windows mobile on the N900
 

I'm fairly new to my N900, but the main reason I got mine, I'm sure like many others, was the amount of freedom with the phone.

I'm very impressed by what people have managed to do OS wise just because the wanted to try, running win 3.1 etc and recently, porting android to the phone, and i think I remember reading of open pandora too? I may be wrong.

But one thing surprises me, that I've never seen anything of windows mobile being hacked onto the phone, especially considering the similar hardware platform.
Is there any reason for this not being ported? Or purely a case of no-ones tried? If there are hardware reasons, please tell me, I'm quite intrigued, I'd have a try myself if I had any idea where to start and wasn't likely to brick my phone

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

It's definitely possible, but I couldn't tell where to start or how it'd be done. Would be great to turn the N900 into an HD2 with a smaller screen.

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

It might be that the people who are capable of doing this bought their N900 because it ran an open source OS, and don't care to try to get a closed one like Windows Mobile running on it. And if anyone did, it wouldn't be legal to distribute because of copyright, so why bother.

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

I understand about the fact of wanting an open source OS, I'm completely happy with maemo, works perfectly well for me.

My question relates to the "just for the sake of it" side of things, like win 3.1, 95, OSX? and the like, I understand that none of those were running legally, but it was interesting and impressive to see what people and the device can do. I can imagine it wouldnt be wonderfully functional due to lack of certain drivers etc. But even if it were just for bragging rights, it still surprises me not to find any hint of an attempt.

I'd still love to have a crack at it myself, but it's comforting to know I'm not the only one who wouldn't have a clue how to start. I still worry about bricking my phone when i have to install something via terminal

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

3.1, 95 and OSX were all ran under emulation, not difficult to do, so not really much of an achievement.

You want Window Mobile to run natively on the N900? That would take a LOT more effort to do than the examples you gave, possibly too much effort to do just for bragging rights.

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

I know they were essentially run as VM, obviously x86 code cant run natively on ARM architecture without first being ported, and without the source code or very significant reverse engineering thats not going to happen, I was using those as examples of just doing things because they can.

Android however has been ported, which obviously I understand is a more simple task because of the freely available source, but it still had to be ported, and to most people, probably more as a show of what can be done, I've had an android phone and would not go back from maemo, I can imagine many would not.

And with my basic understanding of winmo, it requires an "sbl" whatever one of those is, to boot or install, but considering that winmo has been installed on unintended devices, and different versions on devices etc, some form of work around must have been made, so I would imagine to an extent some steps would already have been made?

I'm the first to admit I would be unable to do it, but as far as my understanding goes it would be quite feasible, and am basically just saying it kind of surprised me.

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

porting without having its source codes???

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

It would be both illegal and immoral. Most of us came here to bury windows not to resurrect it.

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

Actually most of us came here for a linux phone, not to get rid of Windows Mobile. I haven't personally owned a WM device actually. Blackberries, A few NSeries and XpressMusics, etc etc.

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

I do agree, I dislike MS system as well. However - there are useful applications available only for Windows Mobile. For example my problem - a nice app for home automation (control of heat, light, alarm, etc...) - was developed for only for WM. I love my N900, but I would love it even more if I could use it control my home stuff... :)

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

I agree with 'icebox' - I came here to bury the likes of M$ and iOS!
I want my phone as a linux phone (which atm it is!)!


I do enjoy Android though!

Incorrect.
You are talking about X10 home automation. OLD. It was developed many years ago and has been running on the iPhone for over a year... Even available for Droid:
X10 for Droid
More X10 for Droid

Crap loads more

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

I am not talking about X10, do I :confused:

It is local Polish supplier - not well known but the system itself is pretty flexible and inexpensive. Unfortunately the software is MS-based.

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

Hopefully not too off-topic but have you had any experience with LinuxMCE at all - http://http://linuxmce.com/ ? Heard a podcast with the devs a while back and it sounded really well thought out. It may be possible to port / write some of the client tools for Maemo5 as it's such an open framework.

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

i don't have any direct experience with Android, but from what i've read, it suffers from lots of the same issues the Fruit OS and M$' suffer, namelly unecessary bloating and intense use of "proprietary" executable formats, and on top of that you also got the threat the big G might possibly not be trusted to respect their "don't be evil" modo(sp?).

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

I'm just waiting for MeeGo 1.2 going RC in March and Gold in April. Open OS without restricition and finally a portrait QWERTY keyboard.

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

I did not come here to bury anything, I came here because this is an exciting alternative OS. This site has a lot of MS hatered, but don't let the darkness bring you down.

Your project however, may be quite difficult. I can't say I've seen anyone port Win Mo elsewhere either. And as you can tell, the knowhows aren't exactly motivated.

From experience, I'm guessing desktop OSes is more motivating to port/show off, so expect to see a youtube video of someone spending 21 minutes booting up Windows 7 some day in the future.

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

I read recently that Microsoft may show off an ARM version of Windows, we may actually see this happen much more easily than before.

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

Yes we do have our dark side,
but take heart - putting winme in a vm on the n900
would be quite an achievement worthy of notice.
We would at least wait until you got it stable
before breaking out the tar and feathers. :D

(First instance of a virus on the n900 would be another award)
Still, good luck if you try your hand at it - it would be interesting

Where in the world do you get such an optimistic figure of a mere 21 minutes? :eek:
How on earth could that itty bitty little 600mhz processor
do all that in just 21 minutes ?

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

Many threads about this already...

Like this one: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=48638

As I said, forget about Windows Mobile or Windows Phone because they're closed. Windows CE is "open" so it's just a matter of someone with the right license to start working on it.

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

Do you think this might be the Windows equivalent to OS/X - > IOS? Taking a full OS and stripping it down into single purpose app store cash register software?

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

That reads like poetry! Poetry in VMotion.

It's my prejudice since about 1995 that anyone doing Linuxy stuff is more concerned with tweaking efficiency than completeness. An unrockable world image I developed at the same time as I developed the thumb rule "never expect something to be implemented just because it's in the man file".

Also, Windows 7 boot faster than XP, and didn't we already see a Windows XP tuber? If it was just Windows 95, then I guess we'll have to pi that estimate. Though, all estimates should be pied anyway, you knew this, right?

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

It varies,
but speed helps as long as it does not cost stability.
(If as we need, stable and correct data throughput is mandatory)
We just moved some XP machines into Mandriva+vbox images
so we could get away from the virus/trojan issues
and keep legacy production software running in Xp
on brand new hard disks (wd10ears) that gives Xp fits
due to alignment issues. All a winning move it appears.

Xp actually seems quite a bit faster inside the vm,
and by making the network locally limited it seems not to
get bogged down by phoning the Redmond mothership
every few minutes.
And no syrupy antivirus stuff necessary either
- we just check stuff in the share folder using the linux clamav
(I know, not very good but hey it works for the ancient viruses we see).

So, in reflection running wincrap inside a vm might actually
improve the experience quite a bit if done properly.
(properly, improve and wincrap in the same sentence - ha):cool:

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

Yes... Once I dabbled my fingers into virtualization with the work servers, I felt like I wanted that for everything, home, cell phone, door bell... ;) Unfortunately, not optimal when you actually want to use your hardware directly. But so many useful areas of applications, and so many advantages over time...

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

WinMo on the N900. Hell yeah... if Maemo is gonna die due to lack of official support, might as well do it in style by being able to run everything from Android, to OS X, to Debian to Win95 to WinMo.

I'm personally holding out for BeOS.

Re: windows mobile on the N900
 

If I can get my relatives to tell me which basement I left my
OSI 1p
in maybe we could extract the code from that as well :D

But for sheer fun running Atari apps might be more interesting