I'm guessing he has that other root package already installed. I never get sudo gainroot asking for a password.

Either way, only difference is root puts you in the /root directory. You can probably just use "root", then run "passwd root" (without the sudo, since you'd be root already) that way.

But I wouldn't be doing that for another person's N900, unless they've made it very clear that they're okay with you doing it.

- Edit -

"sudo gainroot" works just fine without RD mode. Just installing rootsh enables it.