Firstly - People who are moaning about this device, I can semi-understand. This device is not being marketed properly in my opinion and is being sold to people who assume it is as stupid (Almost insulting) simple to use as an iPhone which it isn't. In my opinion its a UMPC first, Phone seond. However, this device does not SUCK. It is one awesome piece of kit. Take some time to read this forum as I have and you realise that this device has so much customisation and add-on possibility it is untrue.


Hi Guys,

Picked up an N900 yesterday. I'd been reading the forums here and saw all the negative threads but after having a good read it seemed like most of the fuss was about trivial things (I had an N97 and that was much worse Q1 of its life for sure)

I'm a bit dissappointed that no stores local to me (Hampshire,UK) had an actual Demo device. I went to Vodafone and CFW and neither had a demo I could try, only new sealed units which they refused to open.

Surely this is a mistake? A Dummy unit can't show the unique set-up of this phone, which is the main cause of complaint on this forum (People brought a Handset not knowing what it was expecting a nokia iPhone)

So Anyway, with all the negative posts here I thought to myself "This device sounds fun, let's take the plunge" So I did just that. Had roughly 24 hours with the device and it's my first Maemo / Linux based device. I work in IT but purely Windows side of things so I'm really enjoying this fresh challenge. So far, handset feels solid. Battery seems to be it's weakest point as of this moment (From my usage anyway)

Trying to get an invisishield on this handset is a PITA, luckily I had 2 in a pack :P - I'm also using the stylus a fair bit. I hate finger prints and this thing LOVES to show them up! So far I've got the basic apps I'm after (despotify, Leafpad, Firefox, MSN) and it's had me stuck to the device as if we were both magnets!

However, I have a few questions which I was hoping you boffs could help me with?

1. I'm trying to do some of the things in the MODS thread, such as a reboot button and the light colour change - FYI I am aware of the reboot 50 times in a row = World of pain. I'm pretty familar with editing files and what not so thats not a problem, but I can't seem to find MC in Extras, only extras-devel and that states it is not installable.

My question is, if I install openSSH can I Connect to the device via my PC and edit the require system files remotely before saving them back to the device with OpenSSH or do I have to do it on the device itself?


Also - What would you guys regard as the "Essential" applications to be installed and which to avoid.

Hopefully other new users can use this as somewhat of a guide as well, after all half the reason I brought this device was for the community aspect of things

It looks like mc is just in extras-devel at the moment. There's a warning on the packages page saying that it's not been correctly assigned to one of the approved application sections, which is probably what is causing it to not be installable through the application manager.

If you want to install it through terminal, enable the extras-devel repository in application manager (warning, stuff from this repository is by no means guaranteed to work, and because of it's nature (development software) it can cause unexpected side-effects on your device) then you'll need to do the following:
Make sure you have rootsh installed.
Close application manager
Open terminal
Afterwards, remember to disable the extras-devel repository again.

If you install openssh you can do a few things:
ssh over to the device and type on your computer, and the commands will run on the device.
Copy (scp) the files from your device to your computer, edit and then copy them back.

Essential applications - I think there might be a few threads on this - have a quick search and see what you think.

P.S. I prefer geek, to boff

Lol cheers for that. Using SCP at the moment.

Trying to change my notification lights so there's more variety on what I've received - i.e new instant message, purple, missed call, Red.

Seems a bit trickier than the reboot mod.

If you use WinSCP, you can edit the files with its built-in file editor - no need to copy them back and forth.

I started a wiki on LED patterns, if you want to do more than just use the stock patterns.
There's also an example in the MOD thread of a flashing purple that's a bit nicer looking than simply combining "rb", but is simpler because it doesn't fade the light in and out.

Wellcome
N00b here too, using WinSCP as well. I'm not the "terminal type" either

Thanks Monkey,

I'll give that a test when I get home tonight.