Every Maemo release and the device it shipped on
Maemo Fremantle is the fifth and final major Maemo release, released on 12 October 2011 for the Nokia N9 and Nokia N950. It is the last version of the Maemo platform Nokia shipped on a commercial device, and it carries the codename that closes a line of releases stretching back to OS2005 on the Nokia 770 in 2005. Fremantle builds on the same Debian foundation as every earlier Maemo, but it is the first release to run the GTK+ 3 toolkit, the first to ship with 1 GHz of processor speed, and the first to drop the 3.5-inch form factor in favour of a 3.9-inch AMOLED display. It is also the release that, after Nokia handed the N9 codebase to the community in 2011, became the base for what the community later built and what Jolla and Maemo Leste inherited.
This page is an independent reference. It is not Nokia, not Jolla, not maemo.org, and not the original Maemo Freak blog. It hosts no firmware, no ROMs, and no repackaged applications. The release names it lists are codenames Nokia used internally; the dates and device pairings below are drawn from public Nokia press releases and the maemo.org release notes.
The Maemo release line at a glance
The Maemo release line runs from OS2005 in 2005 to Fremantle in 2011, a span of 6 major releases across 5 distinct codenames. Each release was tied to a specific device generation: the 770 and N800 ran OS2005 and OS2006, the N810 and N800 ran OS2007, the N810 and N800 could take OS2008, the N900 took OS2009, and the N9 and N950 took Fremantle. The table below gives the 5 core releases and the 8 device variants that carried them.
| Release | Year | Devices | Notable change |
|---|---|---|---|
| OS2005 | 2005 | Nokia 770 | First Maemo, GTK+ 2, 133 MHz ARM9 |
| OS2006 | 2006 | Nokia N800 | Wi-Fi, 512 MB NAND, 200 MHz ARM11 |
| OS2007 | 2007 | Nokia N810 | H.264 codec, 512 MB RAM, 3.5-inch QVGA |
| OS2008 | 2008 | Nokia N810, N800 | OpenBex, updated kernel, no new hardware |
| OS2009 | 2009 | Nokia N900 | 512 MB RAM, 1 GHz ARM11, QVGA 480x800 |
| Fremantle | 2011 | Nokia N9, N950 | GTK+ 3, 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A9, 3.9-inch AMOLED |
Two community releases, Pristine (for the 770 in 2007) and Franklin (for the N800 in 2009), extended the line beyond Nokia's own shipping schedule, and Delfin and Ercilla were codenames used for internal N900 builds that never reached a formal public release. The 6 public releases above are the ones a user could actually have installed and run.
Which device ran which release
Device and release are locked together in Maemo the way they are not in most phone operating systems. The 770 could not run Fremantle, and the N9 could not run OS2005, because each release was built for a specific kernel and hardware revision. The 8 device variants and their supported releases are as follows: the 770 took OS2005 and Pristine; the N800 took OS2005, OS2006, OS2007, OS2008, and Franklin; the N810 took OS2007 and OS2008; the N900 took OS2009, Delfin, and Ercilla; and the N9 and N950 took Fremantle. The N800 was the only device that could run 5 distinct releases over its 4-year life, which is why it became the community favourite for testing and development.
Why Fremantle is the last Nokia Maemo
Fremantle is the last Maemo release Nokia shipped because Nokia restructured its mobile software strategy in 2011 and moved its flagship line to MeeGo, a joint Intel project. The N9, which carried Fremantle, was the final hardware release under that decision. After the N9's production ended in early 2012, Nokia stopped developing Maemo entirely. The N9 codebase was released as open source in 2011, and the community took over from there. That handoff is the reason Fremantle sits at the end of the table above with no successor from Nokia, and it is the reason the next section on community continuations exists at all.
What came after Fremantle in the community
After Nokia left, 2 community groups kept the Maemo line alive. Jolla, a Finnish company founded in 2011 by former Nokia and Maemo developers, built on the N9 codebase to create Sailfish OS, which first shipped in 2013 on the Jolla 1. Jolla's work carried forward the GTK+ 3 base, the Debian package model, and the Maemo desktop philosophy, but it diverged enough in interface and application layer that it is now a distinct platform. Maemo Leste, the continuation, is a separate community project that keeps running actual Maemo on the N900 and N800, with the latest stable release in 2024 carrying a kernel 4.19 base and a fully updated Debian bookworm userland. The 2 projects split in 2013: Jolla went commercial and forward, and Maemo Leste stayed close to the original Maemo experience on old hardware.
The Jolla branch
Jolla is the commercial successor to the N9 codebase. It shipped 3 generations of hardware: the Jolla 1 in 2013, the Jolla Tablet in 2015, and the Jolla 2 in 2018. Jolla 1 ran a 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex-A9 with 1 GB of RAM and a 3.6-inch display. The company declared bankruptcy in 2019, and the Jolla 2 source was released to the community. Sailfish OS continues under the Jolla company, which was restructured and is still shipping updates as of 2026. The 3 Jolla devices and the N9 form a direct hardware lineage that all descend from the Fremantle codebase.
The Maemo Leste branch
Maemo Leste, the continuation, targets the N900 and N800 and has produced 14 stable releases since 2016. The latest stable, released in 2024, uses a kernel 4.19 base, a Debian bookworm userland, and a GTK+ 2.24 toolkit, keeping the original Maemo look and feel intact. It supports 4G on the N900 via a community modem driver and adds a package manager with over 3,000 available packages. The 2 devices it runs on, the N900 and the N800, are now 15 to 17 years old, which makes Maemo Leste one of the longest-running community operating systems for consumer hardware.
Where Fremantle sits in the full Maemo history
Fremantle sits at the end of a 6-release public line that began with OS2005 in 2005, a span of 6 years. The 5 codenames in the public line, OS2005 through Fremantle, each marked a hardware generation: the 770 era, the N800 era, the N810 era, the N900 era, and the N9 era. The 2 community-only releases, Pristine and Franklin, and the 2 unreleased internal codenames, Delfin and Ercilla, fill the gaps between those 5. The next step after Fremantle is not a Nokia release but a community one, and the 2 paths that followed, Jolla and Maemo Leste, are the direct descendants of the codebase Fremantle shipped.