Bit of a noob, so maybe i am missing something obvious. Should the new firmware be available over the air to everyone? My n900 is currently only giving me the option to update using nokia updater. I am a mac user (dont hate me ), so this is not an option for me.

The last mini firmware update came OTA ok. My model was purchased in the UK from the nokia store.

Thanks in advance.

pickle

Yes - see http://wiki.maemo.org/OTA_to_PR1.1_troubleshooting for some help in getting the OTA update to work.

Sounds like you're missing all the posts that say that in order to update OTA you need at least 45mb free in rootfs. If you have a bit of a poke around the forums you'll find suggestions for generating more space there if you need it. I would suggest you start by disabling any maemo.org repositories as they're goofed tonight anyway.

Good luck!

Edit,Holy Post batman! Rob1n beat me to it.
Though now the wiki isn't loading?

Flashing without NSU (Make a manual backup first):

http://wiki.maemo.org/Updating_the_tablet_firmware

Like RevdKathy says, very likely you just need to free up more space on your rootfs. The link given by Rob1n is very useful, but details a lot of stuff you probably don't need to worry about.
A quick 'n simple explanaton on making space and installing PR1.1 OTA:

1. Uninstall any software you installed from the extras-devel repository. Uninstalling stuff installed from extras-testing may also help.
2. Disable the extras-devel repository in App Manager (and possibly extras-testing).
3. Reboot.
4. Check to see if you have at least 48-50mb free in your rootfs. Open a terminal, type 'df -h' (no quotes).
5. If you have enough space, good - go to Step 6. If not, you probably need to uninstall something else.
6. Make sure your battery is fully charged.
7. Open the App Manager, tap on 'Update'. Simple from there on, just be patient and let things finish.
8. Enjoy!

Thanks guys. Following the wiki and running apt-get upgrade gives me an error along the lines of "unable to lock admin directory, are you root"

Im not root, and I cant install the rootsh app (which from a quick search I seem to need to gain root access) as the repositories are down. SO will park this until they are back up.

As it seems quite fraud with techy danger and I am almost at the end of a bottle of wine, perhaps no bad thing. I will report back when i get somewhere, as it may be of help to others.

For what its worth, I haven't installed that much by the way of large apps, so I doubt its a free space issue. But perhaps a conflicting package is more likely, as I have been poking around in the maemo-dev applications. Hey, I wanted the animal sounds as much as the next man....

EDIT: From crashdamages post, 'df -h' shows 57.4 meg available in rootfs.

OK, I now have root access and have 58.7 meg free in rootfs (checked with command df -h).

Running apt-get upgrade reveals no conflicting packages

next step, running apt-get dist-upgrade gives me the message "E: You don't have enough free space in /var/cache/apt/archives/"

despite me having 58.7 meg free in rootfs.

BUT it also says "Need to get 101MB of archives". Are these archives downloaded to the same rootfs folder?

If so, then why would my requirement be so big, given that most people seem to think that 50 meg of rootfs is sufficient???

Im learning! Just very slowly.

Pickle,
Disable extras and extras testing. Reboot. Try update trought app manager. Why you are using apt-get?

Hi Slender, I have already done the disable and reboot (taken from the the trouble shooting guide). The point of running apt-get is to see the real error message, which is hidden from the user when using the update gui.

I guess what im trying to answer is do I need to free up as much as 101mb of rootfs, or is the message "need to get 101mb of archives" a red herring.

The app manager is supposed to store at least parts of the downloads in /opt (or possibly /home/user/MyDocs), so the ~50MB free on rootfs that the update requires is probably for files being replaced. So either use the app manager or try moving the apt cache / download area.