Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

https://www.kali.org/wp-content/uplo...li-rolling.png

Here is a working port of Kali Linux Rolling Edition with Kernel 4.5 for our Nokia N900 device.
This port is much more stable than my previous port, I have not faced any kernel panic errors, segmentation faults etc.
Everything that worked in my previous port should work in this port.

I have attached working kali-rolling rootfs image to this post along with installation instructions.

Installation instructions:

Step 1: Get a 8GB or more sized memory card.
Step 2: Extract 'kali-rolling.7z' file, it will give you 'kali-rolling.img' file.
Step 3: Insert your memory card to a linux system.
Step 4: Write the extracted 'kali-rolling.img' file to your sdcard (sudo dd if=/path to the extracted .img file/kali-rolling.img of=/dev/sdx bs=1M (here replace x with your sdcard device letter)).
Step 5: Install pali's U-Boot in your phone (Maemo).
Step 6: Copy 'configure_u-boot.sh' file to your phone memory, and run it as root user ('$ sudo gainroot' then '# ./configure_u-boot.sh').
Step 7: Insert your sdcard into your phone.
Step 8: Switch off and slide up your phone then switch on. And choose Kali-Rolling OS from the list.
Step 9: Configure your Kali OS on your first boot.
Step 10: Login with username 'user' and password with the password that you have specified during configuration.
Step 11: After everything works fine, shutdown your device and resize your sdcard's existing partition using any partition managing tool and you can add a 'swap' partition to your sdcard if you want.

Dowload link:
Kali Linux Rolling Edition for Nokia N900

I have built this using the official documentation from kali

I thank every person who put their effort on this device. Especially wicket, I have used his scripts for patching the kali's rootfs.

Hope you enjoy!

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

Reserved :cool:

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

Awesome! Kernel 4.5? Does this kernel support telephony?

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

good question.
telephony and audio were an issue if I remember when I was playing with the old version..
If it has no seg. faults... or panics.. or updating probs... etc..
I would hope it handles tele and audio...
crossing fingers to hear back from rapol the good news...

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

I have not yet tested telephony or audio, mostly the telephony will be supported by the kernel. Don't have enough time to test them :(

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

Just checked http://elinux.org/N900/Changelog
Seems to have speech since 4.1

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

Kernel 4.5 should support most of our device hardware, we need to find a way to use them.

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

Not sure - maybe this helps someone?
http://pavelmachek.livejournal.com/130784.html#comments

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

Thank you for the link.. :)

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

I am trying installing it and I think everything went good until I typed my password, but now I only have a black screen with a blinking underscore on the top left. I have waited a bit just in case the first boot would be longer, but it has been more than 10 min now. Am I doing something wrong?

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

This is strange, did you get locale and location settings after you typed your password?
Anyone else facing similar problem?

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

I selected my locale, region and then timezone, yes. After that there were yet a few other checks (white lines on black screen), that seem to go well too, and then this blinking underscore.

Uboot configuration seemed to work correctly too (I still have menu entries for Maemo, Maemo power-kernel, Bootmenu, and now Kali). I've tried launching the script from Maemo power-kernel first. But then I tried reinstalling (re-extracted the kali tar.gz, etc.) and tried configuring uboot from Maemo with vanilla kernel.

I've tried reinstalling, changing the locale, but no success. There is a third partition on my SD card, in FAT32, don't know if it can be related to the issue.

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

Quite similar to my experience. Here is a "screenshot" just before the blinking starts.

I also have three partitions: ext4 & 2*swap (for flopswap). Have to try again later with a different card. No SIM, but I assume this shouldn't make a difference.

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

May be something is wrong with the uploaded file. I'll check it once.

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

I have no sim either, but I don't see it making any difference. Hope this is indeed a problem with the upload and we'll have a solution soon!

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

It wasn't, at least for me. I got it running but don't really know what was the exact reason for failing before.

First, I erased & re-created the microSD's partition layout (ext4, swap, swap) with GParted (used Disks or sth like that earlier).

At booting Kali, I only chose the en_US.UTF-8 locale and set C.UTF-8 as default. Region and TZ as before. And hohum, the GUI started!
Afterwards, I ran dpkg-reconfigure locales as root and tested creating & setting the default locale to something else and after reboot it also worked. Finally, I set the default to en_US.UTF-8.

Beyond re-creating the uSD layout and using different locales nothing else changed for me, didn't even re-download the kali image.

(Later on, I've had some small problems to overcome like adding the user to the netdev group to get wicd running and NetworkManager still isn't running as user, only when logged in as root, but these are an another matter)

I also booted to Maemo for a while to see that FlopSwap works and then booted back to Kali so my guess is the 3 partitions shouldn't be a problem.

TL;DR: The uploaded image is probably fine. Try with a re-created partitioning or another uSD card. If all else fails, try different default locales.
EDIT: I only now noticed that Kabouik had already tried different locales without success, so maybe the locales can be ruled out.

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

Yes, I tried different locales too, but might give it another try with the same you succeeded with. [Edit: still not working.]

I also had recreated the µSD's partition layout and reinstalled, but no success. I now have 5 partitions though (did not know about Flopswap, so your previous post convinced me into trying it, which ended up in adding new partitions), so I wouldn't say that I made it simpler. :D The partitions are Ext4 for Kali, Ext4 for EasyDebian, FAT32 for storage, Swap, Swap. Patitions were created in gparted too.

Did you by any chance use "tar" without "sudo" for extraction the second time? I might give it a try as user, just in case.

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

Comp... Command line history says 'no'.
Sorry, I couldn't help you more. I hope you get it working, eventually!

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

Ah! I configured it again with the en_US.UTF-8 and had no success. I rebooted in Maemo to connect the µSD to my computer in storage mode, and did a "sudo chmod -R 777 ." in /media/KaliN900 (where the corresponding partition is mounted on my computer). I rebooted the phone, launched Kali N900 again, was not asked to configure anything, and now I have an UI and can enter my username and password!

I doubt what I did is safe though, but it might help pinpointing the issue. Any advice would be welcome. Turns out I might have broken sudo by doing that, among other things.

(And I have the same Netdev issue as you.)

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

Yes. You set wrong permissions on several files by that.
Sudo and sudoers files being two.
The correct permissions for these two, as an example, would be.

Some will need other.

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

Vest guess, tar was not created, preserving permissions,

tar cvpzf .....

Or, during extraction
tar xpvzf ....

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

I have modified the fist post, please download the compressed image file and write it to your sdcard. This will erase all your existing partitions on the sdcard. If everythng works fine you can create more partitions and install debian or other OSs.

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

tar file is working fine, I am not able to recreate the issue you are facing. I replaced tar with disk image file, now file permissions will be intact and it will be much safer than tar.

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

Thanks!
I realized I had all kinds of problems in Kali from using the tar file (wrong icons, network manager was acting funny, shutdown from user menu was not working etc.). After starting over with the disk image things seem finally to be working sanely.

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

Thanks. Kali now installs fine and I can log in. Unfortunately, after 2 to 3 seconds, it automatically turns off (the shutdown procedure lines are displayed, it's not just a hard reboot). It shuts down by itself, it's not related to any action.

Was the following command correct?

sudo dd if=~/Desktop/kali-rolling.img of=/dev/sdb bs=1M

/dev/sdb is my µSD after I formatted it in a single Ext4 partition (/dev/sdb1).

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

I can report the exact same thing. Now with the image the installation works OK but a few seconds after logging in it shuts down.

I'll see if I can have a look off-line. Is this using systemd or sysvinit as pid 1?

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

After trying this and that (suspected systemd, then UPower, then lack of RAM), I logged in as root (something I haven't done in many many years!) and it didn't shutdown.

I've now setup WICD to connect to my AP, which it will hopefully do early enough so I can ssh in before logging in as user and see why this happens.

Other than that, pretty cool! :)

Add.:
OK, I've created a swap partition to make sure if wasn't lack of RAM. I've also enlarged the partition because it is full already from the beginning. But still logging in as user causes a shutdown. Now even logging in as root I get a shutdown.

@rapol.goutham: why Kali? they obviously mess up an otherwise functioning Debian. Could you do all this with Debian instead? :)

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

Logging in as root always resulted in shut down for me too. I had not mentioned that in my previous post, sorry.

Your first session as root with no shut down suggests that the pattern is not so easy to reproduce or so automatic, but I honestly don't know what could trigger the shut down (at least, I can confirm it's not a action from the user, since I did not get the time to do anything after logging in).

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

I haven't experienced this. Don't know if it makes a difference, but I expanded the ext4 partition and created the swap partition(s) before my first boot to Kali.

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

I didn't yet figure out what the problem is, but I've since then uninstalled lightdm so I boot to the virtual terminal. Using startx, as root or as user, seems to work fine.

I now want to see if I can implant this on a N900 where the microSD card reader isn't working, i.e. installing this directly on the eMMC.

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

I just did the same (so ignored the installation instructions from rapol.goutham) but it shuts down for me as well. Both as 'user' and as 'root'
Will try again later and follow the instructions to the letter.

[edit] Tried again with following the instructions, same problem. Shuts down a few seconds after logging in.

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

I suspect xfce4-power-manager and/or UPower and/or ACPID and/or systemd may all be trying to decide that the N900 needs to be shut down real quick because they may believe that the battery is empty (looking at wrong /sys path or whatever).

This is only a suspicion. For some reason whoever/whatever is aggresive enough to decide to shutdown the N900 is nevertheless too shy to drop something on the syslog. Shameful behaviour, really.

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

I have not faced the shutdown problem with my device, are you facing this problem since the first boot or after few reboots?

And could you please check syslog (/var/log/syslog). Clear the log using ssh and login using user account and let it shutdown again. Then place post the syslog file here.

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

Isn't there anything updated in syslog?

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

Just cloned the image that I have provided to you to my sdcard. But I am not able to recreate the shutdown problem you are facing.
I have written the disk image to the sdcard without any partitions on it. But it doesn't matter even there were partitions on it, this disk image will replace entire partition table. Can you try with other locale settings on your first boot (btw I am using en_IN). May be something is wrong with xfce. Chroot to your sdcard and try installing other DE like openbox or lxde and also try reinstalling lightdm.

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

Some key combos (based on this layout):

| = Fn + Sh + L
~ = Fn + Dn

EDIT:
Esc = Fn + BkSp
Instead of Tab, Esc-Esc completion works: Fn + BkSp(2 times)

Home = Fn + Sh + L
End = Fn + Sh + R

PgUp = Fn + Sh + Up
PdDn = Fn + Sh + Dn

Scroll Up = Sh + Up
Scroll Down = Sh + Dn

Start of word = Ctrl + L
End of word = Ctrl + R

Start of line = Fn + L
End of line = Fn + R

Fullscreen(On/Off) = Fn + Sh + ,

Right mouse click (context menu?) = Fn + Sh + P

----
What I couldn't figure out:

Window Changer (Alt-Tab) = ?
EDIT: I ended up mapping Cycle Windows to Ctrl+BkSp in Window Manager.

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

check this link ;)
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ar...er/rx51_us.map

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

D'oh... so Tab actually is Sh+Space and the Esc-Esc completion fooled me.
Live and learn :)

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

The image is booting and everything seems to work. Thank you. This post includes a script to turn on the KB LEDs.
EDIT: update and upgrade went smoothly. Sound is working although i had to install alsa-utils to get it louder with alsamixer. Don`t know if that was the right thing to do.

Re: Kali Linux Rolling Edition armhf for Nokia N900
 

Yesterday, I ran apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade (have done that before this) and the touchscreen's (or rather the mouse pointer's) Y-axis got inverted after a reboot.
I tried adding Option "InvertY" "1" to /etc/X11/xorg.conf but no luck after a logout or even a reboot.
(I did then try "InvertX" "1" and even "SwapAxes" "1" just to see if there'd be any change but got nothing.)

After clumsily navigating to Settings I managed to start also the Calibrate Touchscreen but that didn't help either.