Here's my problem. I argued with Bec about Red Pill mode because honestly... I don't feel hand holding people into ****-canning their device is an overly intelligent idea.

And then I had an epiphany... I was over in another thread helping someone with a broken application manager. They could not refresh their repositories... and also, obviously, they could not then install rootsh. This problem exists on all debian systems. I have seen it on both servers and workstations. Sometimes (though rarely), when a repository fails to update properly it corrupts a series of files in /var/lib/apt/lists (I think) that can be safely removed to refresh the repositories completely: but you need root to do it.

And since for some overly ******ed reason I can't possibly fathom, the N900 doesn't come with root out of the box.. means that you have to Jailbreak it! Sure, the difference between Apple and Nokia is that apple wants to sue your backside for jailbreaking their phone - and it requires a computer... but on my android phone I "rooted" my device by downloading and installing a single app for the G1 and gained root. So evidently, we have to "root" our N900's too.

Ridiculous. But the long and short of it is.... currently: If your app manager is broken, you don't have rootsh, you are screwed since they took away Red Pill. There has to be some way to install individual deb files because it's simply required sometimes.