GPS wrote:
I have one of the early Nokia Linux tablet devices.
I like it somewhat, but it tends to have some negative aspects:
1. crashes and lockups were common in the initial release of the firmware.
I have the latest firmware installed and it is rock solid.
2. It uses Opera and only supports Flash 9 (most popular sites use Flash 10
now).
The latest OS2008 did away with Opera and uses Mozilla. I can't think
of any site that required Flash 10 thus far.
3. Java support (last I checked) is non-existent.
That would be useful if the performance was tweaked. In some ways, it's
better that there is no Java support because there are more native
applications available. Java apps sometimes have very poor performance
on mobile devices (much as they can on desktop systems).
4. Maemo (the desktop) isn't ideal. It's a single fullscreen window
interface. It's not generally conducive to multitasking. It's Gtk-based,
and there were some issues, even after flashing the firmware.
The screen size isn't big enough to make windowing feasible so that's a
non-issue. Switching between applications is simply a matter of tapping
on the icon, and in full screen mode there is a button that brings up
the application switcher. The latest firmware seems to have no issues.
5. There is no root account enabled by default, so it's effectively a closed
system out of the box.
I don't find that's a problem as there is nothing you can do as root
with the latest firmware that you can't do by default. Root access was
necessary on OS2007 to install Pan and perhaps one or two other things
but it's not available for OS2008 :(
6. The only toolkit/framework you can use is based on Gtk+/Maemo, so any
useful Qt/KDE/Xt/Xaw/Tk apps won't work.
To be fair, it makes sense to choose a graphics library and stick to it
otherwise you have unnecessary bloat. I believe that other tookits are
available as addons for OS2008.
7. The out of memory handling wasn't great. I think this was a kernel bug.
When I used the removable flash memory card for a swap file it worked
better.
I haven't run out of memory yet - mine might have more available RAM.
8. There seems to be more of an emphasis on making it look pretty, than
making it look useful. The borders of windows are huge, and I would rather
in general have more screen space for useful information. There is a
fullscreen mode for some apps, but it often means that you have to switch in
and out of fullscreen mode to scroll around (depending on the app).
The title bar is fairly large but there is no other window border to
speak of. Fullscreen mode works really well on OS2008 although it seems
you have to put it back to non-fullscreen mode in order to access the
application's menu as it is part of the title bar. Aside from that, my
only criticism of the interface is that there is no left-handed option.
Using the scrollbar left-handed means that my hand obscures the screen
because the scrollbars are always on the right hand side.
9. Opera for ARM tends to crash a lot.
I really dislike Opera for ARM. I have it on my Archos 605WiFi and it
crashes all the time. I'm glad the latest OS2008 has Mozilla by default
because it has been rock solid so far.
10. (last I checked) no support for some common multimedia codecs.
I can't remember what the default media player supports but MPlayer is
available.
11. it doesn't come with a terminal or any terminal support out of the box.
OS2008 does. For some reason, kill doesn't accept signals - it seems to
use -s 9 by default.
13. playing videos seemed to be hit or miss. Some would play very slowly,
unless converted to a format that required less translation.
Get MPlayer.
5 can be fixed by flashing the device in Windows, or Linux, with a
proprietary tool (binary executable) with a flag that enables a root account
(I did this eventually).
On OS2008, you can install openssh and opensshd and change the root
password that way. I believe enabling the root account puts the device
in R&D mode, which adversely affects performance due to debugging being
enabled. This could be why you are having problems with video. Use
openssh to gain root instead.
It's not the most open device, but it's more open than some.
In terms of lock-down, try Archos devices ;)
For a developer the Nokia tablets are probably not ideal, but for users with
simple needs they are good. It's good for playing music, or general web
browsing, and sometimes reading PDFs.
I wouldn't develop on such a small device - it's better to get the
development kit provided by Maemo and develop on the desktop.
It would help a lot if Nokia opened up the firmware tools, and the firmware
itself, and allowed the device to have root access without having to flash
the firmware. It's basically an "idiot box Linux."
Given that many idiots are likely to buy it, it's understandable that
they did that.
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