I've managed to fill my rootfs by uninstalling and reinstalling python a few times.

I had an issue where no python apps seemed to work, so tried to reinstall it. Made a few mistakes and seem to have buggered it. Things I've typed in as root:
apt-get install -f
apt-get install python2.5-runtime
apt-get --reinstall install python
apt-get remove python

Anyway I know I've been stupid and want to flash the device, but can someone confirm to me that this totally wipes the rootfs partition, so I can go back to starting from scratch? I *think* I tried this before and it didn't resolve the issue.

Reflashing does totally wipe and replace the rootfs. The majority of the python libraries are now held in /opt though, so won't be affected. You probably want to delete everything from /opt before flashing (or flash the eMMC as well - this will wipe absolutely everything from the device though, so backup MyDocs first).

Thanks very much for the info Rob1n.

I've flashed before (using these instructions), but not deleted everything from /opt. Would you advise the following action plan.

1. Backup
2. get root, go to /opt and then do a deltree (i'll have to lookup whatever the linux version of this is)
3. Turn off the phone and put it into update mode and do a re-flash of the new firmware


Thanks

didn't the setup wizard (first boot) wipe /opt already? So in theory, you don't need to delete everything manually before you flash...

If you're flashing the eMMC then that'll wipe out /opt anyway. Otherwise yes, I'd advise getting root, changing to /opt, and running "rm -rf *". This may leave some directories (as the python ones are bind-mounted elsewhere, so may not be deletable) but that shouldn't cause any issues later.

Rob1n.

Thanks - I'll flash the N900 shortly and post the results up here for future reference.