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gryllida's Avatar
Posts: 52 | Thanked: 196 times | Joined on Jul 2010
#13
Hello vascoferreira,

Welcome to TMO

Wikiwide has asked me to respond here.

The short version is: Please test jupyter-notebook server and Keras Library in a Maemo VM. Everything else is achievable to various extents.

The long version:

> I never owned a Nokia N900 but I like the way it looks with the keyboard. I read that Maemo is a linux based OS and I want to know if it is worth it to have a Nokia N900 from now onwards.

Great! I am glad you like Linux. I like it too. It

> As a phone, does it work well?

Yes - great sound, stereo speakers, front cam so you can video chat over the internet or sip or anything else as well. Only some 3G wavelengths are supported, please check what your provider is using (I do not have the exact names for the wavelengths, maybe someone else from the forum may provide them to you.)

> Can you browse the web like any android smartphone?

I do not know. I do not browse the web myself. I find this screen size a pain to surf the web with on any device.

Wikiwide uses Fennec or Dillo to surf the web. Websites load and show. Some JavaScripts do not work and most payment gateways die on it. Wikipedia, Wikinews, wiki editing work ok. Technically, the phone is capable of playing high-resolution music and video, including I think html5 video tags (?).

> Can you watch youtube videos?

Haven't tried. At my laptop, I watch it using youtube-dl script. This is kind of atypical - I am not an average user, and not an average Maemo user either. A quick web search brings up this interesting project http://mytube.garage.maemo.org/ which is perhaps on the right track to making YouTube available to Maemo users.

> Did you ever connected it to the TV?

Yes, this works well. We use this to view the filmed videos. The mic is great and the videos are interesting to watch.

> Do you connect it to the TV often?

Not every day, but I don't see any problem with this in principle.

> Can I develop apps with Python for it?

Yes, modrana is in python and the entire python stack is available. Some packages are several years old, but I think Python provides a means to have a custom Python environment in your $HOME, which would perhaps be able to keep you on the bleeding edge of modern Python developments.

> If I wanted to install EMACS could I install it?

It works.

> Can I install and run Python 2.7 or 3?

Yes.

> I often execute a python script to download some data from websites, can I do it in Nokia N900?

Yes, Maemo has a terminal and app launchers, so executing python scripts is possible.

> For example could I install jupyter-notebook server and go to the browser to run scripts, or could I install Keras Library?

Unfamiliar names. Would suggest to try these in a Maemo VM before purchasing the hardware.

> Would you recomend a Nokia N900?

To tell briefly about my use-case: together with my sister we used the XUL (XML)-based Fennec browser back when it was developed by Mozilla and was one of the official Firefox flavours. Started using our first Nokia N900 around 2010. The vast apps ecosystem is one of the strong points. Many of them already are rewritten to fit the Hildon environment, many aren't, reverse engineering of some proprietary Maemo parts is an ongoing process since after Microsoft purchased NOKIA and left source codes unavailable. Hildon is documented and FOSS itself (to the best of my knowledge).

I am a little disappointed with lack of good user and developer-friendly verbose internationalized documentation for Maemo that would show how apps work, and store all bug reports in a single location. Despite that thousands of apps are still there in the system in the main repository. They make Maemo unique and hackable. Hopefully we work out how to document them and document the bugs too (small well-documented bugs may be a starting point for new developers).

I personally would recommend Nokia N900 to people whose use-case fits. For you I would suggest to test the particular software you mentioned without buying the hardware first. There is a .iso of an ubuntu host + maemo guest vm on the website somewhere, it allows to try Maemo in two clicks. Can't find it on-wiki, it needs an archeologist: I can only locate http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=95567 now.

Best regards,
Gryllida
 

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