6 ms·

I don't miss symbian. Maemo on the other hand... was a loss. Nokia N900 was absolutely the best smartphone i ever used. Would use it still, but usb port issues

by arpa 6y ago

I don't miss symbian. Maemo on the other hand... was a loss. Nokia N900 was absolutely the best smartphone i ever used. Would use it still, but usb port issues forced me to upgrade.

Brakenshire 6y ago
Was Maemo open source, including the shell? I wonder whether anyone will try and revive it now we have mainline kernel Linux phones, like Librem and Pinephone.
- arpa 6y ago
  I _think_ it mostly was, with the exception of binary driver blobs. At least a few years ago it still had very active dev community at maemo.org, so it is not inconceivable for it to be revived. Alas, the neo900 project died.
  - Fnoord 6y ago
    No idea if neo900 officially died, but unofficially the timeline on the bottom and lack of news on the website [1] say as much. I believe right now you're best off with /e/ in combination with a Fairphone 3. [1] https://neo900.org https://neo900.org
    - Intermernet 6y ago
      Friends of mine were taught by Carsten Haitzler (rasterman, original author of enlightenment, lead dev of tizen) at UNSW. Back in the day enlightenment was, in many ways, miles ahead of the competition. Unfortunately it was miles ahead of the hardware as well. Apparently he has always been passionate about open source, and I've always been impressed by his output. I'd love to see /e/ get some mind share on a decent platform.
      - Fnoord 6y ago
        Sorry, I could've added a link. /e/ referred to [1], not Enlightenment. [1] https://e.foundation https://e.foundation
- ploek 6y ago
  It wasn't fully open source, but mostly. It was merged with Intel's Moblin into MeeGo. Once Nokia stopped working on that, MeeGo was forked into the fully open source Mer. Mer is nowadays used by Jolla as a basis for Sailfish OS (which again has non-open source parts at the top of the stack). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moblin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moblin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeeGo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeeGo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mer_(software_distribution) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mer_(software_distribution) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailfish_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailfish_OS
  - zozbot234 6y ago
    Maemo Leste is a fork of the original Maemo bits. It's still maintained, at least to some extent.
thepangolino 6y ago
I really liked the Meego iteration. Its UI was top notch.
- qwerty456127 6y ago
  There is Tizen and some other derivative I can't remember still actively developed. I would by a Tizen phone if I could be sure there are enough of good apps available for it and if I didn't trust Samsung even less than I trust Google.
  - em-bee 6y ago
    i had a tizen phone. tizen was not bad. but the selection in the app market wasn't to great. f-droid has more/better apps than tizen. unfortunately, unlike sailfish, tizen lacks support for android apps. the reason for that is that samsung would loose its commercial android license if they added android support to tizen.
  - hajile 6y ago
    Tizen is a derivative in name only. Samsung effectively took complete control of the group from all the other companies on the Meego project and it seems like they only continued work to keep pressure on Google. Nokia owned Qt and Samsung didn't want to pay fees or buy Qt outright, so they went with the mostly unknown Linux Enlightenment project (didn't hurt that it's main dev worked for them at the time). Likewise, Nokia owned rights to SwipeUI, so they opted for a remake of the Android UI. If they'd gone with something like a cleanroom implementation of SwipeUI or webOS, I think Tizen could have been a success. Instead, it just feels like a bad, outdated edition of Android. If users wanted that, they'd just use Android instead.
- shaan7 6y ago
  This guy did it justice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO4iNau8AWM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO4iNau8AWM
  - TLightful 6y ago
belorn 6y ago
I still use mine. Got a suspicious cheap battery + charger several years ago when the usb broke again. Shipped from china it took 2 months by boat, and the other battery is now extended enough that you can't close the back lid, but dammit, great phone.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  Why are you still using the N900? Its kernel, browser and SSL libraries haven't been upgraded in years and years now. If you connect to a network, you are just asking to be pwned. I kept my N900 for years longer than most people because it has a quality DAC and, as long as I kept it in airplane mode, it was a good music player for the classical and jazz I listen to on high-quality headphones when traveling. But eventually I realized that the N900 could be totally replaced by simply adding a Bluetooth DAC to the Android smartphone I already have (and I'm glad I did that, because the BTR3-FiiO Bluetooth amp I got sounds even better than the N900). I recently got a Pinephone, but it’s hard to enthuse about it. So much of the cool things you could go with the N900 – Emacs and the whole OS it brings along, writing your own scripts in the terminal – were due to its hardware keyboard. A modern smartphone that lacks a hardware keyboard is just a pain to hack.
  - belorn 6y ago
    First, it works and do the job of being a phone and it has a great keyboard for sms. It also lack a bunch of anti-features. No calling the mothership. No advertisements. No constant attempts to get me to register, to send gps information, to get me to do things which I don't want to do but the manufacturer do. Interface is clean, fast enough, intuitive to use. It has the few apps I want to use like the terminal, fosdem schedule and also a virtual debian machine. All the third-party stuffs still get regular updates. In the future I don't know what will replace it. The free software phones are interesting but I have my doubts about how practical they will be. On the proprietary side there are the foldables, but it is still a touch keyboard. There are feature phones, but many seems to now days be smartphones in disguise.
    - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
bjarneh 6y ago
I have two Nokia N9's (running Meego) at home still. I used N9 as my daily driver until about 3 years ago. The failure of that magnificent OS, combined with the failure of the successor (Jolla / Sailfish) still annoys me.
- mempko 6y ago
  Sailfish is still around and is still getting upgrades every quarter with new features and improvements. Android support is actually pretty good and I use it for my daily driver. It's not a success but it hasn't been a failure IMO.
  - distances 6y ago
    I still have both N9 and Jolla. I really loved my N9 and was excited about Sailfish, but as soon as I got my Jolla it was clear to me that it'll be a dead end. I did use it for a couple of weeks, but it absolutely missed the mark on why N9 was so loved. I understand that you can't just straight up copy the functional and beautiful UI from N9, but Sailfish the Sailfish UI was just way too experimental and bare.
  - zepearl 6y ago
    I used an Xperia X with Sailfish until end of 2019 but then I finally dropped it - it mostly worked but got too much annoyed by small bugs that never got fixed 100% (but in the meanwhile the UI got a lot of changes => that would definitely not be my way of prioritizing work). It's a pity but personally I think Sailfish will die.
  - al_ak 6y ago
    I'm still bitter about their Indiegogo campaign. I did get half a refund, so that's better than most failed crowdsourced projects.
- kwhitefoot 6y ago
  I would still use my N9 except that there are apps that I use every day that simply don't exist for Meego. I suppose I should try to sell it to some one who can use it but it is such a beautiful thing that I am loath to get rid of it even though I haven't even switched it on for ages.

by arpa 6y ago

I don't miss symbian. Maemo on the other hand... was a loss. Nokia N900 was absolutely the best smartphone i ever used. Would use it still, but usb port issues forced me to upgrade.

Brakenshire 6y ago

Was Maemo open source, including the shell? I wonder whether anyone will try and revive it now we have mainline kernel Linux phones, like Librem and Pinephone.

arpa 6y ago
I _think_ it mostly was, with the exception of binary driver blobs. At least a few years ago it still had very active dev community at maemo.org, so it is not inconceivable for it to be revived. Alas, the neo900 project died.
- Fnoord 6y ago
  No idea if neo900 officially died, but unofficially the timeline on the bottom and lack of news on the website [1] say as much. I believe right now you're best off with /e/ in combination with a Fairphone 3. [1] https://neo900.org https://neo900.org
  - Intermernet 6y ago
    Friends of mine were taught by Carsten Haitzler (rasterman, original author of enlightenment, lead dev of tizen) at UNSW. Back in the day enlightenment was, in many ways, miles ahead of the competition. Unfortunately it was miles ahead of the hardware as well. Apparently he has always been passionate about open source, and I've always been impressed by his output. I'd love to see /e/ get some mind share on a decent platform.
    - Fnoord 6y ago
      Sorry, I could've added a link. /e/ referred to [1], not Enlightenment. [1] https://e.foundation https://e.foundation
ploek 6y ago
It wasn't fully open source, but mostly. It was merged with Intel's Moblin into MeeGo. Once Nokia stopped working on that, MeeGo was forked into the fully open source Mer. Mer is nowadays used by Jolla as a basis for Sailfish OS (which again has non-open source parts at the top of the stack). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moblin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moblin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeeGo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeeGo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mer_(software_distribution) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mer_(software_distribution) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailfish_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailfish_OS
- zozbot234 6y ago
  Maemo Leste is a fork of the original Maemo bits. It's still maintained, at least to some extent.

thepangolino 6y ago

I really liked the Meego iteration. Its UI was top notch.

qwerty456127 6y ago
There is Tizen and some other derivative I can't remember still actively developed. I would by a Tizen phone if I could be sure there are enough of good apps available for it and if I didn't trust Samsung even less than I trust Google.
- em-bee 6y ago
  i had a tizen phone. tizen was not bad. but the selection in the app market wasn't to great. f-droid has more/better apps than tizen. unfortunately, unlike sailfish, tizen lacks support for android apps. the reason for that is that samsung would loose its commercial android license if they added android support to tizen.
- hajile 6y ago
  Tizen is a derivative in name only. Samsung effectively took complete control of the group from all the other companies on the Meego project and it seems like they only continued work to keep pressure on Google. Nokia owned Qt and Samsung didn't want to pay fees or buy Qt outright, so they went with the mostly unknown Linux Enlightenment project (didn't hurt that it's main dev worked for them at the time). Likewise, Nokia owned rights to SwipeUI, so they opted for a remake of the Android UI. If they'd gone with something like a cleanroom implementation of SwipeUI or webOS, I think Tizen could have been a success. Instead, it just feels like a bad, outdated edition of Android. If users wanted that, they'd just use Android instead.
shaan7 6y ago
This guy did it justice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO4iNau8AWM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO4iNau8AWM
- TLightful 6y ago

belorn 6y ago

I still use mine. Got a suspicious cheap battery + charger several years ago when the usb broke again. Shipped from china it took 2 months by boat, and the other battery is now extended enough that you can't close the back lid, but dammit, great phone.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
Why are you still using the N900? Its kernel, browser and SSL libraries haven't been upgraded in years and years now. If you connect to a network, you are just asking to be pwned. I kept my N900 for years longer than most people because it has a quality DAC and, as long as I kept it in airplane mode, it was a good music player for the classical and jazz I listen to on high-quality headphones when traveling. But eventually I realized that the N900 could be totally replaced by simply adding a Bluetooth DAC to the Android smartphone I already have (and I'm glad I did that, because the BTR3-FiiO Bluetooth amp I got sounds even better than the N900). I recently got a Pinephone, but it’s hard to enthuse about it. So much of the cool things you could go with the N900 – Emacs and the whole OS it brings along, writing your own scripts in the terminal – were due to its hardware keyboard. A modern smartphone that lacks a hardware keyboard is just a pain to hack.
- belorn 6y ago
  First, it works and do the job of being a phone and it has a great keyboard for sms. It also lack a bunch of anti-features. No calling the mothership. No advertisements. No constant attempts to get me to register, to send gps information, to get me to do things which I don't want to do but the manufacturer do. Interface is clean, fast enough, intuitive to use. It has the few apps I want to use like the terminal, fosdem schedule and also a virtual debian machine. All the third-party stuffs still get regular updates. In the future I don't know what will replace it. The free software phones are interesting but I have my doubts about how practical they will be. On the proprietary side there are the foldables, but it is still a touch keyboard. There are feature phones, but many seems to now days be smartphones in disguise.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago

bjarneh 6y ago

I have two Nokia N9's (running Meego) at home still. I used N9 as my daily driver until about 3 years ago. The failure of that magnificent OS, combined with the failure of the successor (Jolla / Sailfish) still annoys me.

mempko 6y ago
Sailfish is still around and is still getting upgrades every quarter with new features and improvements. Android support is actually pretty good and I use it for my daily driver. It's not a success but it hasn't been a failure IMO.
- distances 6y ago
  I still have both N9 and Jolla. I really loved my N9 and was excited about Sailfish, but as soon as I got my Jolla it was clear to me that it'll be a dead end. I did use it for a couple of weeks, but it absolutely missed the mark on why N9 was so loved. I understand that you can't just straight up copy the functional and beautiful UI from N9, but Sailfish the Sailfish UI was just way too experimental and bare.
- zepearl 6y ago
  I used an Xperia X with Sailfish until end of 2019 but then I finally dropped it - it mostly worked but got too much annoyed by small bugs that never got fixed 100% (but in the meanwhile the UI got a lot of changes => that would definitely not be my way of prioritizing work). It's a pity but personally I think Sailfish will die.
- al_ak 6y ago
  I'm still bitter about their Indiegogo campaign. I did get half a refund, so that's better than most failed crowdsourced projects.
kwhitefoot 6y ago
I would still use my N9 except that there are apps that I use every day that simply don't exist for Meego. I suppose I should try to sell it to some one who can use it but it is such a beautiful thing that I am loath to get rid of it even though I haven't even switched it on for ages.