GLOBAL - Nokia's latest flagship device, the N900, has been the center of attention of Linux hackers ever since its launch in the last quarter of last year.

With hardware specifications measuring up to some of the best smartphones in market today, the handset has been a hacker's dream. What really attracts the Linux fans to this device is the open source platform in the form of Maemo 5 OS, which is often pitched as the most "hacker-friendly" mobile platform. With Nokia giving a green signal to users to play with the source code by including a terminal window in the default OS, scores of coders have been unleashing their coding prowess on this smartphone.

Joining the ranks is Brandon, who has managed to load Android OS - another open source mobile OS based on Linux kernel. While the Android port is still not user-ready, the very concept of dual-bootable N900 has been the cynosure of all the attention in blogosphere over the last couple of days, since Brandon uploaded the video on popular video-sharing website YouTube.

Linux hackers have been active on Android OS ever since it was launched in late 2007, with several users porting the device to a wide-array of portable devices including netbooks, portable music players and even desktops. However, the port to N900 by Brandon is the first on a Maemo 5 device.

With Google pushing its weight behind its Android OS, an increasing number of developers and handset manufacturers have been adopting this platform, and last year saw an increased activity and interest in this segment. As of today, almost every major handset manufacturer, excluding Nokia, has an Android device either in development or in market.

While Nokia has distanced itself from associating with the Android platform, the hacker community has responded by making the Android port possible in less than 3 months since the official launch of N900. While the port by Brandon needs some work on screen calibration among other tweaks, a fully functional dual bootable N900 may surface in the subsequent months.