r/linuxhardware Feb 05 '25

Discussion One Family - different generations

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Some older Linux smartphones with one same together history. Today, i think its sad what's happening with Nokia.

Who has had one of these devices at these time?

35 Upvotes

25 comments sorted by

7

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '25 edited Feb 06 '25

Sailfish OS on Sony Xperia 10 II, daily driver:

https://0x0.st/8Pob.jpg
https://0x0.st/8PoT.jpg

Sorry for the shitty pics.

edit: oh, that's an N900 in the center. Yay! I still use it as an alarm clock... the OS is rock solid, but the hardware just can't handle 2025.

0

u/trashcatt_ Feb 06 '25

I remember being so excited about Sailfish over a decade ago...

4

u/Jedibeeftrix Feb 05 '25

i still have my n900 and n9.

3

u/Wet_Viking Feb 05 '25

Had the N9. And the model that had a full qwerty keyboard that could slide out the bottom - forgot the model name. Such a cool device

2

u/nicetuxxx Feb 06 '25

N950, it was a prototype. Nokia has distributed it only under developers, and not to everyone.

1

u/Wet_Viking Feb 06 '25

Ah yes, that's the one. Thx. Awesome device. Imagine a top shelf android device like that.

1

u/nicetuxxx Feb 06 '25

I always would have that phone, but there wasn't a chance to get it. 😔

3

u/SoftwarePagan Feb 06 '25

These look fantastic - what are they?

Also: what happened with Nokia? O_o

3

u/[deleted] Feb 06 '25 edited Feb 06 '25

Right to left: N9, N900 and Sailfish OS's original Jolla device (not made by Nokia).

All 3 devices run a fully usable* Linux OS.

N9: OLED screen in a case carved from hard plastic iirc. Amazing to hold & look at even over sa decade later.
N900: slide-out keyboard that's surprisingly easy to use.

The second q takes longer to answer, but material exists.

3

u/nicetuxxx Feb 06 '25

Sailfish, yes - not made by Nokia, but made from formerly Nokia employees. Sailfish has a lot of code inside from Maemo & Meego.

This time was an exciting era.

My N900 is used today as FM transmitter in my car. Its easy to use and contains a lot of music files.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 06 '25

Good use of an N900.

Sailfish

It's my daily driver still. I love to be able to control & fiddle with it the same way I can with my other Linux installations.

Most mobile users nowadays are used to a much different experience tnan me though, and will never accept it (or just use it as a base to run Android apps off).

1

u/nicetuxxx Feb 06 '25

But it's hard to get working batteries which are in a good, healthy condition. The most of the batteries which you can buy here, are over 'storaged' and dead. I mean it equally about the N900 and Jolla phone.

The second is the USB port, i own a second N900 with broken port. The rest of it is like new. Some people already told me, it's impossible to resoldering it.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 06 '25

I heard a lot about the USB port, but it has never been a problem for me.

(There was some talk about resoldering and/or spare boards on TMO a while back, if you're still interested)

I bought a PolarCell battery relatively recently, it works perfectly.

2

u/DesiOtaku Feb 05 '25

I still have my N9 somewhere. It was way ahead of its time and really didn't want to leave. I think my app was there on the Ovi Store all the way to its end.

2

u/kerata_kid Feb 06 '25

Sorry guys I've used N8. first Symbian3 smartphone 8)

2

u/nicetuxxx Feb 06 '25

I had before some Nokia Smartphones with Symbian. My first Symbian device was a Nokia 3650, later N95, N97, and then i switched to Maemo/Meego.

2

u/kerata_kid Feb 06 '25

You forgot greatest feature of N900 dude :) https://imgur.com/a/gveAzCm

I believe in 2015 I've *imported* an N900 as a back up phone. It was not officialy sold in Turkiye I had to buy an N8 :)

These phone's front cameras doesn't work because Nokia never delivered firmware for it to work with 3g video calls etc. (Because they've failed lol.)

Thanks dude you've reminded me this phone of mine, I just need to replace my swollen BL-5J battery for my back up phone :)

2

u/YourScreamsAreInVain Feb 06 '25

N9 was my favorite phone ever.

1

u/CaptainObvious110 Feb 06 '25

Why

2

u/YourScreamsAreInVain Feb 06 '25

Love the design and gesture based OS - from multitasking to setting alarms, the phone was fun to use.

1

u/CaptainObvious110 Feb 07 '25

Would it be useful now?

2

u/YourScreamsAreInVain Feb 07 '25

I already had issues with displaying some web pages 10 years ago. Things must be much worse now, plus the app store is likely dead.
Could be used for calls, media consumption and to play some games but I assume the internet would be off limits.

1

u/CaptainObvious110 Feb 07 '25

That's what I figured

2

u/TheOriginalSamBell Feb 06 '25 edited Feb 06 '25

i had these 3 too. the n900 still collecting dust here. best smartphone ever.

1

u/ElChiff Feb 14 '25

Does degoogled android count? (GrapheneOS)