Nokia 770 first and second impressions
So, I have played with the new toy over the weekend, and I must say that overall, I’m fairly impressed. There are some stability issues, but the software is still under development, so I’m not going to panic because of that.
Internet browsing was surprisingly convenient on this device. Despite its rather small size, it sports an 800×480 display, which is remarkably sharp and bright. (I work with the brightness turned way low, though, to save some battery, but it’s still very readable.) The e-mail application was a bit slow and unwieldy, but it gets the job done. The lack of a calendar application surprised me a bit, but considering it’s a handheld PC more than a PIM, I’m okay with that.
But the user level stuff isn’t what makes me warm and fuzzy. Behind the scenes it runs Linux, as we all undoubtably know by now, and this is where the fun starts. After using the flasher utility to enter Research & Development mode (to enable a root shell), and installing an xterm, you’re all set to explore. And possibly wreak havoc.
For me, speaking as both a user and developer, the free and open Maemo distribution is a bit incomplete compared to the official Nokia install. The free one lacks a few things, such as a browser and the e-mail application. Then again, the Nokia install lacks some utilities for software installation and development. I found it a bit disappointing to have to choose between these two options, but I’m trying to find a way to get the best of both worlds. And I think I might have found one that suits me.
As a part of that quest, I happened to drop by ARMedslack (an ARM port of the Slackware distro), just to see how well the binaries worked on the Nokia 770. And hey, they worked very well!
This is exciting for one good reason; The Slackware package management is rather simple, especially compared to the complexity of the native deb package system (which isn’t even complete on the Nokia image). So I unpacked some bits and pieces of the Slackware package management tools, and voila, I could suddenly install (and more importantly, cleanly uninstall) arbitrary packages. I also wrote a small shell script to convert deb-packages to tgz, to make them manageble with the Slackware tools. I recently tested this with the PythonForMaemo debs, and they worked perfectly. I also tried installing ARMedslack’s “nfs-utils” package, and bingo, I count mount my workstation from the 770. 
Now, despite the success with the Nokia image, I haven’t abandoned the Maemo distribution quite yet. As soon as I find a decent way to preserve my current installation, I’m willing to take it for another spin and see if I can migrate the useful applications back. If nothing else, just to see if it’s possible. And because it would rock if it was.
So, to state some kind of conclusion, I’m intrigued by the potential of this gadget. It has a lot of usability as it is shipped, but the real potential for fun lies in the hacking and exploring, and eventually, starting to develop stuff to make it even more useful.
November 18th, 2005 at 07:30
dd for preserving the image?
Hello.
To preserve your current installation can’t you just plug the 770 into your computer (USB) and use dd to make an image of the internal flash? I don’t have one of these gadgets yet, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting my hands on one too soon. But I look forward to it.
November 18th, 2005 at 12:52
Re: dd for preserving the image?
I tried using dd already, and while it does indeed preserve the current installation, I’m having a hard to writing it back; The flashing aborts immediately after starting. But the problem is solved, though; I have switched to using rsync for backups, and it works very well.
November 20th, 2005 at 04:11
Re: dd for preserving the image?
I’m glad something will work, as I envision having to “reinstall” occasionally.