Gaining Root

[champ]

Has anyone done this? Is it safe to do? From this article http://maemo.org/maemowiki/HowDoiBecomeRoot?highlight=%28root%29 it sounds like there is a good chance that you will brick your 770. What is up with that? I don't understand why Nokia didn't give root access to the 770? So who all has root on their 770?

[champ]

It seems that you must have another computer with either linux or mac os x on it to gain root according to http://maemo.org/maemowiki/HowDoiBecomeRoot Does anyone know of another way?

[disq]

you could try booting a live cd, knoppix for example.

one could also try vmware. if you don't have it, there's a "vmware viewer" type of thing (don't remember the exact name) that's for free, and it's probably not hard to find a vmware image of a linux distro.

[aflegg]

It should be worth noting that root access will be a lot easier to get on the 2006 OS: the new application installer runs as root and installs stuff not within a separate sandbox (IIRC).

This means that even if root isn't enabled by default, a small deb could provide a setuid binary (unless they explicitly take steps to remove the setuid bit post-install, but I don't think they will).

[fanoush]

It should be worth noting that root access will be a lot easier to get on the 2006 OS: the new application installer runs as root and installs stuff not within a separate sandbox (IIRC).

Interesting. So user packages will be mixed with system packages? Does it mean that they will retain packaging metadata of system packages too? Can we finally upgrade only some packages via apt-get instead of flashing whole firmware everytimes? Will the new system support feeds and resolve dependencies so we can finally share libraries effectively between packages without forcing user to install tons of packages by hand?

[champ]

It should be worth noting that root access will be a lot easier to get on the 2006 OS: the new application installer runs as root and installs stuff not within a separate sandbox (IIRC).


Any word when the 2006 OS will be released? I assume you are talking about a updated version of maemo, correct? So, Does anyone have root on their 770?

[aflegg]

2006 OS was originally slated for Q1 2006, which puts it in the next couple of weeks. However, I wouldn't be surprised if it slipped (I don't know if it's slipping, but software usually does...)

As for the design, here're some interesting documents about the new Application Installer. (Username/password are both "guest"):


Architecture (https://stage.maemo.org/viewcvs.cgi/maemo/projects/haf/trunk/osso-application-installer/doc/arch.txt?rev=2032&view=markup)
Setting up a package repository (https://stage.maemo.org/viewcvs.cgi/maemo/projects/haf/trunk/osso-application-installer/doc/repository.txt?rev=2464&view=markup)
How to make a package (https://stage.maemo.org/viewcvs.cgi/maemo/projects/haf/trunk/osso-application-installer/doc/packaging.txt?rev=2690&view=markup) - NB, existing packages are no longer compatible, apparently.


HTH,

Andrew

PS. Champ, yes lots of us currently have root .

[fanoush]

Thanks for the links. Very interesting. And they will break binary compatibility too. Hmm, I hope they will take advantage of it (like moving to better gcc and glibc, use nptl etc.).