Maemo is outdated to say the least. We have an ancient kernel (with lots of backports), a glibc from the stone age and lots of other very old stuff. On top of that the repros are a prime example of dependency hell. Maemo is dead (and rightfully so)! The reason for all this mess is Nokias (not so?) clever decision to pack its oh so "open" OS with proprietary binaries that prevent any real upgrade of core components. The community on the other hand neither has the manpower nor the knowledge* to keep up with the rest of the *nix world and essentially re-engineer everything that's happening there for our borked platform. That being said, it's incredible what the kernel-power and CSSU teams and some other devs are doing to not only keep this zombie walking, but running. If you want to develop a new Debian-based OS for the N900, have a look at wicket's DebiaN900 thread [1] and Aapo's attempts to rebase Maemo on Squeeze [2] and Wheezy [3]. Android_808 also has some ideas that might be worth exploring [4]. The alternative to riding the dead N900 horse would be to have a look at it's designated successor, the Neo900 [5]. Loosely coupled with this is the Fremantle porting task force (FPTF) [6], which wants to bring Fremantle to the Neo900. While this might be the exact opposite of what you want, it might still be useful to follow their development for learning. *) We'd need fully qualified Debian maintainers to adress that. (Does anybody know if Joey Hess has some spare time? ) [1] http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=93878 [2] http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=89416 [3] http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=91709 [4] http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=93878&page=9#89 [5] http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=91142 [6] http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=91308