Hi there,
I was looking for a comprehensive list of links or documentations to make my N9 a bit faster and smoother, and, as I didn't find it, I thought about creating this thread, I guess it could help people like me.

First: I'm an average (maybe power) user of the N9, but not a deeply involved guy into the N9 hacking.

Second: What will be described here can be dangerous for your phone. Use this at your own risks.

As far as understood, there are 2 ways to improve the N9 performances:

• Overclock the processor frequency
• Tweak the harmattan internals

Overclocking

The N9 processor frequency can be overclocked. Some can run it at 1300 MHz (lucky guys!), but it seems the average overclocked frequency is around 1100 MHz.

To overclock your N9, 2 steps:

• Install Inception to unlock the Harmattan security model
  
  Get the package here
  Copy the file to your N9
  Be sure you're in developer mode (Settings -> Security -> Developer)
  Open a terminal
  devel-su / rootme
  Go to the folder which contains the .deb
  dpkg -i inception...
  devel-su -c /usr/sbin/pasiv
  Answer "yes"
  Done.
  Update: I've had some trouble to install inception. It was fine after a N9 reboot.
• Install and run OPPtimizer
  You must first allow to install non store applications: settings -> applications -> installations -> turn on "non-store OK"
  Here again, you may face trouble to install, reboot before the installation could be a good idea.

Tweak the harmattan internals

There are several solutions to tweak the Harmattan internals, but 2 seem to be more widely spread:

• FasterN9 which is the tool to tweak the Harmattan graphic transitions
  Just install the deb file, nothing more to do.
• QuickTweak to tune the other system internals
  I didn't install this one, as the benefit are too limited to me.

Here is what I can say right now, as I haven't tested all of this by myself. I hope it helps, I'll probably come back later to add information from my own experience.

Bye, and now, I'm going to incept my N9

If you are responsible enough, overclocking shouldn't cause an issue...i.e start at say 1050MhZ and add 50 Mhz till maybe 1150MhZ and you should be fine...

You don't need to overclock. Just faster N9 & Quiktweak mods A (option 4) and C. I also recommed Quiktweak mod M (change browser user agent to either Android or iOS), but before that you need to incept (mod EE). After these, there's no lag and at least in my case battery life increased (my average idle consumption dropped from 18 to 11 mA).

I have heard and read a lot about these programs and how effective and influencing they are. However, like romu, I don't know how these programs work or do what they do and such.
Perhaps a wiki page about these great programs and the options they provide, or a detailed manual for modding the n9 to increase it's performance could be really helpful for users new to the n9 (including me).

Faster N9 all the way baby!!

cannot get smoother than this tbh

FasterN9 + oc the cpu. In the n900 ocing even up to 1150mhz didn't give as big boost as ocing the N9 to 1100mhz, 1200, not even mentioning 1300. I can't even imagine what Harmattan would have worked when packed with a Krait. When right now maemo5/meego are the best oses, N9 with a dual core krait, actually any dual core, would be like the best phone ever, period.

Thanks eveyrone, that's encouraging about overcloking, and making the N9 smoother seems already ok.

So, I'll try to update the first message of this thread in order to centralize information and tutorials about tweaking the N9.

Hi,
I moved this question to a guide, which is still a work in progress.

I'd say FasterN9 should be enough. OCing will only decrease battery life.

you can overclock to 1100 mhz without raising the voltage, so battery life should not be affected. but to be honest, i don't really notice a difference. it's more for your peace of mind...
oc to 1350 mhz does make a difference but at the cost of battery life and probably reduces cpu lifetime...