Resurrect your N9

As of 2015 and later, the N9 is an orphan in the world of mobile phones. No other MeeGo-based phones have been released to the public, and much of the corporate support offered has now been gone. Firmware and flashers are no longer available from Nokia, the Ovi Store has withdrawn all N9/N950 apps, and the MeeGo.com forums are no more.

The good news is that the N9 lives on, with the support of members of the Maemo community. Whether you've just acquired an N9, or are dusting off an old device, this page will help you get up to speed.

Firmware
You may wish to consider whether to re-flash your phone's firmware. Even if you are already on the latest firmware (40.2012.21-3), you may need to re-flash if you are interested in the following:


 * Open-Mode Kernel disables Nokia's Aegis security system. This is easier to install on a freshly re-flashed device.


 * UbiBoot allows you to boot alternative kernels or operating systems. Requires the use of the Open-Mode kernel.


 * Changing Firmware Variant, e.g. in order to gain localised applications. There are limitations to which firmware variants you can change to/from. See Flashing N9 for further details.

Regardless of your reason for flashing your device, you MUST read the Flashing N9 page thoroughly in order to understand the risks, and how to flash your device successfully.

See also: Firmware flashing discussion thread

Inception origin fixer
In case you do not wish to touch your system more than just strictly necessary, you might consider this hack-installer. It is a package that will offer you a way to fake "this package comes from Nokia" to any package with an expired signature.

Nokia Store and Repositories
A mirror of Nokia's software repositories is hosted on OpenRepos.net. This contains copies of the free system software and apps for the N9, including most (if not all) of the free apps that were available on the Nokia Store (which no longer works). Another mirror, thecust.net contains the developer packages required for enabling Developer mode.

To use these repositories, you must disable Nokia's repositories, and replace them. Installing the N9 RepoMirror package will do this for you.


 * On your phone, open Settings/Applications/Installations, and enable the option 'Allow installations from Non-Store sources'.
 * From your PC, navigate to https://openrepos.net/content/ancelad/n9-repomirror.
 * Download the .deb file onto your PC and transfer it to your N9 through Bluetooth.
 * On your N9, in the notification view, touch the transferred file, it should run the installation of n9-repomirror.

Some users have reported problems with the latest version (0.7.2). Using an older version (0.6.0) seems to help in this instance.

See also: N9 RepoMirror discussion thread

Warehouse
Warehouse is a package browser for OpenRepos. It allows you to browse, select and install packages directly from your device, in a similar way to the Nokia Store app worked. It can be downloaded from OpenRepos here.

Developer Mode
Enabling Developer Mode requires the installation of additional developer packages. As the original Nokia repositories are no longer available, you must install RepoMirror first.

To enable Developer Mode:


 * Connect your N9 to your wifi
 * Open Settings/Security/Developer mode, and enable the option 'Developer mode'.
 * After downloading the base packages, your phone will restart. You will find some extra apps such as Terminal are now installed.
 * You can now enable further options, including logging, power analysis and IPv6 from Settings/Security/Developer mode.

Performances
Pre-requisites : developer mode must be activated.


 * Install N9 QTweakAll :
 * From your PC, navigate to here
 * Download the .deb file onto your PC and transfer it to your N9 through Bluetooth.
 * On your N9, in the notification view, touch the transferred file, it should run the installation of n9-qtweakall.


 * Run N9 QTweakAll, press  key twice (for passing the PDF part) and follow this steps:
 * Letter EE : install FasterN9 (option 3 ) then select the unstable version 1.1.7 (option 2)
 * Letter KK : change the priority of smartsearch (option 7) then select Change (option 1). This will decrease the priority of smartsearch from 100 to 10 and therefore prevent the known issues of smartsearch (CPU work load).

Apps
Many of the N9's apps still work fine out of the box.

Most of them are no longer installable from Warehouse because certificates are TOO old. The install process fails. However a solution exists:

sudo aegis-dpkg -i /home/user/MyDocs/Downloads/myapp.deb
 * Download the .deb file from openrepos on your PC then copy them into a folder on the device, say the /Downloads folder
 * Then run the Terminal and run aegis-dpkg

Edit : I recommand you to activate the ROOT-SSH mode, it enable you to open an SSH connection from your PC onto your N9. From this SSH connection, you can run any command you need. User: user, password : user's password (default is rootme )

AccuWeather
Not usable but MeeCast is a good replacement

MeeCast is a good replacement. The MeeCast widget can replace AccuWeather on the events screen, as well as the lock and standby screens. (Install the widget via MeeCast's Settings/Appearance menu.)

Calendar
Partially Working 

Almost everyone abandon CalDAV. Fortunately Mail for Exchange option works very well with simple basic outlook accounts (!). The trick is to define the domain with THIS value : office365.com (see mail section). It provides Calendar and Contacts synchronization.

I didn't find other tricks for other cal providers.

Contacts
Partially Working

See Calendar section about synchronization of contacts.

Cloud
Only Google Drive is accessible through FilePlus 

In 2021, no file manager are still able to connect to closed Clouds (SkyDrive-OneDrive, DropBox, Google Drive ) as well as to WebDav resource (NextCloud...). The only exception is FilePlus that can still connect to the Google Drive (and fetch the files... of course).

Drive
Working

As OVI server are down, we have to change some links & behaviors.
 * Install and run Nokia Drive Enabler.
 * open /home/user/.config/Nokia/Maps.conf and check this line is present in [General] : isSsoEnabled=False
 * open /home/user/.config/Nokia/Drive.ini and check this line is present in [Generalsettings] : ssoDone=True
 * Change the SUPL resource for GPS FIX because supl.nokia.com resource is dead :
 * First method : run N9 QTweakAll and change the GPS Fix provider to "supl.google.com"
 * Second method : edit /etc/xdg/nokia/location-settings.conf file :
 * devel-su
 * nano /etc/xdg/nokia/location-settings.conf
 * enter in Edition mode with ctrl-o
 * Edit two parameters: PrimarySuplServer and SecondarySuplServer
 * PrimarySuplServer=supl.google.com
 * SecondarySuplServer=a value among supl.vodafone.com, supl.sonymobile.com, agpss.orange.fr
 * Quit and save (ctrl-x...)

The GPS FIX should be quicker from now, at least outdoor.

PS: don't forget to calibrate the compass before driving. The GPS FIX needs an accurate compass !!!

See the Maps section for the second step : download and install the maps, POI, voices...

Facebook
Not working anymore

'''*** Facebook is deprecating XMPP support so it does not work anymore. ***'''

For memories, here was the procedure that made Facebook usable :

"The N9 app will work if you de-select 'Chat and Contacts' when adding a Facebook account. If you don't do this Facebook will continually ask you to sign in. The main advantage of using the inbuilt app is that it will add notifications to the N9 feeds page.

Alternatively the Facebook website can be browsed through a web browser, or by installing one of the third party apps available on OpenRepos.net.

Facebook chat can be used on the N9 as a Jabber account, as they both use the same XMPP protocol. In order to do so: "
 * Install extraplugins to add support for more accounts, including Jabber
 * In Accounts, add a Jabber account with the following credentials:
 * Username: your-facebook-id@chat.facebook.com
 * Password: your-facebook-password
 * Server: chat.facebook.com

Hangouts
 Working in a very limited way and furthermore you have to decrease the security level of your Google account


 * Install from openrepos the hangouts plugins.
 * Then run the account manager and add your hangout account here.
 * That's all. You can chat through the native message app but in a very limited way (only text and no auto discovery of contacts that use Hang Outs !)

Mail
Working

My basic outlook account works well with the Mail for Exchange option. The main trick is to enter this as domain : office365.com. Doing that, I get Calendar and Contact synchronisation. Hurrah ! Gmail accounts seems unreachable since recent security "enhancements".

My others pure mail accounts work well as soon as I found their SMTP and IMAP servers settings.

MAPS
Working

See the Drive section for the first (and required) step.

The second step is to download the Maps (2013), the POIS and the Voices.

Maps :

As OVI server are down, you have to download maps here : http://nokiamaps.ct8.pl/nokia_maps_v_00.02.54.223.html

But this site is almost down : it does no longer contain itself the ZIP files. However, fortunately, the WAY BACK MACHINE mechanism works well for the SECONDARY link (web.archive.org).

Installation : Unpack downloaded zip archive(s) to cities/diskcache folder.

Advice: each time you run Drive, go in Parameters and UNCHECK Online. This will enable the search of cities and addresses.

POIS :

Go here : http://nokiamaps.ct8.pl/nokia_maps_poi_00.02.54.223.html

Installation : Unpack downloaded zip archive(s) to cities/diskcache/ClientIndex/ folder.

Voices :

Go here : http://nokiamaps.ct8.pl/nokia_maps_voices_v_00.02.54.223.html

Installation : Unpack downloaded zip archive(s) to cities/diskcache/voices/ folder

Message
 Partially functional 

ExtraPlugins provide many plugins for ICQ, AOL, MSN, QIP, Yahoo, Jabber/XMPP accounts. But ICQ, AOL, MSN, QIP, Yahoo are NOT working anymore. Only Jabber/XMPP is usable. It's an open source messaging system. Anyone can install its own jabber/xmpp server. As almost all BIG companies abandoned this protocol (see Facebook section...), you can only connect to confidential, almost "private" servers (muc.xmpp.org, jabberix.com...). I recommand you to use Pidgin of Gajim on your PC for discovering them.

Procedure:


 * Install ExtraPlugins, it provides a plugin for Jabber/XMP account management.
 * Add your Jabber.XMPP accounts (Account Manager).
 * Install Multi-User Chats (harmmucs).

Music Store
Not working anymore

Nokia Store
Not usable: The Nokia Store was closed down in March of 2015.

Much of the Nokia Store's free content is available on OpenRepos.net. The Warehouse app allows you to browse and install apps from OpenRepos in a similar manner to Nokia's Store app.

Phone
Fully functional

Podcast
Fully functional

Install gPodder or PodCatcher.

Edit: gPodder requires a lot of additional library (python-***). If you encounter errors during installation, run this command for automatic installation of missing libraries : sudo apt-get -f install

Radio (internet)
Fully functional


 * Install MeeRadio.
 * Create one .m3u file per station (no space in this file name, please).
 * Copy yours .m3u files into /home/user (no space in its name).
 * Go in the List tab of MeeRadio, your should see your .m3u files here.
 * You may add some station into the "Preferred stations" tab IF the name of the .m3u file does not contain any SPACE.

Radio (FM)
Fully functional WITH handset

fmrx-qt_0.2.0_armel.deb fmrxd_0.2_armel.deb fmrx-utils_0.2_armel.deb qmlradio_0.0.9_armel.deb dpkg -i /home/user/MyDocs/Downloads/fmrx* dpkg -i /home/user/MyDocs/Downloads/qmlradio_0.0.9_armel.deb sudo aegis-dpkg -i /home/user/MyDocs/Downloads/fmrx* sudo aegis-dpkg -i /home/user/MyDocs/Downloads/qmlradio_0.0.9_armel.deb
 * Download the following 4 files from openrepos into a folder on the device, say the /Downloads folder:
 * Then login as root user devel-su with password rootme, then:
 * Or

Reddit
Functional 

Just install Quickddit. It provides most of basic functionalities. You can connect with your Reddit account.

Search
Fully functional

I strongly recommend you to decrease the priority of the smartsearch Cron. You can do that easily with QTweak in the Files Tweaker section. It decreases the prio to 10%. This avoids some lags.

Skype
Not working anymore

Telegram
 Very partially functional 

Telegram-cli still works but it's very limited and works in command line (only text msg is possible ina one to one way).

MeeTelegram is a BETA version, it works well but in a very very limited way as well.

A new alternative arrived in 2021 : meegram2. In Beta but promising. Source code is on GitHub.

Twitter
Not working anymore

The stock app does not work anymore. Until mid 2019, the Tweetian app was an alternative but it does not work anymore as well since July 2019 :-(

Just for memory, here was the procedure to go through the authentification process with tweetian :
 * install and run Opera Mobile
 * install and run Tweetian
 * once Tweetian opened a page in the stock browser, copy/paste the link into Opera Mobile, you should obtain the precious secret number for validating your connection by this way.

Web
Partially Working

With time, some of the SSL root certificates have expired. This can be mitigated by manually adding the relevant certificates to the certificate store.

Additionally more and more websites require TLS 1.2 - which the meego browser does not support; however, Opera mini does.

The only easy solution to browse the sites implementing TLS 1.2 is to install PhoneMe (Java VM) then the midlet Opera Mini 8.0

Opera Mini 8 works in a client/server way with an Opera "proxy" server in the middle (between you and the site, this proxy server seems to be located in Nederland). The web Pages are not running on your device but on the Opera proxy server and the HTML output is then send to your n9. Because of that, many sites does not work properly.

You may find the Opera Mini 8 on https://openrepos.net/

Without Opera Mini, you must find some pure HTML 2.0 sites. Here are some I know : http://lite.cnn.io/en, http://www.msn.com , http://68k.news (Google news).

The other solution is much more difficult. See here : https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=101156&highlight=polishing

Whatsapp
Not Working anymore

Wazapp uses a too old authenfication method. It fails at login.

Whatsup is banned on the Whatsapp servers side. And some say that you risk to be ban several weeks.

YouTube
 Partially functional 

The stock client and CuteTube2 can no longer play Youtube videos. Luckily, Meefox 1.0.5 still works. It lags but it works !