A crazy idea...

[Nokia 5700]

-----------------Not important anymore----------------
If you're familiar with Debian and Maemo, you might know that they're binary-compatible. You can run a Debian app on Maemo, and vice versa, in theory. So far, I've managed to run Debian ARMEL apps on N900 just fine.
However... I'll try a different twist. What happens when you try to run Maemo apps on Debian?
Well, that's what I'll find out. First of all, I have some challenges like making the repositories functional in Debian. Then, I'll have to install the baseline depencies used by Maemo. As you see, it might be a little bit of work, but it's all about the repositories. If I make them work, Debian will be able to pull packages from them automatically.
-----------------Not important anymore----------------

Do note that this experiment will be done in a chroot. I would never do this to a regular system, like the Maemo. To do that would be madness.

I'll keep you posted about progress.

EDIT: I found out that Debian is too hard to modify into running Maemo apps. Maemo is just too complex, with different layers of protection and all that.
So, instead, I'll be aiming for making a Maemo chroot. (Might sound useless, but it's useful if you wanna mess around with Maemo without destroying your phone.)
It seems like a straight-forward process to me: extract a clean Maemo 5 installation from the flashable ones, put it in an image, mount, enjoy.
But I'll see about that.

18/02/11:
I've got the rootfs, but I'm missing the /home directory. It seems like everything I need is in place and ready for use, though.
There will be multiple advantages with this... I won't link /home to the real /home. That's just... not good.
The filesystem will be separate from the real one as a precaution for experimenting. If it's safe, I'll somehow upload the image. But right now... I need to find out how to get the data for /home...

20/02/11:
I have a ready-to-use image for the rootfs. It can't run X11 yet because I don't know how to set up Xephyr, but who cares.
Download link
The image is compressed in tar and lzma. It has a very high compression level (9% of the original filesize. Oh yeah. ) and that's why I recommend extracting it on a desktop. On N900, it would take hours. (My quad-core with 3Ghz for each core spent 10 minutes. 600Mhz/1,1Ghz is 10x less.)

This is what you can do with it:
-Chroot into it (On N900) and execute commands in Xterm.
-Run Xterm apps in it without affecting your original /home directory. (It's not symlinked like Easy Debian is. This is much safer. But take precautions.)

[zhanglelele]

I love the style~~Hope author will get more attention~~
===I am idiot===

[asghar233am]

Hey
I Love these crazy Ideas!
But I'm a starter with N900 and my English is not well.
I want to know the details of what did you do with your N900. What do you mean by running Maemo apps on Debian?
Do u mean do it with Easy Debian or something else?
Sorry but I want detailed information of what u did with your N900, if it is possible!!
And if possible for u send it to my address:
asgharmohammadi_am@yahoo.co.uk
Thanks!

[Mr Pingu]

Hey
I Love these crazy Ideas!
But I'm a starter with N900 and my English is not well.
I want to know the details of what did you do with your N900. What do you mean by running Maemo apps on Debian?
Do u mean do it with Easy Debian or something else?
Sorry but I want detailed information of what u did with your N900, if it is possible!!
And if possible for u send it to my address:
asgharmohammadi_am@yahoo.co.uk
Thanks!

He didn't run on his n900. He runned maemo on a Desktop PC

[Nokia 5700]

I did run it on N900. I only worked with it on my computer because N900 doesn't have all the requirements to build an image from scratch. Maemo from the regular flashable images can't be run on amd64 or i386 because it's compiled for armel. In the end, I did get a working rootfs that can be set up with Xephyr/an X server to work in the same manner as Easy Debian. It's just that I don't know how to set up an X server yet, so there is only an image.
And I don't want to supply automatic scripts. This is meant for people who know their way around Xterm along with knowing how to use the image.

asghar233am, the downloadable image is in the original post... The big, green text saying "Download link".
Please read through the surrounding bit of text, as it is very useful to know about the image. (I don't write it for nothing. I give details, y'know. )
Basicly, this image is made to not do anything to the N900. It's made to work as an isolated environment to test apps and etc. It's not ready for end-users yet. If it gets a set of scripts to set up an X server, it will be. But so far, it's only a chroot into an isolated system.

In the beginning, I was actually trying to run Maemo apps in Easy Debian. But I gave up because Maemo repositories don't register by GPG keys, so they caused a lot of issues. In addition, major components were missing, so.