Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

My first experience using linux tablets was the Zaurus 5500. I eventually bought a C-760 and a C-1000. Carrying linux in my pocket is something I have always found interesting, however, practically, I always found the Zaurus rather limited for a number of reasons which I never completely understood until I bought my n800 this week.

The n800 is amazing, hands down. I can only imagine that the negative reviews on the forum are a result of ridiculously unrealistic expectations. Coming from the Zaurus, it is easy to see that the Nokia is an enormous leap in tablet tech.

Web browsing, which I consider the tablet's primary function, is leagues above the Z. The default on the nokia is FAST and has perfectly rendered 99% of the pages so far. The greater screen resolution is also helpful. On the Z, web browsing could never be called pleasant.

On a similar note, the wireless antenna is very good. I am able to connect to networks my laptop couldn't even see.

Skype is of course very impressive. I have already made several skype out calls with perfect reception. Rhapsody is great as well.

I love the UI of the Nokia. In my opinion this is exactly in the direction tablet devices need to go. I would like to see the option of folders and moving things around on the desktop without entering layout mode. But as is, this is better than any UI in any Zaurus Rom.

One thing I am impressed with in particular is the intuitive multitasking. I have had several processes going in main applications and have not yet experienced too drastic a slowdown.

The package management software is intuitive and responsive. I would like to see a more centralized repository system though.

The Zaurus does have an active and talented development community and there is an enormous library of available software. I have seen some very exciting things looking over the maemo development site as well and have no doubts that the Nokia will surpass the Z in this area as it reaches maturity.

I have no doubt that in the coming years, tablet mobile internet usage will become much more prominent. The n800 proves that this can be a user friendly experience and I think it is a tremendous stepping stone, as was the Zaurus, toward the end game of personal computing.

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

Welcome to the forums.

You're joining a large group of former and/or concurrent Zaurus users.

R.
==

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

I *completely* know what you're talking about. I own a 5500 and C1000 myself, and I'm still really disappointed to see how the Zaurus hardware has such potential that the software isn't taking advantage of. It's so refreshing to see Nokia's involvement with the community compared to how Sharp drove the Zaurus into the ground and seemed determined to alienate the community that had formed. I think once Chinook is released I might try and see how many of the open source Nokia apps can be compiled up for the C1000. With the introduction of the N810 with keyboard and the N800 coming down to ~$250 I imagine we'll see quite a few more Zaurus "converts" coming over.

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

We will get this with OS2008 AFAICT.
Glad you like the N800 :)

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

I think OpenZaurus/Angstrom took a pretty good crack at making the devices more functional. The issue is the hardware there was to work with (i.e. processor speeds, memory and screen sizes) plus the fact that developing drivers to interface with parts of the hardware was slow (as no/not much info was available).

With Nokia we have a company who are actually proactive about community development and about keeping the tablets up to date.

And welcome from another former Zaurus user :)


Si

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

I'll add my comment to all the rest, welcome.

I suspect that there are many Zaurus users who have moved to the N800. I know I jumped because I wanted a more modern handheld linux system, and the N800 delivers there.

Because of the Qt nature of the Zaurus apps, many will be left behind on the N800, which is too bad, as there is a lot of good work there. If there was a way to get Qt support on the N800 (in a window), then we would have the best of both worlds!

Craig...

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

I, too, am lifting my hand up as a 5500 and C1000 owner. It is good to see the growing number of Zaurus users here.

Any criticism I have concerning Nokia pales into insignificance when compared to the way Sharp let down the Zaurus.

Having said that, I just wish I could use many of my Zaurus apps on the N800. Community development support for the Zaurus has been phenomenal.

Given time I am sure the Internet Tablet /MID platform will take off and apps will be forthcoming in abundance. The trouble is I want them now.

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

Does the Archos PMA430 count as a Zaurus substitute?

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

lardman: Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm really impressed with the incredible amount of hard work the OZ/Angstrom guys have put into it. Heck, I'm still using my C1000. Right now I'm about to install a new Angstrom pre-release onto it and I have Debian Armel (EABI) installed on a USB drive. I just think that the hardware wasn't nearly as much of a stumbling block as Sharp's horrible handling of the platform. At this point I don't think we'll ever get to see what the Cxx00 hardware was really capable of.

-John

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

One thing I like about the N800 compared to my Zaurus and my Palm is that I find it so easy to drop into the development environment and compile some software for it. It's a Debian build system installed in scratchbox on my Debian laptop, I do what I do anyway - I build Debian apps! ;) Talk about easy learning curve! (for me at least, as I used Debian years before the 770/N800).

Even though scratchbox is an encapsulated environment with a somewhat limited tool set I can still see it from the laptop at large and use standard tools like software version control (git, cvs) etc. The net result is that although I had development environments installed for my PDAs it's just much easier to build for the N800. And I have great hopes for the updated API of OS2008, I have a couple of projects on hold for that.

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

Ah, well I still think that building for the Zaurus (with OE and bitbake) is easier. This is mainly because you can use other people's work to build your deps. Atm with the Nokia machines you need to search high and low, and then probably get bored and decide to compile things yourself. This may change once people start using the extras repo.

The other thing I don't like is debian packaging, especially for apps that haven't already been debanised. I need to investigate a makeipkg style script to package up my binaries. Perhaps this is just my lack of understanding of how to use the debain tools, but it would be nice if you could run ./configure and make, then run some debian tool that would parse the Makefile and produce a .deb from the binaries that have been created.

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

Long-time 5500 user here too. Welcome!

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

Welcome Hans. First and farmost, thank you for the fair feedback. You didn't expect a DVD Writer in a form factor the size of a keychain. That probably immediately earned you some friends here. :)

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

Whoa, wait a minute! You can't burn dvds with this thing!!

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

What? Doesn't yours work?

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

Som'*****! I got me a dud! :rolleyes: :D

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

Well, it's a difference between looking for apps to install and looking for apps to build.. for installing, certainly the choice is still a bit limited for the Nokia. For building, I just start with looking at the 20000+ Debian packages in desktop Debian, and apt-get source them. Then some minor adjustments to the debian/ build files (get rid of docu, sometimes simplify the install/removal scripts, nothing much), and off you go. (Gettting GUI apps Hildonised is another, more tricky issue).

As I mentioned the available selection of debian-packaged software is _huge_ at this stage. But if you have to do it yourself you have at least a couple of options:
1) Look at existing debian packages, preferably those already prepared for the Nokia. When you find a simple one, mimic it for your own software. It's just to add a debian/ directory, add a few files, then run 'fakeroot debian/rules binary' and it'll do all the configuration and building for you.
2) Or look at the 'cdbs' debian support system. It's what I use for things I debianize from scratch. It's a set of tools which makes it really simple. (Note that I haven't tried to use this for a scratchbox environment yet, so I'm not certain it's fully supported there.)
3) Or just build manually, and use PyPackager to make your debian package. I haven't used it myself, but it should do the right thing for you. Made by the distinguished ITT member Khertan: http://khertan.net/ Just pack up your installation root to e.g. an SD card and use PyPackager to make it into a deb.

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

Good point.

If you know what is supposed to be in the rules file and in the meta files used to generate the dependencies, etc., then yes, all's well and good. If not it's just a pita trying and seeing whether it works. The rules files are often rather convoluted and confusing (e.g. even when doing something simple like altering the configure flags). The other thing I find annoying is the deps, and trying to work out the correct names for them.

With that said, I probably just need to get used to it.

Sounds ideal to me, certainly for making test packages. If extras starts taking build recipes, etc., then creating a proper debanised package will be worthwhile.

Thanks for the tips,

Simon

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

There's also mud-builder, which is a little like cdbs but aims to make it easy to port source tarballs and existing Debian packages to Maemo's specific requirements within Scratchbox.

Graham Cobb uses it, for example, to build his up-to-date GPE packages.

Cheers,

Andrew

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

Most of the time I use just
in the debian/control file, which works it all out for you. This is normally sufficient for applications which simply depend on shared runtime libraries (e.g. libc, libgdbm, that sort of thing). Sometimes you'll need to add something yourself, say, if your application needs Perl to work. A 'dpkg -S `which perl`' should come up with the name perl-base, so the Depends line would be
for example.

And thanks to Andrew for mentioning mud-builder, which I had forgot to include in my list.

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

So this uses information from the build process to determine what the deps are?

Thanks for the tips, and to Jaffa for the reminder about mud - that ought to be able to do what I was getting at originally with my comments about OE/bitbake building the deps for you.

Are mud packages being uploaded to extras yet?

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

Not yet - I was going to take another stab at it, but the autobuilder/extras rework discussion on maemo-developers has made us take a wait-and-see approach.

There's still a place for mud if extras gets an autobuilder: it can help produce the source packages, and can concentrate on that.

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

Well, at least the Z can do this...


Linky thingy.

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

I do look forward to USB OTG mode being activated on the N800/N810 with IT2008OS. :D

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

And who exactly positively claimed this was going to be the case?

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

We can dream can't we!!??

Re: Thoughts on Nokia from a long time Zaurus user
 

Me, I think. Take a look at the modules that are loaded (there's lsmod and dmesg output for both the N800 and N810 with OS2008 floating around on the forum).

Slightly confused that the N810 testers couldn't actually get it working, but there you go.