Provides ssh and vnc. Nice features, gps, wlan, sip. My hints here are focused on getting the device to fill my admin-needs. I want to listen to the podcasts from http://chaosradio.ccc.de/ .

• pro: when buying this you actually get root without having to break in or something (hi iphone-slaves..)!
• pro: has a keyboard
• pro: contains complete linux-box, think of encrypted homedir, mobile notesbook with revisioncontrol, read ebooks (FBReader)
• cons: heavier than android phones (but still lighter than my Nokia E90)
• pro: many videoformats out of the box supported
• pro: One of the things i really appreaciate is to use approaches well known from linuxworld to solve problems. Want the N900 act as wlan-station and NAT traffic to internet for other computers? Loading iptables-kernelmodules, activating routing, running dhcpd - all the known steps.

Wondering if you should get an N900 or an Android-phone? The whole concept of these devices is different: the n900 is more a standalone linuxbox, you have root by default, can offer services, play easily with things. Android-devices are meant as consoles to use services from somewhere else - which isnt necessarily bad, depending on your requirements.

• pro android: much bigger base of contributors
• pro android: you have better chances of getting newer releases of android to run on your device - if you buy the right one, widely spread like G1, nexus 1, htc desire. Vendors of android-phones as well as nokia have no intention to support newer major-releases for their phones.
• pro n900: root by default
• pro n900: recent discussion on what phones are nice for using ssh: slashdot.org/story/...../Smartphones-For-Text-SSH-Use-Re-Revisited

• terminal is part of the default installation, notes for usage:
  • how to get the pipe-sign: press the upper 2 of the left-most keys
  • to get root use infos from here for setup of the extra-repo and read here how to install rootsh
• datatransfers with linux:
  • bluetooth network works, ofcourse also usb-storage - but makes the files inaccessable for the n900 while shared
  • i use an ad-hoc network and mount the n900-filesystem via sshfs onto my linux-laptop - but not media-transfers like sounds
• ipv6:
  • for this you need to install a kernel with the required functions, i.e. http://maemo.org/packages/view/kernel-flasher-maemo/
  • after installation of that kernel the n900 grabs a ipv6-adress from my wlan where linux-radvd advertises my sixxs-subnet. The n900-browser did only ipv4-access for me, but the firefox from easydebian works fine with v6: dancing turtle on kame.net!
  • further: http://people.nokia.net/~patil/Nokia/N900-IPv6/
  • https://garage.maemo.org/projects/n900-ipv6/

• many apps available, some already 'extras-repo' you just activated:
  • vncviewer, openssh server/client, nmap, mplayer, vim
• emulators: bochs (x86 emu), scummvm, dosbox (run dos software), pearpc (there is a video showing mac osx 10.3 running on this), emus for maeme/c64, psx4all emulates playstation
• amiga emulation:
  • add extras-devel repo
  • search for uae and install it
  • http://wiki.github.com/smokku/uae4all/ http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=50040
• 'Extra Decoders Support' provides additional codecs, there is even 'TeX Live 2009'
• x11vnc: install it and access the n900-screen via 'vncviewer ip-of-n900:0' from a i.e. a linuxbox
• http://danielwould.wordpress.com/witter/ – twitter client
• accelerated ogg theora: http://blog.mjg.im/2010/04/16/theora-on-n900.html
• wlan overview: http://david.gnedt.eu/blog/2010/05/11/kismet-fully-functional-monitor-mode-for-the-n900/
• mailing:
  • mails can be synced with google-mail (more info) or accessed via imap at google
  • access mails from your own server via imaps, see here on cert-importing
• starwatching: 'apt-get install stellarium', then
  • in file /home/user/.stellarium/config.ini in line 181 change 768 into 480 and in line 182 change 1024 into 800
  • here are basic usage instructions here is how to configure stellarium video of what this looks like
• japanese input: http://code.google.com/p/scim-for-maemo/
• games: activate extras-devel, 'apt-get install sense wormux freeciv-client-sdl prboom doom-wad-shareware', 'bounce 3d' from the nokia shop
• even more apps: EasyDebian
  • install this to get a 4GB file-image, inside a complete debian with many more applications
  • openoffice/iceweasel are there by default, vpnc available for install.
  • http://wiki.maemo.org/Easy_Debian some documentation
  • dont forget to reboot the n900 after installation of the 4gb debian-image
• alternate syncing with google-calendar-accounts: erming-ng, http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=40408
• Hauke Lampe packaged the unbound DSNSSEC resolver: http://maemo.org/packages/view/unbound/
• packbart als nicely documented video stream transcoding so the n900 can display it: here
• browsers:
  • the internal browser is quite usable with the adblock plugin
  • opera10 runs on maemo: http://labs.opera.com/news/2010/05/11/

• unsing wifi: The idea is to have other devices/computers via wlan connect to the N900 and enabling them to access the internet (so NATing their connections).
  • the current wlan-driver has no code to work as AP-point, ADhoc should work thou
  • the default kernel is missing iptables-kernel modules, kernels providing this can be installed from repos
  • http://mobilehotspot.garage.maemo.org/ – does mobile wifi-router with custom kernel, wep encryption
  • http://www.joikushop.com/ – commercial software doing this, high energy consumption thou

• using usb: After connecting linux-computer and n900 via usb-cable select 'pc suite' as operationmode on the n900
  • Now i.e. on gnome the n900 can be configured and used as modem.
  • Here on debian loading of modules cdc_phonet and cdc_ether is triggered and 'dmesg' tells that device /dev/ttyACM0 is now available. Will use wvdial with it:

apt-get install wvdial
cat >/etc/wvdial.conf<<EOT
[Dialer Defaults]
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
Phone = *99#
Username = t-mobile
Password = t-mobile
Dial Command = ATDT
Baud = 460800
Init1 = AT+COPS=0
Init2 = AT+CGDCONT=1,"ip","internet.t-mobile"
# Init2 = AT+CGDCONT=1,"ip","internet.t-mobile.de"
EOT
wvdial

• using bluetooth: Havent used this yet.

• accessing the cameras:

mplayer tv:// -tv device=/dev/video0 # back camera, 848*480 - 0.4 megapixel
mplayer tv:// -tv device=/dev/video1 # front camera, 640x480 - 0.3 megapixel

• http://wiki.maemo.org/User:Jebba/Fedora – run Fedora12 on the N900
• http://lxde.org/ – lxde, lightweight distro runs on N900
• android runs:
  • http://www.nitdroid.com/ nitdroid project has android 2.1 running
  • http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=49811 docs
• windows binaries:
  • one can run qemu (to emulate the x86 arch) and inside of it wine
  • http://www.nokian900applications.com/wine-on-nokia-n900/#more-759
  • also whole windows 3.11 runs on qemu
  • http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=664081 has a howto
• megoo: This runs, at least the nongraphical core part. Megoo is currently developed on the n900 but will not be officially released and supported. There is not much reasoning for Nokia to do this as maemo is already a working system for the n900 hardware.

• http://talk.maemo.org/
• http://maemo-freak.com
• http://nokia-n900.com/better-improvements-on-the-new-firmware-update-2-2009-51-1/ – surfing in upside-mode
• http://wiki.maemo.org/N900_Shortcuts_and_Gestures – keyboard shortcut & gestures
• http://wiki.maemo.org/User:Jebba/Tweaks – customize the application menu
• http://wiki.maemo.org/User:Jebba/DBUS – running actions with dbus
• http://wiki.maemo.org/User:Jebba/Repositories – various repositories
• http://wiki.maemo.org/User:Jebba/Cryptsetup – encrypt data
• http://wiki.maemo.org/User:Jebba/Setup – hints for n900-setup
• http://wiki.maemo.org/Free_up_rootfs_space – cleaning up space
• http://wiki.maemo.org/User:Jebba
• http://natisbad.org/N900/n900-commented-hardware-specs.html – indepth hardware description
• http://www.n900wallpapers.com
• http://www.maemo-guru.com
• http://phonereport.info/guide-how-to-overclock-nokia-n900-hack/ – overclocking the cpu is possible (not advisable thou)
• http://johanneskuhlmann.de/blog/2010/04/28/3d-on-the-nokia-n900-through-head-tracking/ – headtracking video
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-Wh4NuRfeU – burgerface, a game using headtracking
• http://www.youtube.com/user/OzN900#p/u/68/PA8rke-bfuw – videos of some games on the n900