Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Use HAM....please
..instead of apt-get...
especially being new...
HAM is there for a reason.

only apt-get ANYTHING if you are doing stuff which is beyond maenoob territory.

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Erm, nothing??? Really?
That would be abnormal, indeed.


THAT will not work as root is normally not in sudoer's list. And you should receive a message like that.
So either use sudo or inside rootsh do not.

Your device will have sent a SMS to a (obsoleted?) account of Nokia.
What happens with that info? No idea! But I guess nothing (or in wprst case MS knows now about your device and SIM).

???

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Hi, sorry to be late (didn't see the 9th page of the thread)

@endsormeans: what is HAM ?

@peterleinchen: I tried in normal terminal:

sudo apt-get install XXX

it asked for password, what is this password ? I tried 12345 (the phone password) but it didn't work.

then I made the command:
sudo gainroot

then I tried:
apt-get install XXX
it responded me about the locks /var/... and all (saying I'm not in the sudoers which would be normal)

that's why I tried sudo in the superuser console.

When I talked about autonomy, I was talking about the fact that those phones are said to not last long on batteries, however I was wrong, the phone went from 3 pixels down to no battery a few minutes after I wrote that, then I had the same charging problem as before, I belive there is a real problem:

The phone is charged, I use it, the battery reaches the low battery point, I try to charge the device, it works then it says "charge defect", I belive the battery continues to get down and the phone shuts off, I try to plug it on usb but the led bliks yellow, sometimes the phone vibrates and the NOKIA screen come up with a USB logo on the top-right corner then it goes back to nothing, then it vibrates and show the NOKIA screen again.

Do you hahve any ideas what it could be ? because it's been two days without phone for me and I'm hesitating of putting back my SIM card in my ancient phone.

Thanks in advance

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

It's the app. man. ...the application manager.
I do not suggest as a newmo (new maemo member) (TM-patent pending) you mess with apt-get.
Not yet anyway.
Anything you need to install uninstall is available in your application manager.
I suggest configuring your catalogues...
disabling all of them and then connect via interwebz to maemo-repos.com
and at the bottom installing and enabling all the available repos for the n900... (extras dev and extras testing are needed only if you know what you are doing and know what you need....so installing them and then disabling them ...until needed...is suggested...)
as far as your batt. issue goes.
Do the breakdown .
Sane approach.
The most affordable, least invasive, least time consuming method 1st.

1- get a new battery. In fact ...get a few new batteries...backup batteries never hurt.

if the new batt displays the same problems...(your description is reflective of a battery that has had it...not an internal device problem...although nothing can ever be ruled out...nor should be ruled out...but let us hope at this point it is your battery...)
then...it is good news bad news

2- bad news...it is an internal device or battery drainage issue...which needs puzzling out...whether that means logged outputs of where the drain is coming from...or worse...some disassembly required (I would hope not..) ...
good news ...it isn't your batteries! yay!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waRq6ZR7BNE
Hope I made that 2nd scenario sound better than it could end up...

Anyway ...
get new batts first...
THEN take things from there...

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

I support endsormeans's advice about HAM (the application manager 'app').
Because it sounds weird what you explain about using apt-get and sudo.


If you really want to mess up:
root password is default to 'rootme'
apt will not work when HAM (or other apt processes) lock
when you are in a root shell (after 'sudo gainroot' or 'root') apt has to work without pre-sudoing
when in a user shell the sudo will not work as apt-get is not configured in the sudoers file
go and figure

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

There is another argument for using HAM*). Maemo has all sorts of weird dependencies between packages and HAM has a built-in knowledge about those which makes it safer to use than alternatives. Yes, it is painfully slow but I second the suggestion to stick to it, at least at the beginning.

I also second ensormeans' answer regarding your battery problems. It sounds like a dead battery. It is very common for old batteries to hold the charge for just a few minutes. Get a new one or three.

*) HAM = Hildon Application Manager, the official name for "App Manager", as it is shown in the application menu.

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

He mentioned working with it for 4 hours last time. See quote.

And about the same when he received it from me - I shipped it almost fully charged.

Maybe I am wrong - he is only mentioning testing one battery - but as far as I know nazmi should have three batteries to test with. One included in the phone. One from his broken phone and one battery he purchased from ebay. All dead? There seems to be at least one capable of providing 4 hours of active use.

I assume this is an external charger? I also have a charger that can revive (AAA) batteries, but for that one it takes a couple of days to revive them. Are you sure this charger is any good and not making matters worse?

As I have mentioned before the phone had an error message sometimes. This error seems to be related to the (power?) kernel. Might be something worthwhile looking into especially because the problem seems to be erratic. You shouldn't flash with a flat battery though..

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

A battery can be 'dead' (or almost) but keeping device alive for hours.
Mine (actually used) holds a whole day. But if I use 3G internet it may happen that it shuts down unexpectedly. And after reboot it holds'til the evening (not using 3G anymore). So I call mine 'almost dead' (but keep using it :)) ...

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Not to mention that some nazmi's posts are somewhat contradictory or at least confusing. It may be just me but I've lost track so please forgive me if I speak from the wrong orifice.

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

My comments were based on the same information, and I agree some details are confusing or/and incomplete. I consider myself a newmo* though and lack the actual experience with the N900 you guys have. Only used one N900 for a year as a stand alone mini-pc, not connected to internet and not even used as a phone. If someone is speaking from the wrong orifice it is probably me ;)

*(TM) endsormeans