Well I was thinking that I could provide you the images if you are willing to try that. I've got a spare N9 that I need to flash clean anyway one of these days when I find time for it

Here is the (erm, one) thread about hexediting the vanilla (aka eMMC) image. But I forgot about that signing / aegis with N9, so might be undoable that way.
Furthermore when looking at that partition config there is no mentioning of p1 size, so probably it will partition from end (so my idea is futile).
But juiceme's idea is a quite nice one, too ...

--
about some other questions:
you need to look at the eMMC image
what device do you have? 16G or 64G. First one will still be isable but user space for doc/music/vid restricted to only <4G.

Yes, that thread is about doing it on N900 where there's a bit less paranoid protection schemes around device flashing and initialization.

juha@juha-R530-R730:~ > cd Downloads
juha@juha-R530-R730:~/Downloads > sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture flasher.deb
[sudo] password for juha:
Selecting previously unselected package flasher-3.5.
(Reading database ... 182662 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack flasher.deb ...
Unpacking flasher-3.5 (2.5.2.2) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of flasher-3.5:
flasher-3.5 depends on libusb-0.1-4 (>= 2:0.1.12).

dpkg: error processing package flasher-3.5 (--install):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for man-db (2.6.7.1-1ubuntu1) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
flasher-3.5

Actually, it seems that I'm not able to even install the flasher..

sudo apt-get install libusb-0.1-4 ?

What about the eMMC? I have the 16gb version, but I can live with 4gb.

juha@juha-R530-R730:~ > sudo apt-get install libusb-0.1-4
[sudo] password for juha:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
libusb-0.1-4 is already the newest version.
You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
flasher-3.5:i386 : Depends: libusb-0.1-4:i386 (>= 2:0.1.12) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).
juha@juha-R530-R730:~ > sudo apt-get -f install libusb-0.1-4
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
libusb-0.1-4 is already the newest version.
You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
flasher-3.5:i386 : Depends: libusb-0.1-4:i386 (>= 2:0.1.12) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).
juha@juha-R530-R730:~ >

juice@puuma:~$
juice@puuma:~$ aptitude show flasher-3.5
Package: flasher-3.5
New: yes
State: installed
Automatically installed: no
Version: 2.5.2.2
Priority: optional
Section: utils
Maintainer: Yauheni Kaliuta <yauheni.kaliuta@nokia.com>
Uncompressed Size: 147k
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.4), libusb-0.1-4 (>= 2:0.1.12)
PreDepends: debconf (>= 0.5) | debconf-2.0
Description: Flashing utility
This package contains utility for flashing Nokia Internet Tablets.

juice@puuma:~$
juice@puuma:~$ aptitude show libusb-0.1-4
Package: libusb-0.1-4
State: installed
Automatically installed: no
Version: 2:0.1.12-14ubuntu0.2
Priority: required
Section: libs
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com>
Uncompressed Size: 98.3k
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.4)
Conflicts: libccid (< 0.9.2-3), libusb0
Replaces: libusb0
Description: userspace USB programming library
Library for programming USB applications without the knowledge of Linux kernel internals.
Homepage: http://www.linux-usb.org/

juice@puuma:~$

juha@juha-R530-R730:~ > aptitude show flasher-3.5
E: Unable to locate package flasher-3.5
juha@juha-R530-R730:~ > aptitude show libusb-0.1-4
Package: libusb-0.1-4
State: installed
Automatically installed: no
Multi-Arch: same
Version: 2:0.1.12-23.3ubuntu1
Priority: important
Section: libs
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com>
Architecture: amd64
Uncompressed Size: 74,8 k
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.15)
PreDepends: multiarch-support
Conflicts: libccid (< 0.9.2-3), libccid (< 0.9.2-3), libusb0, libusb0
Breaks: libusb-0.1-4 (!= 2:0.1.12-23.3ubuntu1)
Replaces: libusb0, libusb0, libusb-0.1-4 (< 2:0.1.12-23.3ubuntu1)
Description: userspace USB programming library
Library for programming USB applications without the knowledge of Linux kernel internals.
Homepage: http://www.linux-usb.org/

juha@juha-R530-R730:~ >

Let me guess
juice is still on 32bit OS and you on a 64bit?

You have latest libusb but in 64bit whereas flasher is a 32bit application and needs 32bit libs?
Doesnt they coexist in Linux? Or are bundled in 64bit packages?
(bare with me, did not yet run into 32/64 thing on Linux )