Language: English

maemo.org packages listing works, but the subdomain that hosts the .deb files doesn’t. Wayback Machine to the rescue! What a blessing Archive.org is.

You can use these URLs to browse the package listings:

• https://web.archive.org/web/20250210062931/http://repository.maemo.org/extras/pool/diablo/free/
• https://web.archive.org/web/20250210062931/http://repository.maemo.org/extras-devel/pool/diablo/free/

Replace diablo with chinook if you need packages from that OS. I download them on my desktop computer, copy the .deb file to my N810 and then either use dpkg -i package-name.deb or use the Package Manager application. I prefer the dpkg way because it lists missing dependencies, if any.

I installed and got working:

• MilkyTracker, but the interface is oh so small and impractical. I thought I had found the «killer app» for my N810 but it’s way too cumbersome, boohoo.
• CBRPager, a comic reader. The screen is too small to be readable. I don’t have good eyes anymore.
• vncviewer, for some reason, the remote screen is turned sideways. That’s no problem. What is a problem is not having Function keys and, especially, the Meta key I require to operate on my remote desktop. Bummer.

I tried a lot more programs, they get pretty close, but «no.»

I created a simple web page, served from Tomcat with PHP, plain old unencrypted HTTP. It works. I’m discovering what this small web browser can do. It’s a stripped-down version of Mozilla called MicroB and I find very hard to remember what it can do in terms of CSS and JavaScript.

This would be much more versatile than using a terminal emulator with tmux but there’s something about leaving the screen always on when charging that bothers me. But, on the other hand, it wouldn’t be useful if I had to be unblanking the screen manually.

This is turning again into another «close, but no.»

Another idea would be to copy the HTML file into the N810 and load it locally. Upside is, if network goes down, it will still work. Downside is, I can’t do server-side dynamic stuff with PHP or something. And copying assets (images) would be slower.

Yes, there’s PHP Maemo packages. They’re version 5.3. But the built-in web server was released in 5.4. Close, but no.

Yeah, let’s just treat it like a thin, dumb terminal.

I tried pairing my Apple Wireless Keyboard via Bluetooth. It worked! But there’s a noticeable lag, it’s not instantaneous. Yes, «close, but no» again. It’s usable, tho, not the end of the world, if you see it from the angle of «it’s an slightly faster keyboard than the built-in keyboard,» but I’m not keen on carrying two devices as of now.

So, to recap:

• It works for SSH work sessions with tmux; there’s glitches, but it’s usable.
• I can build simple web pages for it. Lots of possibilities here. It does a great job given its vintage.
• eBook reader, or short articles reading. Also does a good job here.

You know what’s cool? I copied over the JetBrains Mono Nerd Font and it worked! I’ve got Nerd Fonts in my N810 terminal emulator! Take that, Termius!

I don’t like the idea of using it as a «monitor» or secondary screen. I don’t think that screen’s designed to be always-on.

• Tags: nokia, nokia n810, retro

Disappointedly reporting that writing long content on the Nokia N810 using its hardware keyboard is slow, uncomfortable and not practical. Typing requires more effort than tapping on a glass surface. My thumbs get tired.

As a dedicated writing machine it doesn’t cut it, unless maybe pairing it with a Bluetooth keyboard. Of course, the form factor and portability changes radically; you might wonder, «why not use a smartphone instead?»

And you’d be right.

• Tags: nokia, nokia n810, retro

I’m discovering the limitations of using my Nokia N810 internet tablet in 2025.

Big one is, the web has moved. SSL ciphers have evolved, HTTPS pages won’t load. I’m aware there are proxies for old browsers, but I’m not keen on pursuing that way.

Neovim over SSH glitches. There must be some escape codes or stuff not in terminfo. I thought it was tmux, but it glitches the same outside of it. ROXTerm has only 16 colors. Mutt throws errors with my 256-colors configuration but fallbacks to black and white.

Nethack works, hah!

I can read ePubs using FBReader. But I prefer reading on my old Kindle Paperwhite.

I don’t think reading comics will work that well. The screen is smaller compared to my iPhone, I don’t think it will be a comfortable experience given that I don’t like to read comics on my iPhone as well.

I can always use it as what nowadays they call a «WriterDeck» — a dedicated, portable, writing device for focused writing. I can start writing my Morning Pages there and copy them over with rsync. I have Vim 7 here. It’s funny that Vim thinks an .md file is a Modula source code. Markdown existed back then, but wasn’t as widely popular as it is today.

There’s a port of Leafpad, a GTK+ text editor. Wow, did I really used that small font size? I’m getting old!

• Tags: nokia, nokia n810, retro

Resuming setting up SSH on my Nokia N810 (aka Nyon).

I couldn’t login from Nyon to Tomcat, but I made it work from Tomcat to Nyon! I had to add RSA as an acceptable algorithm (because SHA-1 went bye-bye) and login as root:

ssh -oHostKeyAlgorithms=+ssh-rsa root@192.168.0.115

Afterwards, I copied an SSH key to login as user, rather than root. Makes me nervous.

Look at that, rsync works!

Next up, I configured the reverse. Now I can login from Nyon to Tomcat! Aaaand it’s so insecure, haha. I’m deliberately poking holes in my secure configuration. I should be ashamed. But, this is for science!

First, I tried generating the RSA key in Tomcat since it was awfully slow in Nyon, but for some reason, it didn’t work. Rather than figuring out why not, I generated it in Nyon again. I went to prepare some tea and, when I returned, it was finished. I copied it manually to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys and, bam, it worked. So. Great.

Also, I deleted the Bomberman stale entry in the main menu. There was a stray /usr/share/applications/hildon/bomberman.desktop file that apparently wasn’t correctly removed when I uninstalled the game a long time ago.

• Tags: nokia, nokia n810, retro

Connecting via WiFi on my Nokia N810 worked without problems. I couldn’t find where to edit the DNS settings, tho. Looks like I’ll have to edit /etc/resolv.conf directly. The list of old access points brought back more nostalgic memories.

• Infocoders, must be when I visited Karina Manrique’s offices.
• HAVANNA LARCOMAR.
• sandwich.com.
• barcamp, hah. I remember Nestor Sertzen trying my N810 there.

I couldn’t remember how to enable the on-screen keyboard, I even took my time to read the User Manual. It doesn’t work and I have the theory that it thinks it’s always slid-out. When the built-in hardware keyboard is opened, the on-screen keyboard doesn’t work. That’s my theory. Anyway, I can live with that.

Later that afternoon, the battery status changed to «battery is full»! Reporting 7 hours estimate. Battery seemed to work fine that day.

I deleted my «Tip Calculator» from my Personal Menu — which is a command line program that’s opened using RoxTerm. This is the command used:

roxterm -z 2 -e /home/user/bin/tip.rb

Last thing I tried that day was SSHing into Tomcat from Nyon (I forgot that’s the hostname I gave my N810). It refused with Unsupported option "GSSAPIAuthentication" and then Unsupported option "GSSAPIDelegateCredentials". Looks like my N810’s OpenSSH client is too old and is using old ciphers. Big bummer. Maybe I can configure Tomcat to accept old ciphers, but I definitely won’t do that on Mia; I’ll just jump hosts.

• Tags: nokia, nokia n810, retro

Right from the start, the BP-4L battery I bought for my Nokia N810 didn’t seem to be healthy. And that’s understandable, it must be an old stock.

On the first day, when I put it to charge, it never increased from 0.3%. My hunch was this software, called ASUI, that I installed before my N810 died called, provides a lot of features but hooks into a lot of things including the charging process. I left it charging for 10 minutes and it still reported 0.3% charge. I proceeded to uninstall it. I had to read the manual to remember how to uninstall programs, haha.

There’s a lot of things I don’t remember!

There’s this status bar applet called «Advanced Power» and it reports as charging, but it estimates an active time of «< 1 min» and estimates idle time as «45 min.» Not good.

Then I remembered I set up my own alarm notification (with sound!) when the battery was low. I wrote this in my notes:

alarmtool -a -t 1232772718 -R 1 -C -1 -d -e check-battery-level.rb -r -u /home/user/MyDocs/.sounds/j-alarm.wav

But doing alarmtool --help or trying to find a man page produces nothing. I don’t know how this alarmtool is used! And doing a web search returned nothing useful.

I couldn’t cd into /etc/init.d, I must be root. How do I become root? Oh, flashback! Just type root!

Then I remembered how to type Tab: Fn+Space.

It’s all slowly coming back!

It seems the battery is indeed not charging correctly or can’t hold a charge. Bummer. Well, at least the device’s powering on and the device is OK, which is the most important thing. I can always try to find another battery.

I’ve edited /etc/init.d/rc.local and removed my script to check the battery level. I’m trying to remove as much stuff as possible to discard variables that could be interfering.

And, yes, the N810 uses the old and great System V init!

• Tags: nokia, nokia n810, retro