[maemo-developers] Bugs: Bigger fonts for better N900 usability, cannot use * and # for special calls, N900 Wi-fi problem with Italian Telecom router

[From: Benno Senoner]

Hi all,
some feedback, bugreports:

1) too small fonts
I became Feedback from a friend which has a N900 (not techno savy) and
he said he likes the phone but the fonts are sometimes too small to be
readable
for people which do not have a perfect sight, especially on the move
(ie sitting in a bus on a bumpy road).

He said the screens he uses most are the contacts and the messaging
(SMS) screens.
Is there a simple way to increase the font size in those screens ?
Since in Linux normally everything is configurable, if there is no GUI
tool to increase the font size,
can they be increased by tweaking some config file ?
I think it's an often requested feature and maemo developers should
take this in consideration since not everyone has a sharp sight like
an eagle.

2) * # special digits do not work when issuing calls
Another complaint:  in europe we often use rechargable SIMs which you
can top up by buying a prepaid card let's say 10 EURO where you get
some special code
which you enter in the phone and then the SIM gets topped up.
The code usually contains * and # characters. for example the code
could be: *12345678#
He said if he enters this code the phone app says invalid number and
does not let him enter the number. So he has to put the SIM in another
phone and perform the operation
on the second phone and put the SIM back into the N900. Very annoying.

Was this bug already reported or fixed in a recent update ? If not
please fix it since almost any european customer will have this
problem.

3) problems with certain DSL routers (it's a general Linux problem).

In Italy the most popular DSL Provider, Telecom Italia (I think it has
70-90% market share), supplied a router called Alice Gate (mostly made
by Pirelli).
The are some versions of this router for example "Alice Gate 2" which
do have problems with TCP connections coming from Linux. I tested both
a Debian Linux Box
and the N900. The Problem is known and is caused by the tcp window scaling

see this forum post translated from italian:
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.moddolo.net%2F2009%2F12%2F22%2Falice-gate-2-plus-wi-fi-nokia-n900%2F&sl=it&tl=en

basically on the N900 when surfing through the Alice Gate 2 router all
TCP connections do hang after a few KByte making it impossible to to
access the net. DNS requests or small webpages do get displayed bet
usually bigger pages do hang for a long time or time out.
After issuing
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_window_scaling”
in the N900 xterm's  (as root)  everything works fine.

Now the question is: has this issue already been addressed in recent updates ?
Does it make sense to disable windows scaling by default on the N900
or does it have other drawbacks ?
One could write a small app for the N900 which sets this flag during
boot for users having problems with those routers.
Keep in mind many customers of the N900 are not techno savy (it's hard
to find the above information and hard to enter the command manually
in the xterm for the average user)
 and this problem will negatively impact the opinion that people have
about the N900.
It's not N900 fault mostly Telecom Italia's fault but the user does
not know. So I propose to provide an easy to use solution for italian
users since probably most will incur into the problem
(possibily calling nokia or the shop where they bought it telling that
the N900 cannot access the internet from home).

What do maemo developers propose in this regard ?

best regards,
Benno