I want to delve a little deeper into the nokia n900 and I need root.
Ive read through the wiki and searched this forum. Here's a major problem with the wiki, it may have simple straightforward steps but not a single thought to: what if that doesn't work!

Here's what I'm working with:
$ sudo gainroot
Enable RD mode if you want to break your device
thats the response!? google that error message and you get one thread that veers wildly around for a while then plunges off the cliff face and explodes movie style.
when i try
$ sudo rootsh or $sudo su
it asks for a password that i never set, now im getting steamed
I dont want to break my device! I dont want to get into RD mode
I just want some good ol'fashioned root, what am i missing here?

You dont need to get into RD mode in order to gain root. May be the question is what do you gain root for. There arent too many things that must be done in RD mode nowaday. What wiki are you referring to?

All you need to do is install the RootSH package via App Manager.

http://maemo.org/downloads/product/Maemo5/rootsh/

Once that's installed, simply enter:


in XTerm, and you're golden


NOTE: there is also a package called "rush" in the repos that will give you a root shell just as rootsh will. To use that one, simply enter

into XTerm.


A bit easier, IMO


EDIT: it's worth pointing out that you don't need to 'root' the N900 the way you might want to 'root' an Android device -- all I've explained here is how to get yourself root access to the shell... if you don't know why you'd need that then don't bother

Once rootsh is installed just type

root

in the terminal shell.
easy

rgds

thank you thank you thank you

the wiki i refer to is: http://wiki.maemo.org/Root_access

weird, I swear i had installed rootsh package- and that was why it was giving me that strange error message, but just to be complete I tried again, now and it installed! now when i try the same command sudo gainroot i am awarded with the hash prompt! wow that was easy!

and all I wanted root for is any of the commands in the /sbin !
i dont understand why without root if you type in something simple like ifconfig it says ifconfig not found! isn't that misleading i could see all those beautiful commands in /sbin shouldnt it say escalate privileges?
anyway, now that i am the all powerful superuser it works great!

I am very excited to start hacking away on this machine I am blown away that i can load up wireshark or hydra or ettercap!
...and of course the first step was sudo gainroot
thanks again everyone for helping me take that first step,
I am very very impressed by this awesome digital community!!

Glad you have your answer.

If you look in Xterm after gaining root you are rewarded with a # prompt which tells you about the elevated privilege and is pretty standard across various shells.

The built in shell does not warn about this though, perhaps the bash shells do this?

rgds

Installing openssh client and server could be an alternative.
To get root in a x-terminal run:

ssh root@localhost

You can also install the ssh status applet to turn on and off the ssh server
as needed.

/sbin is not on the user's default PATH, but that doesn't mean you can't execute commands from there.

Just type the full path, i.e. $ /sbin/ifconfig. Whether or not that works as intended depends on the particular command you execute. Some need to be root, some don't.