I'm trying to upgrade my N800 via my linux desktop (ubuntu feisty), and the flasher is dumping me back to the shell prompt without doing anything. Any ideas where I'm going wrong??

root@mediumspicy:/home/bklaas# ./flasher-3.0 RX-34_2007SE_3.2007.10-7_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin -f -R
flasher v0.8.7 (Oct 17 2006)

Suitable USB device not found, waiting

[ here's where I plugin the N800 and see it power up with the usb icon ]

USB device found found at bus 005, device address 064
Found device RX-34, hardware revision 1301
NOLO version 1.1.3
Version of 'sw-release': <no version>
root@mediumspicy:/home/bklaas#

the output looks like what you'd expect, but after the "Version of 'sw-release' line, instead of seeing something like this--
Sending kernel image (1236 kB)...
100% (1236 of 1236 kB, avg. 813 kB/s)
Flashing kernel... done.

it just sends me back to the prompt...

I'm connecting the USB directly to the PC (no hub).

any insight much appreciated.
cheers,
#!/ben

how about plugging to a different USB port?

or plugging in the USB first and then running the command?

thanks for the idea, but I tried all of those things to no avail.

I even tried a different machine (laptop, also running Ubuntu Feisty) and had the same problem. This makes me think it's an Ubuntu-specific issue, but I don't have anything else to compare it to...

Try a knoppix disk, then? Double check the permissions on the port too although from your prompt, it looks like you're running this as root.

Ubuntu does seem a little too prone to "overmanage" root permissions to me - probably a good thing for new users.

how does one know if they have feisty? where does it show which version of ubuntu?

Agreed on ubuntu's root management...I'm actually not a linux newbie and moved to Ubuntu for other reasons. Getting over the "no su" thing has taken some getting used to, but sudo -i seems to work the same way, so I've been reasonably appeased...until now.

My hunch is that this can't be a permissions thing since I'm effectively root, but I don't know what flasher-3.0 is trying to access on my system, and there aren't any error messages whatsoever to give any clues.

if you look at /etc/apt/sources.list you'll see lines like this:
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ feisty main restricted

feisty just came out a few weeks ago, it's the newest release. The releases are in alphabetical order...'dapper', 'edgy', 'feisty', etc.

#!/ben

Ok...so if I had dapper and I use the apt manager to upgrade the kernel...would it then become a feisty? If so, then I managed to flash my n800 device with the pptp kernel...so flasher should be working with it. If not, then let me know how to upgrade to feisty and I'll give it a go to check...

No in order to upgrade to feisty you have to download the new iso and upgrade your OS.

oh crap....