Alternative operating systems

There are a number of alternative operating systems available for the tablets, this page aims to document them.

Contents

Debian

Debian features the most complete armel branch of any Linux distribution, as such, its large package-selection makes it a logical choice for tablet-specific optimizations.

The Deblet project aims to bring these optimizations (largely pushed by johnx and Stskeeps).

Mamona

"Mamona is an embedded Linux distribution for armel. 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, so not recommended for non-developers, but the project is moving forward and they're about to reach their 0.2 release (which should bring with it a much simpler installation process). There's more information available and you may be interested in getting involved on their Trac page.

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.

Mer has evolved from discussion around reconstructing Maemo and a desire to make a proof of concept system of these thoughts. The M-R PoC developed into Mer after it was realized that it was - indeed - a viable environment for both developers and end-users.

The Mer project is still under development and need help from everybody, if you interested in getting involved, you can find more information in the Mer pages.

NITdroid

NITdroid is a kernel and userspace port from scratch of the Android operating system (by Google and the Open Handset Alliance) to the Nokia's Internet Tablets hardware.

This project is an ongoing effort to make Android usable/useful on the Nokia's Internet Tablets devices (N770, N800, N810, N810WE).

You can find more information about the project in the NITdroid website.

Poky

Poky is a handheld-targeted distribution (the most handheld-oriented of the group), 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, Poky is an interesting project, and their Pimlico PIM suite, in particular, may interest some users. You can get it from their website.

Ubuntu

Ubuntu has been largely recompiled for armel by the Nokia-sponsored Handhelds Mojo project. While interesting for its compilation entirely on native ARM hardware, the project is still immature and lacks even basic tablet-specific optimizations.

Ubuntu is not recommended except for those willing to put a lot of time into getting it working on their tablets (getting to a real desktop environment at this point takes a lot of work). See this PDF for more information about the how and why of the project.