I'll be keeping this thread until the day I no longer use my newly-acquired (as of Dec. 2014) N900 as my daily phone. Very interesting to have such a device nearly a half-decade after its original launch in a world where people dump their phones after 1.5 years of use. Perhaps it could be a quick reference to whomever wishes to take the plunge.

Even though the topic of the N900 being a phone is contested, I don't care; I'm calling it a phone.

I've decided to post this in the Off-Topic subforum to keep from shoving my experience in the faces of everyone on the forum. It'll be my personal thread that I'm freely sharing here, so anyone can interject if they'd like. No need to keep this on the top of the Active Topics.

I must say, the earphones that came with the N900 are probabaly the worst I've come across, and that's saying a lot. Too dark, bad tips, extremely microphonic. I'm shocked that the shirt clip doesn't do enough to mitigate the scraping...

Anyway, back on topic.

Out-of-the-box, it was a rather rough-around-the-edges experience for me. My old-beater Apple earbuds gave my ears cancer when I tried to plug them in. I didn't like the theming (too simple, but not in a way to make it visually appealing to me). I found the web browser to be lackluster. The default app manager is PAINFULLY slow! Gave a horrible first impression.

Well, so did Ubuntu, until I learned how to change that. I swear, the internet is the best thing to ever happen to Linux.

My phone came with the most up-to-date Nokia image, plus it was completely brand new (did the first boot wizard and everything), so I didn't bother reflashing. Lucky me.

The absolute first things I did were:

• enable the CSSU Stable repositories
  update
  reboot
  
  install Faster App Manager
  run it
  
  enable the CSSU Testing repository + extras-devel repository
  update
  reboot
  
  install Kernel Power
  reboot

I knew to do all of this from reading up on the wiki docs in anticipation, as I waited for my phone to be delivered. Even now, I have 20+ tabs open in Firefox to different wiki pages and TMO threads. However, the initial downloading of everything was like my internet was being run through a potato. ~40kB/s on average, and this is on my home WiFi. Granted, I don't have the best line speed, but I should be getting around 300kB/s on average. It improved after a while, which confused me, but I chose not to question it.

After doing those things, I decided to follow the instructions on the N900 The Perfect Setup page, having the webpage on the N900's browser so I could copy-paste commands. A few things about the N900's terminal confused me:
-I had to download scripts that allow the user account to be part of the sudoers group (granted, they're scripts, so it was quick and easy)
-the C-c, C-v bindings don't work in the terminal

Quite odd. I persevered and got plenty of the page done now. After that, I just decided to download a crippity-crap ton of apps, including, but not limited to:
-Fennec
-Mobile Hotspot
-Filebox
-OpenSSH
-Ubuntu Humanity theme (a plesant surprise, that)
-Pierogi
-modRana
-wget
-Kmplayer
-Leafpad
-the hidiously-outdated build of Midori
-Easy Debian (again, another plesant surprise)

-bnf (which is nice, but the name is the same as the BNF Syndrome that plagues the members of the Smash Bros community who've played the 3DS version of Smash Bros)

-freemangordon's 720p video fix (I couldn't even find abettercamera, so I should have no problems using the fix)
-cuteplayer-QML
-htop (yet another plesant surprise)

-Abiword (still another plesant surprise, plus I can use the Debian version for better .doc compatability)

-flashlight (I'm wary of this one, though I probably shouldn't be, considering the flashlight apps that are known to be spyware are closed-source)
-a bunch of widgets

I can't remember all of them at this moment (will edit tomorrow). I downloaded a lot of apps and turned the phone off to charge.

EDIT: As promised:
-3G/2G/Dual Mode Selection Applet
-Active Desktop Statusbar Icon (a plesant surprise)
-Adblock Plus plugin for Maemo browser
-Advanced Interface switcher
-Albion(impulsively downloaded it because the name reminds me of Fable. Haven't tried yet)
-android-lockscreen
-backupmenu (the wiki scared me into it)
-blessN900
-bluetooth-dun
-bluezwitch
-bootmenu
-C FM Radio
-CSSU Features Configuration
-Calculus (it says "for kids," but only advanced kids are learning calculus. Sue me)
-Callnotify (which I was shocked that wasn't included by default)
-Catorise (very nice)
-cell-modem-ui
-claws-mail
-claws-mail-html2 viewer
-clean900
-Community SSU enabler
-ConnectNow Internet connection switch
-coreutils-gnu (a plesant surprise)
-Crochik MyContacts (works better than the stock Contacts IMO)
-D-theme AeroBlue (which is nice, but I think I prefer the Ubuntu theme)
-Desktop Activity manager
-dillo
-eSpeak (dependency for modRana)
-ereswap (scripts are very basic, but it's nice to have them)
-extmou
-extra decoders support (another plesant surprise)
-FM Radio Player
-FastSMS
-fcam-drivers
-gFTP
-h-e-n
-hdrcapture
-headphone daemon
-healthcheck
-infozip's zip
-jSpeed
-Lens Cover reminder (love that)
-lzma
-MyPaint (have a pressure-sensitive screen+stylus, may as well use it
-ogg support
-personal dataplan monitor
-Petrovich
-Quicknote
-simple-brightness-applet
-Swappolube (which seems obligatory)
-TV out control desktop widget
-ttf-nokiapure (now if only I could get the Ubuntu fonts...)
-WiFi switcher
-WifiEye

[/EDIT]

Speaking of which, I had the phone hooked up to the charger the whole time I was playing with it, and that didn't seem to make much of a difference when I removed it from the charger. This is one of the reasons it's off right now (the other being that I spent hours messing with it, so may as well give it a break).

The keyboard felt alien to me. Not surprising, considering I've spent 3 years conditioning myself to use a vkb on my Windows Phone. The layout will take time to get used to, and the feel of the keys even longer. The keys are very flat and don't give much feedback when pressed. Not a bad keyboard overall, but not that good either. Either way, I'm glad to finally have one!

Right now, there's two things that I don't have the stones to do:
-repartition the flash (preferebly with something more up-to-date than EXT3+vFAT)
-delve into CSSU-Thumb

I'm inclined to leave the current partition layout as-is, but having an entire partition (with a dated file system, mind you) dedicated to storing docs/media on a device that has a uSD slot is really disturbing me. Perhaps not so much now that Easy Debian is installed, but it really is.

As for CSSU-Thumb, I'm getting closer to taking the plunge. The promise of a smaller memory footprint with a more up-to-date kernel is appealing. Hell, I already have the Testing repositories enabled, may as well, right? I'll get to it eventually.