At first glance this looks like just some unassuming black slab. I first remember seeing one
of these a long time ago. Probably not too long after they first came out, at the end of 2009.
This was when the first iPhones and Androids were hitting the market.
But when I was told that I was looking at a Nokia N900, I knew this was no ordinary
smartphone. I'd heard of a Nokia with a unique and powerful operating system.
One that could do multitasking, and I mean real multitasking, like a desktop computer.
It ran on a fully open source Linux kernel and it included a custom proprietary graphical user
interface. That actually included a command line terminal app. That enabled you to get full root
access to the system. This was a phone that was designed for developers and programmers,
and it wasn't scared to give the user full control over the system. You could tinker
and customize the operating system. Compared to other phones, this sounds like a dream.
I'd like to thank one of my supporters for lending me this phone.
Finally get to have a close look at the N900, and I promise I'll try and take good care of it :)
When you turn it on, the first thing you notice is that the whole phone runs in landscape mode.
From the way the brand and model are printed on the edge of the phone. To the on-screen
Nokia logo and the animated startup screen. They all tell you that this phone runs in landscape.
Including the entire operating system and all the built-in apps, can only run in landscape.
There's no option for portrait mode. Except for the phone app, that that's the only part
of the phone that runs entirely in portrait mode. It's the one outlier on a phone that's designed
to run more like a computer. This operating system is called Maemo. It was developed by
Nokia and based on Debian Linux. And they've been releasing this OS on handheld Internet
tablets since 2005. These were small Wi-Fi only devices. They were not phones and they couldn't
take a SIM card. Nokia had this strange idea at the time, that their phones should only run their
Symbian operating system. Symbian was developed before touch screens and was known for not being
easy to develop apps for. It wasn't until after Nokia were losing market share that they finally
released the N900, running the more powerful Maemo operating system. They'd also been developing
the N900 was launched as a developer's phone. It was a way of getting Maemo into
the hands of people that would develop apps for this new operating system.
The N900 turned out to be very popular, even amongst consumers. Though mostly with more
technology savvy people. It sold better than expected and developed a loyal following.
In fact there's still a die-hard fan base to this day. People seem to really love this phone and
they often describe it as their favourite phone of all time. This is a true enthusiast's phone.
There's even still a community of developers working with the N900. In fact there are still
community updates for Maemo even in 2023. The N900 is a really intriguing experience. There's
just so much to learn and so many rabbit holes to go down. It's really a very daunting experience.
I could continue exploring this phone for months or even years.
For example when it comes to just something like tweaking the LED indicator, there are
pages and pages of documentation and different ways that just this one aspect can be customized.
For such a complex phone I want to start at the basics. It has a resistive touch screen. Which you
can use your finger on with a bit of pressure. But it also includes a stylus for more precise input.
I want to make sure I can reinstall the operating system anytime I need to. I've also been asked to
wipe all the data from the phone before doing anything. Unfortunately the owner has forgotten
the five digit passcode that's needed to wipe the user data. So I'm going to start with reflashing
the firmware. I'm using the excellent maemo.org resource. Which details many different ways to
refresh the phone. Including software for Windows, Linux and Mac OS. The software I'm
using is called 'maemo flasher 3.5'. This is a command line flasher that's fairly easy to use.
But most importantly it's an offline flasher that will flash a local firmware file into the phone.
With everything set up and ready to go, I simply need to power the phone off, hold the U button
on the keyboard and plug in the micro USB cable. The drivers are detected on the computer and the
flashing process starts. I'm flashing Nokia's last official version of the operating system.
It's called public release 1.3 and this is a good place to start with exploring this phone. However
as I found out, doing this doesn't wipe any of the user data in the phone, or reset the passcode.
Exploring a bit further, there is a way to do a lower level flashing of the entire eMMC storage.
However I couldn't confirm that this would reset the passcode.
So as an alternative I decided to use this custom rescue OS developed by crtxcr.
This is a small OS that's uploaded by the flashing software and runs directly in Ram.
It gives you some nice low level access to the system. Including resetting the passcode.
With the system now clean and fully reset back to default, I can now begin properly exploring
the N900. With the knowledge that any problems I cause, I should be able to restore this back
to default. The first thing I want to install is u-boot. This allows booting other operating
systems directly from the external micro SD card. Unfortunately using the built-in package manager
didn't let me install u-boot. So I decided it's time to get a root shell happening.
For this I had to install rootfs and I also installed sudser as well.
This enables me to access superuser commands directly from the inbuilt terminal application.
I can now use apt-get to install u-boot from the command line. With this installed, when powering
up the phone I now get a handy startup menu, that includes booting from the micro SD card.
I can now try out some other operating systems without needing to install them directly to the
inbuilt eMMC storage. And the first operating system I'm trying out is PostmarketOS, and I'd
like to thank everyone in the comments for suggesting this operating system.
I'm using a pre-built image of PostmarketOS. Which includes the i3wm windows manager.
This is a fairly simple tiling window manager. But it gets the job done. I would like to try
some more complex GUIs and there are just so many rabbit holes to go down with this phone.
The other operating system I tried on this phone is called Nemo. This is a
community version of the Meego operating system and was released on the Nokia N9.
That's the successor to Maemo that ran on the N900. This was Nokia's last operating
system before Microsoft took over and made everything Windows Mobile.
While this version of Meego is not complete on the N900, and not compatible with all the hardware,
it's interesting to see where Nokia were going at the time.
I now want to switch back to Maemo and explore more of the capabilities of this phone. And one
of the best ways to do that is to have a look at some of the games. One of the more impressive
games on the N900 is Bounce Evolution developed by Rovio. It uses an accelerometer-based control
system to control a ball through an impressive 3D environment. This game is actually kind of fun.
Though this is my first time playing and I'm not really very good at it.
The game however doesn't seem complete and Rovio describe it more as a tech demo.
Still very impressive to see what the N900 can really do.
Rovio were best known for their game Angry Birds, and they did release a version for the N900.
This game was extremely popular at the time, and playing this takes me all the way back to 2009.
Overall I'm very impressed with this phone. It's unusual to see such a well-built phone, with such
an open operating system. There's also a fair amount of documentation on the hardware as well.
Including service manuals with complete board layouts and circuit descriptions. Something really
interesting is the number of interface pins on the back of the phone under the battery. Some of these
pins can even be used as serial i2c interfaces and even possibly gpio pins. I've never heard of
a phone with such low level hardware interfaces. That are even controllable from the operating
system. Though looking around I couldn't find many hardware mods that took advantage of these.
The N900 is a really unusual phone. It includes a lot of regular hardware such
as GPS. But it also includes some rarer functions such as an FM transmitter,
and an FM receiver. The FM receiver is not accessible by default in the operating system.
But with some patching and adding some software, the phone can be turned into an FM radio.
This is something I explored in my 'Phone to Phone FM Radio' video. So I won't go into it here. But
check that out if you want to see images sent from phone to phone using an analog FM signal.
Another unusual aspect of the N900 is that it can generate a TV signal out
of its headphone socket. This enables you to plug it directly into an old style TV.
Doing this mirrors the phone's entire operating system on the TV. This also gives me an excuse
to use the Sony monitor I fixed in the previous video. I can now use this phone to watch movies
using the built-in video player, and display them on my external monitor.
The Nokia N900 is a really unique phone and combined with the unique Maemo operating system,
makes for an extremely fascinating experience. There are just so many possibilities and things
to try out with this phone. It's like opening a door into another world. This phone is a
powerful little computer that almost became one of the big smartphone operating systems. And its
possibilities embrace you like an object from another time, and takes you beyond the stars.
I'm not sure what I'm gonna do with this phone. I'll have it for a while.
But there are so many directions it could go. I would like to install
the latest version of Maemo and try out some interesting Linux software.
Thanks for joining me here on my channel. Be sure to share your thoughts on this and other videos.
I think there's some good stuff coming up soon. Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.
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