Meego forum member, fatalsaint, created a guide to install the Meego Preview for the Nokia N900. You shouldn’t do this if the N900 is your daily device because it isn’t targeted for end-users yet. The guide writer even warned developers to stay away. Noone can stop the curious, so read on if you’re still interested.

These instructions came from the Meego forums posted by the user, fatalsaint. I recommend you read the thread carefully before trying this.

1. Grab the N900 MeeGo kickstart file from here.

2. Move it to where you will be building all of this. If you copy/paste from the script below, that’s going to be in ~/build

3. Add the Ubuntu MeeGo repositories to /etc/apt/sources.list.

deb http://repo.meego.com/tools/repos/ubuntu/9.10/ /

4. Script. Copy/paste this to a terminal.

#Create work area
mkdir ~/build
cd ~/build
#Get python-elementtree
wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/universe/e/elementtree/python-elementtree_1.2.6-14_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i python-elementtree_1.2.6-14_all.deb
sudo apt-get update
#install syslinux and dependencies
sudo apt-get install syslinux=3.85
sudo apt-get install mtd-utils qemu-arm-static git-core
#build latest meego-image-creator, the one in the repositories don't work
git clone git://gitorious.org/meego-developer-tools/image-creator.git
cd image-creator
sudo tools/mic-check-alldeps
make clean
make
sudo make install
cd ..
#create N900 image
sudo mic-image-creator --run-mode=0 --cache=mycachedir --format=raw --arch=armv7l --save-kernel --config=meego-handset-armv7l-n900-nokia-closed-1.0.80.8.20100630.ks

5. Connect your booted N900 to your computer. Select “Mass Storage mode”. In Ubuntu, determine which device it assigned your SD card. Mine did /dev/sdc.

6. Copy filesystem to N900 SD card. Replace “DEVICE” with your N900 External SD Card device (change XXXX’s).

sudo dd bs=4096 if=meego-handset-armv7l-n900-nokia-closed-1.0.80.8.20100630-1.0.80.20100630.XXXX-raw/meego-handset-armv7l-n900-nokia-closed-1.0.80.8.20100630-1.0.80.20100630.XXXX-sda.raw of=DEVICE

7. Mount the SD card, replace /dev/sdc1 with your device and first partition.

mkdir mount
sudo mount /dev/sdc1 mount

8. Edit rc.local:

sudo vi mount/etc/rc.local

9. Add the following line, above the touch line

echo 255 > /sys/class/backlight/acx565akm/brightness

10. Unmount

sudo umount mount

11. Disconnect and shut off N900.

12. Run flasher (change XXXX’s)

sudo flasher-3.5 -l -b -k meego-handset-armv7l-n900-nokia-closed-1.0.80.8.20100630-1.0.80.20100630.XXXX-vmlinuz-2.6.35~rc3-119.1-n900

13. When prompted for USB device, connect N900, turn on and hold “u”

14. That should be all. If you bump into problems or have any questions, I suggest heading to the Meego forums, where these instructions were copied & pasted. I’m afraid to try it!