Alternative operating systems
Several alternative distributions and operating systems using the Linux kernel have been ported to the Nokia Internet Tablets. They are mostly derived from Debian or OpenEmbedded; Android is a clear exception.
All of these alternatives can be booted on the tablets. Because they all use the Linux kernel, most can also be used in a chroot, allowing users to use applications from the alternatives without leaving Maemo.
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Alternate Desktops
Alternative desktop environments and window managers have also been ported to the tablets, most notably penguinbait's KDE, but they are not full operating systems; they are intended to replace the Hildon desktop only, they don't require a reboot, and they use varying amounts of the Maemo infrastructure underneath the alternative desktop.
Debian
Debian, one of the oldest and most respected Linux distributions, began, in 2007, porting to armel for its 5.0 ("Lenny") release. This port is now an officially supported architecture.
Several users managed to get Debian to boot on the Internet tablets, but the project that became known as Deblet, driven primarily by johnx and stskeeps, was the most successful at getting a working, bootable Debian environment.
Ubuntu
The Nokia-sponsored Handhelds Mojo project began porting Ubuntu to the armel architecture in 2007. While interesting for its compilation entirely on native ARM hardware, this project had several problems that prevented it from becoming a popular alternative.
In late 2008, Canonical announced an official armel port of its Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty" release. As with the rest of the Ubuntu distribution, the armel port leveraged the work already done by the Debian team to produce a very workable port, and the repositories rapidly filled up with a large percentage of the apps available to other architectures. As with Debian armel, there were several reports of successfully booting Ubuntu on the tablets, but the most well known bootable version of "vanilla" Ubuntu Jaunty was the port by bman.
Mer
Mer is a new Linux operating system, built upon a thin base of Ubuntu Jaunty combined with the best open-source elements of Nokia's Maemo platform, such as the Hildon desktop.
Mer has evolved from discussion around reconstructing Maemo and a desire to make a proof of concept system of these thoughts. The "Maemo Reconstructed" Proof of Concept developed into Mer after it was realized that it was - indeed - a viable environment for both developers and end-users.
Mer is currently the most active bootable Ubuntu project for the Internet Tablets.
The Mer project is still under development and needs help from everybody, if you are interested in getting involved, you can find more information in the Mer pages.
Mamona
Mamona is an embedded Linux distribution for armel, based on Open Embedded. The main goal of the Mamona Project is to offer a completely open source alternative/experimental Platform for Maemo using only free and open source components.
Mamona is still fairly immature at this point, and their last release, 0.2, was in September 2008. There's more information available and you may be interested in getting involved on their Trac page.
Poky Linux
Poky Linux is a handheld-targeted distribution, also based on Open Embedded, that provides an open environment, a build platform (much like the Maemo SDK and the Mamona SDK), and a finger-friendly desktop environment known as "Sato".
While still immature on the tablets, and without an official release in over a year. Poky is still an interesting project, and their Pimlico PIM suite, in particular, may interest some users. You can get it from their website.
Android
Android is a new operating system by Google and the Open Handset Alliance, based on the Linux kernel, but using custom Java libraries to run all applications.
There have been several successful attempts to boot Android on the tablets, starting with the earliest Android SDK, which was booted from a chroot. When the Android source code became available in late 2008, several teams, working in parallel, managed to get Android booting.
The NITdroid project is a kernel and userspace port from scratch, and it is currently the most advanced port.