Maemish, yes, I got the point of the thread. Somewhat. As in, trying to speak aloud about your attempt to do something [instead of bottling it up], and finding amusement [instead of irritation] in ongoing troubles, and sharing this amusement with others. And trying to finally achieve whatever you set out to do, by your own means [since asking for help would probably diminish the educational value of the ordeal].

I am not Finnish, I am Russian [originally] ;-) It can be funny to try to pull a huge weed out of the ground, and finding it difficult, and spending hours doing it, and yet sharing the amusement with onlookers instead of getting angry or giving up.

https://keyserver.lucidcentral.org/w...linatus4mm.jpg

Thank you. Best wishes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Per aspera ad astra...

I'm very amused, thx alot for your posts!

Struggling at reaching a goal that seems to surpass your current skillset and to continue despite repeated setbacks might not be the most successful strategy in short term. But imho it is the best way to learn something new.

I have started using linux over 10 years ago, modded and flashed an erickson phone to look like iphone, modded android phone, installed maybe 15 different linux distros (tinycore, puppy, crunchbang, bodhi, slitaz, sparky, subgraph, kali, lubuntu, jolicloud, etc.) to different aged laptops (96Mb ram upward) which all have had their own problems with graphic cards or wifis etc. Yet it has all this time stayed as a mystery to me what are these: bin, dev, etc, initrd, lib, opt, proc, root, sbin, srv, sys, usr, var etc.

I have modified many .conf files and messed around with xorg and all kinds of stuff but just by googling and copypasting according to the instructions I have found. I have now started to think that now after using linux over 10 years it could be time to start to learn those things cause in this forum it would give me a better standpoint on discussions. I don't have friends who use linux and I have never before been a member on any linux site so there has not been a need for understand things, just to use them. And I think that knowing these mysterious things would give me some benefit while I try to mod this N900. What do you think? Should I try to learn what is behind this stuff or is it just a waste of time?

Yes, definitely!
Search for "linux filesystem hierarchy" and "linux standard base" for starters to get hints on what these mysterious things on your disk are

Maemish,
You just posted 2 things

#1 - You just posted a long rhetorical question that you also answered in the same post.

#2 - You explained the fact that since Linux is based on how the particular functions and structure work, and since Maemo works on the same structure ...
whether or not it is worth understanding it.
It is a moot point you have argued.

If you wish validation or affirmation.

It is obviously not necessary to know....
if one wishes to simply "use" an n900....and simply "use" maemo apps available.
Then, of course, one is limiting oneself...
to only what is able to do within those parameters .

But...if one wants to do more, solve more, figure out more, fix more, etc...

It helps to learn more.

Also...remember it isn't a race or contest ...
It isn't necessary to sit down and learn everything all at once ...pouring over "how to's"
Learning as it is needed for whatever one is working on makes more sense than filling one's brain with stuff not needed until it is needed.

Text written to amuse, not to ask instructions or as a guide how to do things. You have been warned. Read with your own risk.

Beginning

I wanted to get whatsapp, Instagram and Telegram on ED Jessie. I always do the mistake that I start with Telegram. And when trying to get it you need to edit sources.list .

I like leafpad but everytime (I have had to reinstall ED many times)when I try to install it it states something about some contrab and statoverride error. I have found an instruction to delete statoverride file/folder as well as some lock fie/folder and then I can install leafpad with apt-get.

But cause I don't know how to install telegram with right way with depencies I wan't to install gdebi. Untill that I have had only dbus and x11 errors shown with update. After gdebi there comes more, dpkg and such which are a bit annoying but I'll manage if I still can install stuff.

Then comes the telegram part. I look for possible repositories which have either .deb packages with telegram or armhf repos. Those I find from Raspberry Pi and odroid forums. Then I add all the repositories and update and try to install telegram.

If not found I look for downloadable packages, download them and then search for answers how to open them with tar and install and launch.

Many times at this point there are some dependencie problems as well as installing error stating that this is not configured and that is dependent of this and not installed, all hindering me from achieving my goal so I search how to fix such. -f install and --fix-missing do something, chown -R and chmod rights are needed for some (don't really know what they do but hope they'll do good for me), and the more sources you have the more good they do, right?

Latest found was aptitude -t and how to fetch stuff from backports repo (isn't that a miracle medicin for fixing dependencie errors?) and wow how apti-dude, my new friend, is trying to fix my problems like a pro! And just to make sure nothing is preventing my img to be fixed no root password!

Someone may wonder am I not scared to mess my device? Of course not! Cause in ED instructions it said something like that there is no problem cause you can just delete the image and reinstall it and your device is safe.

Now I'm not anymore sure it is like that. I have suddenly error on maemo side with package manager saying there are unsupported stuff from some outside sources. My Jessie is not working as should, all kinds of settings suddenly missing and messed, update gives dbus, x11, dpkg, gdebi, gconf2 and some other errors.

But I got chromium 57, whatsapp and instagram working (!!!) - which is to succeed on compromising the device which makes me feel I'm an abuser and molestor. But now I know how to do it! Now just in need to flash my device and start from a clean table and this time, this time I'm not gonna do same mistakes!

Yeah, for sure. Learning curve keeps circling but ain't that how the universe is made, an endless spiral seen in everywhere and in everything? Why should I be something else, some boring line from A to B?

The End

Becoming a hacker: The hard way.

I told before in this thread how I used over 20 hours trying to get kali img mounted to sdcard with losetup loop without success. Now I was finally able to spare couple of hours trying it again. Almost nothing had stuck in my mind from previous effort copy pasting scripts to terminal to get priviledge to read and write to sdcard or over the img so I had to google them again. I have now started to think that it could be wise to save these scripts somewhere but not yet got that done.

This is part of the instructions which I have followed.

1. On your PC/laptop issue the following commands:
Code:
sudo losetup /dev/loop0 /where/your/.img/file/is -o 128974848
sudo mount -o loop -t ext4 /dev/loop0 /where/you/want/to/mount/kali
sudo mount -t devpts devpts /where/you/mounted/kali/dev/pts
sudo mount -t proc proc /where/you/mounted/kali/proc
sudo mount -t sysfs sysfs /where/you/mounted/kali/sys

These commands will mount kali image file on your PC's/laptop's

Again I used two hours to get these two lines to work. After two hours (with the previous over twenty which I have spent with these) I finally managed to make them work - and understood why it didn't work before. Just started laughing to myself.

So the reason for my failure has been partly because I don't know what I'm doing and partly how it is said in the instruction about the path to the img. By the way, I really suggest that if anyone is giving instructions more publicly and writes as everybody normally writes /the/path/to/the/file/you/want/to/mount you should always add an example path after that. It helps so much. But even though justmemory who has really really tried to help me have used these example paths it didn't help.

The reason for my failure was misunderstanding. I had got in my mind that these two lines are enough to do what we are after: move the img files in open form to sdcard.

sudo losetup /dev/loop0 /where/your/.img/file/is -o 128974848
sudo mount -o loop -t ext4 /dev/loop0 /where/you/want/to/mount/kali

I had never before bumped into mysterious losetup so I thought this dude is mighty with powers and can do magic to img file and then just loop and its opened in the sdcard.

And because of this understanding of mine when in the instruction it says on the line two /where/you/want/to/mount/kali I put the path to the sdcard partition where I wanted it to be.

Do you see the problem?

I have been all the time made a loop mount point with the same name which I have named the sdcard partition where I have then tried to mount it. I just didn't get it the last time because I thought that I'm already trying to copy img to sdard (now I understand that this is not yet that far). And all the time there appeared a mounting point folder with the same name named folder as which was my sdcard mount point name. And because of that I always changed the name of the sdcard but it just did it again and in the end I had mountpoint folders named kali, kalini, kalia, kalaa. etc. cause didn't want to change the name too much. It just drived me crazy! I was haunted by my own computer who was mocking me by creating these folders. And in reality I was fighting against my own stupidity. Started to make sense all the errors I got: device busy (so I umount sdcard but in reality umount the loop mount point with the files) and then get error can't find file, no such directory etc.

But it took about 25 hours for me to start to really think what am I doing instead of just copy pasteing. In my mind started to first time form a folder which has a name linux terminal on it. From this day it is possible that some of this stuff could start to stay in my mind a bit longer.

Being persistent without real knowledge of things you want to do and try to do is a pain in the ... well, the whole body actually. Next line gave a bunch of errors though so I'm not through this yet. And just as a contrast I have masters degree and can comprehend and analyze very complex matters. But it is not masters degree in IT.

Becoming a hacker - may take a bit longer for me. Just can't wait to learn to throw some scripts and try to get access to some really serious places. My destiny is to be famous - but I think it ain't gonna happen the cool way.

You indeed did it in the hard way but I'm glad you are on the right path at your learning curve

Writing instructions about such things that are not meant to be as a starter for newbies... Quite hard you know because... well... these stuffs are not for newbies so if you do such things you may need some prerequisites and learning a lot. But you did your "homework" I think and you became a magician too

The longer they become. No one forces to read. Just for amusing purposes.

Got hacked - by my own N900!

My journey with chromium 57 on ED continues. And it got a bit tensious. I have now in 2-3 weeks flashed my device maybe 10 times (is there a limit before it says 'I'm done!'?). And installed ED maybe over 15 times. Why? Experimenting and messing around. Some does not install on ED so I a bit aptitude and a bit upgrade with different repos and bang - device has a hickup. And when I have flashed it doesn't go as it should (once device opened to fremantle with red squares filling the screen). And when I update I always have wrong repos set and there comes conflictions and can't do this or that.

Yesterday I managed to make a good install. Now I would get things work with chromium! But I have had my doubts with installing it from an unknown repo. Is it safe? Do there come unwanted passengers with the packages? And an outdated browser is not safe and after pm with one member I sought for sandbox and found that I can get firejail from jessie-backports and installed it without problems.

There has been another thing bothering me. I used to play with aircrack and installed injection drivers for it but it was like 10 flash since. But while I have browsed my device with ls -a in different places I found them on my device. I didn't put them there! Who did? The chromium?

So with many doubts I installed chromium. Normally I change the lxde desktop getting rid off the network status applet (cause don't know how to make it show cellular and not using wifi) and putting on one panel just what I wan't. But cause last install I lost my menu items execpt for logout and run I this time let it be as it is. I firejailed chromium open and it worked nice. Then I started to notice that the network applet shows occasionally green and blinks. Hah, so it pickes cellular after all. But it didn't really match up with what I was doing. Well I don't know how browser loads or such so no worries.

But then when I finished with my experiments I launched chromium without firejail and WHAM! I see my wifi status icon on fremantle launching and I see my device connecting my wpa2 protected wifi network without me giving any passwords!!! What??? Then I was in hurry. Close ED, disconnect N900 from network, open home laptop (which has f-secure vpn) and connect to router to change the admin and wifi passwords. Fiuu that was close!

Started to look the settings on my device and they had been changed to 'automatically connect to any wlan' and that was not my setting! And there are the injection drivers I have not installed! I was hacked by my own N900!!!

I felt so dissapointed with my loved one but still wanted to give it a change - and flashed again. THIS TIME I will check everything is done right. And not gonna port any settings from a backup as last time. Port settings from a backup? Hmm. I made that backup straight after flashing so there were default settings and after I had hassled with swap and overclocking I loaded the default settings - which changed my own connection settings back to default. Ok. It is possible that was the reason for changed settings. But the wifi password? That backup which I took from my laptop may have been much older one and may have had my wifi password cause i may have tried once the wifi connection. Ok. It may be so. But the injection drivers (which probably can't be used against me but which has a scary name)? First time I read what all is installed with Kernel Power which I have always installed after flashing. Ok. That is undeniable.

Now I have possible rational explanations why happened what happened. Now installing everything again from scratch. I just have to try is it chromium or was I hacked (again) by my own stupidity. I now know quite well though the procedure in what order to install things. After this try I will share the instructions on chromium 57 thread - or give a big warning if I'm hacked again.

Yours,

Maemish
a mere wannabee in many things

As amusing as the post is...
I think that before you start pointing at a perceived exploit and hack of the n900,
you better be backing it up with some very detailed posted information from your device that that is actually happening.
As in exact detailed methods done...verbatim ..
and copy and pasted outputs.

as amusing as you are trying to be...
This is a very serious statement you are making...
It raises concern.
and it has broad and wide ranging ramifications...far beyond your initial intention.