Thanks endsormeans and reinob!

Ah yes, explain what I want to do. That would have been a good first step, I guess. 1-3 = background. 4=what I want to do.

1) The N900 is my actual phone, so I'm scared to death to blow it up.

2) My level of expertise is, maybe, advanced beginner. Maybe. I run Debian on my main computer. I'm comfortable editing config files or working with the CLI if --if!-- I have a step-by-step to follow.

3) I bought a Tizen phone in an attempt to rejoin the modern world. It's hopeless. Can't recommend it for anyone (no repositories, almost no usable packages, Here maps is nice). But it does mean I have a spare phone, so now I want to do a brain transplant on my dear N900.

4) The reason I want kernel-power is so I can do wifi-tethering. That's all, really. I'd like to be sure everything else I have still runs, especially GPS Track Logger widget, epub reader (Dorian), phone, camera. That relates to reinob's PS which, yes, I used to know how to do but I really need a refresher.

I see checking my installed packages that I have uboot-pr13 installed. ?? I don't see multiboot in the list. How do I check for sure?

My big problem is that it's been 3 or 4 years since I've played with the inner workings of the N900 and I've forgotten what little I knew.

Okay. So, tl;dr. I don't seem to have multiboot. I don't really need U-boot if I just want to run one kernel. I can install kernel-power from extras-testing.

I should figure out how to do the stuff in your PS (!).

How about the crucial packages working under kernel-power? Are the chances good? Or iffy?

Hiya "he-who-tilts-at-windmills"

I am not going to answer all your questions ..
reinob can do that far more succinctly on the topic.

(speaking of which....THAT was a fabulous layman explanation reinob...really truly...fill this place with explanations like that and we can then teach "maemo linux and how to use your devices like a pro..." classes to kindergartners without having to teach at all.. A truly excellent way to help new people understand ..layman to pro ...very cool ... 10 stars man...really.....I now need to find every post you've ever done and blanket "thank" them...)

I will however address your biggest concern...
which is a valid concern at that..
roasting your primary daily driver because you fiddled with it...
yes it is possible to roast it...
more likely to happen is the need for a reflash and reinstall which can devastate you temporarily and still leave you phone-less until you get it up and running again.

The solution to this dilemma is simple to alleviate your stress and worry ...so you never have to worry about your primary phone.

A- get a second beater n900 and fiddle with that instead.
and / or
B- get a n800 or n810 and fiddle with them (may wish to wait until you see one on a good price) they are cheaper and almost un-roast-able ....
As you see from my sig I have a number of each of the n900 n800 and n810...for just such purposes..
I have 1 of each.. which is my dedicated daily driver..
I have 1 of each ..for experimentation and blowing-up purposes ( )
and
I have of each...tucked away as backup devices in case anything tragic were to happen to the 1st two.
I have had my n800's and n810's coming up now ...for almost a decade ...
Superman got nothin' on 'em ...Almost freakin' Kryptonite-proof

So yeah..experiment with a precursor to the n900 if you are concerned about your daily driver...or get a 2nd n900..
only way you aren't going to ever NOT be worried ...

I like the idea of having a whole tribe of nokias

I haven't really thought in those terms because my head is still in the past when those thing us USD600.

I'm going to go off and have a look around.

Don't worry. I have been using Kernel-power for more than 2 years on my daily driver. Installed it without U-boot and just the package 'kernel-power-flasher' it will install the rest without much fiddling and I find kp53 as Stable as the default Nokia kernel.

Thanks for that, mr_pingu. Reassuring!

All's well that ends well. At least I think things have ended well. Some more testing to do, but the main thing is the phone still seems to work.

So this is what I ended up doing. I wanted to install backupmenu and get everything all backed up first. After two days of fighting with unmet dependencies -- I even downloaded backupmenu-###.deb and mtd-utils-###.deb and tried to use apt-get install from terminal -- I decided oh-the-hell-with-it and gave up.

I did have the files it says you need for reflashing, but no huge confidence that I would know how to use them.

Started up the Application Manager, hit the button for kernel-power, and got told Uboot-pr13 conflicted. I don't use it for anything, so I uninstalled that, saying "Sure, fine" when it told me this was a scary thing to do.

Then it let me install the power kernel. I rebooted. And everything is there!

Major kudos to the geniuses who wrote this package and made it work so well!

It is still possible to use U-boot with kernel-power, if you happen to need it later. From another thread.

Thanks for that tip, tmi.

I just checked back in to say that I've been using the power-kernel since April 17th and it's worked like a charm. No problems, no glitches. I've been using it for tethering on a mobile data plan with nary a hiccup.

Once it said something about the USB connection not closing properly, but a simple switch off - and -reboot solved that. (I didn't have to remove the battery or do anything special.) Unrelated to the power-kernel, I'm sure.

Love it!

Hi All!

I'm trying to use fcamera on power-kernel v53 (2.6.28.10-power53) CSSU-Testing but it does not seem to work for me; maybe it is related to fcam-drivers...

Is there a way to fix it (maybe someone can tell how...?) or is it something wrong on my side?

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks,

jm

Never used fcamera, but the fcam-drivers need the kernel headers for compilation, so there is a chance that it will work when the driver is recompiled against the right kernel-headers.