Alright, grab my kernel config first:

http://junkiez.org/maemo/kernelOC

after installing the power user kernel from the repository (reboot if you haven't done so), follow these steps:

copy kernelOC to your N900 (/home/user/MyDocs) over USB
open xterminal and do:

sudo gainroot
mkdir /home/user/.kernel
cp /home/user/MyDocs/kernelOC /home/user/.kernel

open kernelOC in nano to edit to your needs:

nano /home/user/.kernel/kernelOC

read the # comments in that file, should give you a good idea of what you're after.

after you're done editing, save with ctrl+x (then y, enter)

then, if you're sure your settings are kosher:

kernel-config load kernelOC

if it doesn't hang up or reboot immediately, test out a couple of videos in media player/browse the web a little bit. If it doesn't lock up:

kernel-config default kernelOC



Now, your N900 will have essentially my same settings, for a bit of other tweaking:

nano /etc/init.d/rcS

scroll down to almost the end of the file where you'll find comments stating the following:

# adjust other kernel parameters to minimize memory consumption
# and optimize IO pressure

change the values /proc/sys/vm/swappiness and /proc/sys/vm/page-cluster to read:

echo 50 > /proc/sys/vm/swappiness
echo 0 > /proc/sys/vm/page-cluster

save and exit nano.

if you'd like to swap from your sd card, please partition it with a swap partition and use a script titled 'swapmod' in /etc/event.d like so:

nano /etc/event.d/swapmod

enter the following:

start on started hildon-desktop
stop on starting shutdown
console none
service

script

swapoff /dev/mmcblk0p3
swapon /dev/mmcblk1p2

end script



Please note, the above partitions - /dev/mmcblk0p3 is Maemo5's default internal swap location, and /dev/mmcblk1p2 is the second partition on the sd card, assuming you have created a swap partition on your sdcard and want to use it and it alone.

http://wiki.maemo.org/Swap_on_microSD for more details.

Let me know if you need any help.