I've used the grep/John method a few times. I got lazy and just put it in a shell script

Entertaining thread Maemish. I'd like to repair the USB on mine but .. priorities.

And leste on Droid4 is so much more fun, for me.

After one day of work flashing and changing parts I now have 8 fully working N900 (4 of previous purchases), 4 device with no cell/sim/calls and couple of those mentioned has lock code to be encrypted. I am hoping I will find someday from Finland someone to sort those lock codes as well as to possibly fix (try to fix) those missing calling abilities.

One device flashed nicely but touchscreen does not work and changing the screen does not help. I have also tried only NOLO and only rootsf and only kernel flash plus with EMMC and combined but nothing brings life to touchscreen.

One device was just black and did not respond to anything and could not flash. Then tried the NOLO and only rootsf and after that could do both EMMC and combined but only to end up on bootloop.

One bootloop I got fixed, another I managed to boot up couple of times after flashing but if I shut it down it booted again. Now I can't boot it up at all but it is boot loop. Flashing went nicely without errors.

One had no calls but after I flashed NOLO and accidentally booted and got those pink brackets only showing on screen I flashed the device again and suddenly the call problem was fixed and no errors. Tried the same with some other but they stayed without calls.

Most of the 45 motherboards I took out booted up and worked well, just missing the usb. Really hoping they could be fixed. After that I really need a chinese contact to hunt me down a manufacturer from whom to buy parts: backcovers and keyboards with keyboard frames.

Then just waiting Leste to be ready for daily use and to have a Leste launch happening. Someone could also help then on flashing Leste on these devices (if I haven't mastered that by then, which I doubt).

Forgot to mention that my workhorse for flashing was my loyal Nokia Booklet 3G laptop which is awesome. Just can't watch videos but I use it for writing and the keyboard is awesome.

Yesterday sent the motherboards to England. Next steps and updates of this project is in other hands for now.

Meanwhile if someone has chinese contacts who could try to find a manufacturer able to produce N900 parts - feel free to join this project and try to hunt them down and inform of success.

Glad I fitted a 256GB SSD when I did as seem to be asking "silly money" for them now.

You have Nokia Booklet too? Please, if you have video watching working pleeeease help me! It would be awesome to have that. Or have you got windowsa on it? With linux I had it working but afvter updates it was gone. And if linux whatg you have in it? I think at the moment I have Ubuntu Mate. I think with Arch I could gewt it working but never walked that archaic path.

You should probably open a new thread for this...

Anyhow, define "video watching" - through browser? VLC? mplayer?
I'm not sure about the Nokia booklet's specs but they can't be too hot, and I'm almost certain you can forget about in-browser video playback because it's the heaviest option.

And how exactly isn't it working?

There's some pretty lightweight distro alternatives, don't necessarily have to got he Arch way.
E.g. AntiX.

It is the famous GMA500 graphic card problem with linux. There was instructions how to get it to work for ubuntu 14 or so but updates destroyed it. I have never learned how to prevent some packages from updating or how to downgrade them but there was a possibility to usew mplayer with smplayer with vaapi enabled. But if you do not have that laptop and have not updated system do not bother. I just thought if there would have been someone with answers ready. I can use it only for writing and that is why not wanting to go any deeper or take this thread further there. If someone has answers or solutions he/she can pm, if not, letg's drop the off topic subject. Thanks anyway.

AKA Poulsbo.
OK, forget I said anything.
You're utterly forked on that front; that hardware was/is a desaster, and Linux support is worse.
The few people who were interested in getting anything even close to 2D accelaration have given up years ago.
Your best bet is to find the best driver beta made ~10 years ago and a deliberately old Linux kernel and/or distro to use it on.
Or just try to run video without any accelaration at all.

Read and weep:
Intel GMA 500 (Poulsbo) graphics on Linux: a precise and comprehensive summary as to why you're screwed