Maemo SDK

Having given away the shiny new n810 for a week, there was plenty of time to get the Maemo SDK to work. And I needed it.
After the Scratchbox installation, I was greeted by:

ph5@monster:~# /scratchbox/login
Inconsistency detected by ld.so: rtld.c: 1192: dl_main: Assertion `(void *) ph->p_vaddr == _rtld_local._dl_sysinfo_dos' failed!

Google helped to find out that my kernel is missing COMPAT_VDSO. So I used that as an opportunity to upgrade to 2.6.24-rc7 (and later -rc8). Then b43legacy locked up hard. dtl1_cs panicked. All kinds of ext3 file systems wanted to be fscked... I knew I wouldn't have the patience.
Anyway, now that the ancient glibc in Scratchbox worked I could install the Maemo SDK and the (ugh) proprietary binary packages. Because I'm lazy I need this script to start the Maemo environment inside Xephyr:

#!/bin/sh
Xephyr :2 -host-cursor -screen 800x480x16 -dpi 96 -ac -extension Composite &
XEPHYR_PID=$!
DISPLAY=:2 /scratchbox/login -k af-sb-init.sh start
wait $XEPHYR_PID
DISPLAY=:2 /scratchbox/login -k af-sb-init.sh stop

happy_n810_owners++;

It arrived. And it is everything I expected it to be. Sure, the upper row of keys is far too close to the bottom of the screen. A first test showed GPS reception¹ to be a joke. The window list and cancel keys to the left of the display may look nice, but they feel like somebody just cut them into the screen bezel as an afterthought, scraping metal against metal when I press them.
But the display is very nice, the overall size is great and I like metal casings. A worthy successor to the iPAQ hx4700 in every regard. Thanks again to Nokia and especially to the Maemo team!
Besides, it is my first gadget with an integrated keyboard at all (and the second one running Linux from the start, after the OpenMoko neo1973).

First programs installed: openssh and avahi-daemon
First programs missed: pulseaudio and freeciv. But there is hope.

¹⁾ at least for the initial locking

N810 ordered ... not

Nokia is teasing me. Yesterday an eMail entitled "N810 maemo program instructions" arrived, and with it a new rebate code. I happily followed the included link to the German Nokia online shop and entered the code, only to learn that the shop still considers it invalid :/