linux and Debian on it. Hardware
not supported by mainline, like the N900. Lately I have tried using a chroot
instead but I run into problems like cryptsetup does not work and rebuilding
the kernel is… difficult, requiring a modified initfs.
> The N900 (I have one and an N810) is a really rock-solid platform, though
> I am not terribly enamored with Nokia. Maemo and the Nseries could have
> ruled the mobile phone market, and been to market before the iphone. And
> now their "alliance" with MS and the killing of symbian and all things
> Linux...Grrr. But I digress.
I use the N810 GPS a lot. AGPS, a necessary feature for making N810's GPS
usable, has been dropped by Nokia (along with other N810 things).
https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11798
Agreed. I abhor Nokia's attitude toward the Nseries maemo phones. I believe I stated that in my original post. However, it is my opinion that it is the closest to a mainline distribution phone-style device out there at the current time. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Is Nokia perfect? Hell no! I also used to have a Sharp Zaurus. Was it perfect? No. But it was a step in the right direction, much as the Nseries was (before Nokia fell on its collective sword).
> Though you can, in fact, install a project called NITdroid on
> the N900 (and possibly the N810).
Not the N810.
http://wiki.nitdroid.com/index.php?title=N8x0
I stand corrected. I haven't done much with the N810 since getting the N900, so I wasn't sure.
--b