If I just do "sudo apt-get update" it asks me for a password, so I just did sudo gainroot, and I do have rootsh installed.

so apt-get update (as root):
It "works" for a little bit, and leaves a list of directories, the last line says:
Reading package lists... Done

Apt-get upgrade gives this:

Nokia-N900:~# apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
gonvert python2.5-qt4-common python2.5-qt4-core python2.5-qt4-gui
python2.5-qt4-network python2.5-qt4-webkit wifieye
The following packages will be upgraded:
avahi-daemon hermes libavahi-client3 libavahi-common-data libavahi-common3
libavahi-core5 libavahi-glib1 python-xml python2.5 python2.5-minimal
python2.5-sip4
11 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 7 not upgraded.
Need to get 4954kB of archives.
After this operation, 438kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

I tell it Y, and hit enter. And it downloads and installs a bunch of stuff, which I copied to a text file, for reference.

Then I run apt-get autoclean and get this:

Nokia-N900:~# apt-get autoclean
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Nokia-N900:~#


Now when I try to update those apps again:

Gonvert is missing: python2.5-qt4-network(4.7-maemo7)
and python2.5-qt4-webkit(4.7-maemo7)

WifiEye works now.
Extra Decoders works now.
I could now install Brain Party if I wanted to.

So python still isn't updating.