I knew this was coming, but I was hoping I could delay it long enough that someone would come up with another phone running a proper Linux OS to which I could jump, hacks and scripts at the ready, with glee and abandon.

Alas, such a product has yet to grace our plane of existence, and though I thought I could stand my N900's glacial pace at loading Internet content for at least a few more months I made the crucial mistake of accepting a friend's Nokia Lumia 520 (which he loathes) as payment for reflashing and fixing his Android (which he loves).

It's the cheapest, weakest entry-level Nokia smartphone currently in production and it runs an OS I don't really like (WinPhone being as proprietary and closed-source as it's possible to be).

And it blew my overclocked N900 into the weeds.

The magic is broken; I can't go back. If I were to try I'd curse the N900's slowness every time I opened a webpage, and I know I don't want to do that. I've brought it back from the dead and hacked it and fixed its USB and glued a massive battery to its back and loved it greatly, and with all the effort I've put in it and the personality it has I'd much rather remember it with fondness. As a result I've decided to retire it permanently and maintain the good memories unspoiled, though it's my hope that I'll find some alternative non-mobile use for it at some point.

I don't know where the future will lead me. I might keep the 520 as a stopgap while I wait for another phone with a proper OS, but while WinPhone does its job it's tough to swallow going from a super-hackable tiny Linux computer with the side benefit of making calls to a super-stock system on which I can't even replace the stock touchscreen keyboard.

Or I might go Android. It has its flaws - chief of which that of being a supermassive inefficient resource hog - but it's open and free and tweakable and it has a million and one apps. I'd have to get a whole other phone, though, which is an expense I'd prefer to avoid, because I'm very prone to the "ooh, this one is only €20 more expensive but so much better" syndrome that starts with looking at €130 low/midranges and ends with buying a €300 phablet, then wondering why my debit card is empty.

Whichever way I go, though, I'll miss with all my heart the tiny linux-phone that could, not to mention its awesome community which kept it going against all odds in an increasingly unfriendly world for as long as it was humanly possible.

Thanks to you all, and farewell. We shall see each other again when and if a proper successor to the N900 arrives and the fun can begin anew.