I put in a lot of effort to follow all the steps on the sailfish install on my Nokia N9, have been flashing away from Linux Mint on my notebook all weekend. More confident with that now. Was of course delighted when I saw the animated and colourful Ubiboot screen and clicked Sailfish and booted into Sailfish. I had read the "Bugs and Known Issues" list below but was so far through the install I thought I've got to finish it now. So was so happy to finally see the blue Sailfish on the N9.

So set the language, connected it to the home network, opened the browser and a common newspaper website. Browser in Sailfish on the N9 works nicely. Jolla store was refusing to allow me to start an account. So I thought, can I actually make a phonecall with this thing? So I dialled my landline which rang, picked up the receiver on my other ear and talked, but nothing can easily test a phone like this but could not hear my own voice in the other ear. Hung up and tried to ring my mobile from the landline. Sailfish flashed to show an incoming call, but didn't ring. Had previously tried the volume controls and as per the instructions they indeed do not work. So answered and again could not hear a sound.

That was enough to not bother with further testing. What use will it be to have a smartphone which has a nice operating system but with which you cannot make phone calls? I definitely liked the gesture swiping there which opens and closes things. Didn't bother trying to send a text, I felt no camera, no android, no accelerometer, no GPS it can't do as much as my Nokia N82 from 2009 and no phonecalls it does not even have the capacity of a dumbphone!

Part of the motivation to install Sailfish on the N9 was that it would have been great to have access to some of the apps like Telegram or a car sharing app on the N9. Even a real Whatsapp, but one has to take ones hat off to the fantastic reverse-engineering of Whatsup. Also thought it would have been good to have an OS on the N9 that has a browser and overall build fit for the times.

So shut down the Nokia N9. Unfortunately something in Ubiboot is not properly configured and I tried all the operating systems there but only Sailfish would boot and if you let it automatically boot into Meego, it just went to green writing on black error message. So I reflashed something and now it boots into Meego/Harmattan again but with the scary warning which it didn't have before.

I know that Sailfish is still living on its partition in there, I just have to reflash Ubiboot if I need to test it again, and Harmattan is not harmed. If Sailfish was usable on the N9 I'm sure it would not be too hard to play around with Ubiboot for a few hours so you could choose at startup. If Sailfish is not even making phone calls not sure I will bother though..

Have I missed something? Has anyone else managed to get Sailfish on the N9 to actually do more than surf the web?

You might want to think twice about putting the time and energy in putting Sailfish onto the N9 if it barely does anything. Furthermore, something has broken the SDK / developer mode in meego since doing this which is annoying, it could have been putting it in "Openmode" or something to do with the Aegis keys whatever that is...

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Bugs and Known Issues

No Android capability as of present.
Camera does not work.
Volume buttons do not work.
Accelerometer does not work.
GPS does not work.
Notifications and Gestures rotated 90 degrees clockwise.
You must manually configure you internet access point. Long-press on the AP in Settings to enter your operator's configuration.