First, the a-gps program simply tells your N810 what satellites SHOULD be in view based upon the location you selected on the map. When you start maemo mapper or other gps software, the internal gps now knows what satellites it should be looking for. The time to fix is greatly reduced by knowing what it is looking for.

The problem with such a-gps is that if you pick a completely wrong point on the map it may never get a fix. You are screwed in other words. I wonder if this is why some people are having a worse time.

The way you know it is working is shown in post #22 image #3. You notice that it shows several satellites without even having a signal strength. The "assisted" portion of a-gps is spoon feeding that information to the gps. Just like on mine, as soon as I launch a gps program, I see all of the satellites already listed.