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Posts: 249 | Thanked: 277 times | Joined on May 2010 @ Brighton, UK
#1
So...not been active on TMO for a few years, and still using my N900 as my daily phone.

Increasingly I'm finding that I need Android apps for things, be they Google authenticator for access to things for work, a local bus app for cheaper tickets, etc, and it would be nice to have something a little quicker with better battery life (and without the price tag/timescales of the Neo900!)

However, I'm still stuck due to the lack of "open" phones with hardware keyboards. I recently spotted the Jolla keyboard kickstarter and figured a Jolla with one of those is pretty close to meeting my requirements, mainly due to Alien Dalvik.

Only real outstanding issue is the Moblin infestation in Sailfish/Mer on the software side of things, so my question to the community is thus: I have bootmenu on my N900 and can boot multiple OSes, be they Maemo, Nitdroid, Debian, etc....is there something comparable for the Jolla? Being realistic I haven't had time to hack around with my N900 over the last few years as much as I intended, so it's unlikely I would ever get around to doing so with the Jolla, but I really want the option of being able to do so if I'm going to invest in an expensive toy.

...of course, I could screw around with apkenv and try and get those two apps working on my N900...but it's not going to live forever, and there will eventually be one that I can't get working.

...also, what's all this about a follow-up Jolla phone? I've been very out of the loop, so would rather hold-off for better hardware and just pick up the keyboard OH in advance if it's only going to be a few months...
 

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#2
Originally Posted by mr_jrt View Post
So...not been active on TMO for a few years, and still using my N900 as my daily phone.

Increasingly I'm finding that I need Android apps for things, be they Google authenticator for access to things for work, a local bus app for cheaper tickets, etc,
Regarding the Google Authenticator, there's OTPN900 for N900 - it should be in the Extras-Devel repository, or you can find a deb here.
There are at least two native apps of this kind on Jolla.

Regarding the multiboot on Jolla, it's not there yet AFAIK, but... Let's summarize some key points about this on Jolla:
  • using libhybris for the bionic drivers, you would be limited to either Android (+FFOS), or Linux distros with Wayland (or Mir in case of Ubuntu Touch) that support libhybris
  • AFAIK, such distros are currently SailfishOS, Nemo Mobile (Mer), Ubuntu Touch
  • Nemo Mobile is very close to SailfishOS, so instead of multiboot, you can easily install the UI from OpenRepos

I agree that it would be nice to have such option, but as because of these (+other) reasons, multibooting Maemo/Harmattan is out of the question and Android, FFOS and Ubuntu Touch are all very inferior to SailfishOS, I haven't personally felt any need to multiboot (and judging by votes on this question, neither have others) - SailfishOS is a Linux distro, therefore I think that chrooting would be a better way to switch environments.

EDIT:
Originally Posted by mr_jrt View Post
...also, what's all this about a follow-up Jolla phone? I've been very out of the loop, so would rather hold-off for better hardware and just pick up the keyboard OH in advance if it's only going to be a few months...
I don't see the point in waiting for another HW iteration.
  • SailfishOS works fine on the current one
  • you can't be sure that the new device will be TOH compatible - Dirk (the author of TOHKBD) has mentioned before that he doesn't expect the new device to be compatible with the current TOHs (and therefore TOHKBD)
  • if everyone's gonna wait for the next one instead of buying the current one, there isn't gonna be a next one
  • I don't expect the new device to come before Q4 2015, if ever. Jolla has stated quite a few times that their goal isn't being a HW manufacturer, but a SW manufacturer. Jolla (the phone) is just a reference phone for their OS (even though it's a nice one and it brings them some revenue)

So if I were you, I would keep an eye on the remaining TOHKBDs counter, wait until it is released, read some reviews and if it turns out the TOHKBD is well made (I certainly hope so, as I already ordered one), then I would go for Jolla.

Last edited by nodevel; 2015-01-17 at 15:44.
 

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Posts: 249 | Thanked: 277 times | Joined on May 2010 @ Brighton, UK
#3
So not even uboot? Shame
 

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bootmenu, jolla, n900 phone, neo900, nokia n900

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