I'm waiting for delivery of my N810 and getting to learn what I can in the meantime. I'm also new to Linux. I intend to use the N810 as a 'Palm TX' replacement as well as internet tablet.
Since the Mozilla Thunderbird mail client comes in Linux flavour and the 810 has a decent res screen, is there any reason why it should not run on it? I thought that if I added the T'Bird calendar, T'bird would make a reasonable, if rudimentary, PIM suite. Or would the Palm VM be a better bet?
I have an Ubuntu partition on my PC - if I use the GKE PIM suite, would that synch with the same suite installed on Ubuntu?

unfortunatly its not that easy , with these tablets , just cause a certain program is made in linux it wont work on them it still has to be ported to the specific version of the OS. and as far as pim goes youve probably already found out that the included contacts is a friggin joke. the gpe suite is pretty good , ( i only use the contacts) , but thats about as good as it gets at the moment. any other questions feel free to pm.

Thanks for that - when I get the 810 I'll take a look at the GKE PIM suite and see if I can work out how to load it.
I feel a learning curve coming on!

If you figure out how to get GPE Sync to work, we might be in business. So far I've not found any instructions. So I'm not even sure that it works the way it sounds.

But if I can get it to sync with my Kolab server - then who needs another PIM?

Anybody know if I'm barking up the wrong tree?

what i have found myself doing is syncing gpe to a ics file one the desktop pc, using ssh server on the tablet and opensync on the desktop.

this file can then be modified by most linux calendar apps.

contact sync is another story tho...

There is no Mozilla Thunderbird port for Maemo 4, the default OS shipped on N8x0.

You can run Mozilla Thunderbird + Mozilla Lightning or Mozilla Sunbird on Linux/ARM, on Debian/ARM or Ubuntu/ARM, and probably with a bit of hacking here and there on Easy Debian or Deblet which is an alternative, community driven OS. You can find information about it on the subforum here, see the 'Alternatives' forum for alternative OSes on the 770 & N8x0.

PIM is a bit of a problematic issue on the 770 & N8x0. Search around for PIM subjects on the forums and wiki.maemo.org for various options and brainstorms to improve this. Synchronisation is possible though.

SyncML, OpenSync, Google Calendar, iCal, vCard/vCal all these are supported in one application or the other. Usually the UI is not very nice integrated in the rest of the tablet which makes it a bit clunky to use.

You can also run a dedicated application for Maemo or Easy Debian/Deblet and use your Mozilla Thunderbird + Mozilla Lightning or Mozilla Sunbird on your PC and sync this with your dedicated Maemo application (both ways). Usually requires a 3rd party server like Google Calendar/RememberTheMilk/[...].

There is no Thunderbird for Debian ARM or Ubuntu ARM. The closest thing available is Seamonkey (Mozilla) Mail, called Iceape Mail in Debian, and while it exists, and it installs, it is terribly "fragile", and constantly crashes doing basic stuff like opening an e-mail. I would not say it is usable at the moment.

Sorry...

Claws mail is a perfectly acceptable replacement for Thunderbird mail, IMHO. It is a full-featured email client and handles my rather large IMAP mailbox quite well. It (as well as the other apps I will mention) is available w/o having to run Debian on top of Maemo. I, personally, would prefer to stay with native Maemo apps as long as possible.

GPE appears to be the best PIM setup to date with a good calendar component. mCalendar, however, is looking quite promising and is being actively developed.

mCalendar natively syncs to Google Calendar, and GPE can be synced to Google Calendar with the use of the additional program called Erming. Syncing desktop and NIT through Google Calendar is not ideal in that it is an extra step and relies on the continuing good graces of Google, but it works well enough.

I prefer the interface of mCalendar on my N810, but it is not as feature-complete as GPE, and GPE's desktop applet is superior IMHO. That being said mCalendar was designed from the ground-up for the Nokias, and GPE is a port of a generic PIM app, so I have hope for the future of mCalendar.

The two real brain-killers about the N810 are:
* Why no phone?
* Why no synch?

With these two things, the N810 would be an iPhone/Blackberry killer.

I just can't understand why Nokia/Trolltech are having so much trouble with this.

In desperation, I installed Debian on my n810 this week. It is so painfully slow that it isn't worth using - but it sure is cool to have OpenOffice available. Still, no Thunderbird/Lightning/SyncKolab so I'm back at square one on the groupware synch.

I'm reading the IMAP RFP this week. It doesn't LOOK so tough - surely there is a project to make GPE or mCalendar work with it?

If only I had a few months free - wouldn't it be great to be the guy who got the N810 to synch?

simple, its neither a phone nor a pda, at least it was not designed to be...

it was a web terminal, more or less...