Free N900 (KDE.News)
However, it is not the hardware which is most interesting to us - it is the software. The N900 runs Maemo, a Debian Linux based operating system for high-end smart phones. Compared to pretty much all competition, the N900 offers a very open software platform and provides a terminal application by default. Most of the GUI is currently build upon GTK, using Clutter on OpenGL and various other FOSS components in the lower stack. But the upcoming release, Maemo 'Harmattan' 6 will receive a new, Qt based GUI. Qt is already available for the N900 and in the first half of next year we can expect an officially supported Qt 4.6 release for Maemo 'Freemantle' 5."
Posted Oct 12, 2009 23:43 UTC (Mon)
by Zenith (guest, #24899)
[Link]
30 seconds later: Still awesome, and what a nice big carrot for those
I really have high hopes for this piece of hardware and I am seriously
Posted Oct 13, 2009 0:45 UTC (Tue)
by davidm (guest, #35)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Oct 13, 2009 3:03 UTC (Tue)
by drag (guest, #31333)
[Link] (3 responses)
All in all it is a bit odd, but it is still a nice thing to do. And smart.
Posted Oct 13, 2009 3:25 UTC (Tue)
by ncm (guest, #165)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Oct 15, 2009 13:10 UTC (Thu)
by mgedmin (subscriber, #34497)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Oct 16, 2009 20:42 UTC (Fri)
by oak (guest, #2786)
[Link]
Not couple of days before, according to the Maemo team blog post, it was
I guess the developers need the bleeding edge, hot and fresh. :-)
Posted Oct 13, 2009 8:28 UTC (Tue)
by sylware (guest, #35259)
[Link] (19 responses)
Posted Oct 13, 2009 8:52 UTC (Tue)
by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164)
[Link] (18 responses)
Posted Oct 13, 2009 9:02 UTC (Tue)
by sylware (guest, #35259)
[Link] (6 responses)
Posted Oct 13, 2009 11:01 UTC (Tue)
by Adi (guest, #52678)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Oct 13, 2009 11:20 UTC (Tue)
by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501)
[Link] (3 responses)
Posted Oct 13, 2009 12:03 UTC (Tue)
by pboddie (guest, #50784)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Oct 13, 2009 16:10 UTC (Tue)
by mrfredsmoothie (guest, #3100)
[Link]
Now that this is a phone, too, I wonder if the device will be supported for longer. Not having ever shelled out more than $40 or so for a phone, I'm not sure if people who pay for smartphones expect to keep them for longer than a year or two.
Posted Oct 13, 2009 12:58 UTC (Tue)
by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164)
[Link]
Posted Oct 13, 2009 13:49 UTC (Tue)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link]
Posted Oct 13, 2009 9:06 UTC (Tue)
by Hanno (guest, #41730)
[Link]
Posted Oct 13, 2009 12:34 UTC (Tue)
by man_ls (guest, #15091)
[Link] (9 responses)
Posted Oct 13, 2009 13:24 UTC (Tue)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Oct 13, 2009 19:29 UTC (Tue)
by man_ls (guest, #15091)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Oct 13, 2009 19:44 UTC (Tue)
by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
[Link]
Posted Oct 13, 2009 13:27 UTC (Tue)
by drag (guest, #31333)
[Link] (5 responses)
The PowerVR graphics, for example, are used to provide video acceleration.
That sort of thing. Some of it is Nokia's choice to be closed.. like some
All in all these are the same problems your going to run into when you buy
The TI OMAP platform is going to be used in pretty much everything and
Especially the PowerVR chip is going to be a PITA. IT would be nice if AMD
If people don't get their hands on this and apply reverse-engineering
So if people are going to abandon N900 they are going to have to make the
The N900 is Unique in that Nokia is actually encouraging hacking on it. If
Hell, waiting for ATOM phones is not going to gain you much. They are still
Posted Oct 13, 2009 16:33 UTC (Tue)
by pboddie (guest, #50784)
[Link] (1 responses)
What you say is largely the sad truth. However, I take issue with this: When projects like Openmoko (and their successors) try and get access to documentation, their bargaining power is very limited: the vendor is likely to give them the brush-off over such "intrusive" demands concerning a mere five-digit number of units. Still, the Openmoko follow-up efforts try their hardest to use open hardware where they can, and they've surely seen the pitfalls of using stuff which people thought was "open enough". Meanwhile, Nokia ships millions of units every year and is in a much better negotiating position. If they can't bring pressure to bear on their vendors, they're either not trying, or they should be concerned about the strategic implications of their vendors getting to call all the shots.
Posted Oct 13, 2009 16:59 UTC (Tue)
by drag (guest, #31333)
[Link]
All these embedded companies like Ti come from a tradition were spending a huge amount of effort on a one-off software application/driver that only works with one product is very normal and is acceptable...
Posted Oct 13, 2009 17:06 UTC (Tue)
by sylware (guest, #35259)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Oct 13, 2009 17:17 UTC (Tue)
by drag (guest, #31333)
[Link]
I think both of those ship as locked-down phones with proprietary UI code. I have no idea about the bootloader or drivers or whatever, or even where to go to find that information.
Posted Oct 13, 2009 22:01 UTC (Tue)
by lbt (subscriber, #29672)
[Link]
ETA ~2 weeks - delivery via the Mer project at http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer/
You know how you get that slow, beautiful (and seemingly never ending) transition between the pitch black of night and the bright new dawn....
Free N900 (KDE.News)
developers :)
considering investing in one, given all the nice features it has, and on top
of that it is hackable (we need to find a new word for these cases where the
company behind openly encourages you to work on improving the software).
Free N900 (KDE.News)
Free N900 (KDE.News)
with those units when they are given back to the company.. they are not only
preproduction units, they are used units. They'll just sit around the
warehouses until they get thrown away after a few years or the engineers pick
through them as playthings when they get written off. There is really no
difference between giving them units for six months or just giving them away
permanently in terms of cost to the company.
Lending
Lending
that a device (including the software on it) with GSM radio in it has to be
certified and given a warranty before it can be sold, and Nokia doesn't have
the final version of the software ready for that yet. What we received was
a development snapshot made a couple of days before the summit.
Lending
the summit.
the nightly snapshot they grabbed the previous day when leaving for the
summit:
http://maemoteam.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/amsterdam-flash...
driver code
Do we have all the optimal code for the hardware?
(*then* I will know if I buy it or not)
driver code
very open software platform'. It is not completely open, unfortunately.
But a big step in the right direction, and Nokia is committed to having it
as open as reasonably possible. So barring legalities, pending lawyer
reviews, deals with suppliers and other vendors and strong competitive
reasons... And it's a learning experience for them, like many companies
they keep things in-house and secret by default and are now slowly
figuring out how that hurts them.
driver code
I won't buy it.
driver code
Other non-zealots will buy.
driver code
The Z Word
The Z Word
driver code
there are users (which seems unlikely indeed). However, as far as I can
tell, the 770 is still receiving updates so things seem to look good.
driver code
driver code
I would have thought that the N770, N800 and N810 were good enough learning experiences. Didn't they learn from them that binary-only drivers are evil? For them and for us.
Learning experiences
Learning experiences
I was not specifically talking about 3D cores, embedded or otherwise. But I (and surely many others) was hoping that the N900 would be the first truly open smartphone out there (with OpenMoko's permission), even if they had to innovate a lot. Not just "each bit closed until people nag them enough to bother", as the wiki pages seem to suggest. Proprietary userspace we can live with (or without); but binary drivers are about the worst, right after locked bootloader.
Closed until further notice
Closed until further notice
Learning experiences
This is the same core that Intel uses in it's GMA 500, which the 3D parts
are proprietary, too. Then there is the GSM bits, which require some DRM
according to the specifications and requirements. And the DSP bits are from
Texas Instruments and it is not Nokia's choice to have them open or closed.
of the UI parts (which I don't really care about) and some power management
features like the battery management system, which is given some BS excuse
about safety (like all Lithium batteries there should be circuits built
into the battery to prevent damaging them.)
_any_ Linux smartphone that has modern hardware in it.
other ARM platforms are not going to be really any different.
started cranking out graphics for ARM platforms, but I don't see that
happening.
techniques and create their own open source drivers, like which has already
been done on the majority of PC-based systems, then everybody here is just
going to run into the the exact same problems with any phone released in
the future, whether it is from Nokia, Motorola, Chinese knock-off, Android,
Limo, WebOS, or any other Linux phone.
same choice on all commercially viable Linux smartphones now and into the
future.
people "liberate" this platform then that will make it much easier to
"liberate" future smartphones and Android phones and whatever you want to
use.
going to be using the PowerVR graphics stuff, for example, and will be
probably more proprietary then the N900 is.
Learning experiences
It is not really Nokia's choice to open some of it.
Learning experiences
Learning experiences
Learning experiences
Learning experiences