Someone PM for a tutorial on how I set this up. Well this is what I did using what I gleaned from this thread. Don’t do this if ur using your N900 as your main phone and don’t know how to flash!! Plus using a Linux OS will help a lot. I use Arch Linux anyway. You can also set all this up in a Virtualbox if you want!

1. You need to have u-boot on your N900. The U-boot thread explains how to set it up.

2. You will need to compile the latest N900 DT kernel. Just follow the instructions on elinux.org/N900. This will have to be done on a Linux computer. In brief u will have to git clone the N900 repo, change into that directory. If u don’t know how to git clone you can also download the zip, unzip and change into that directory. Then follow the directions to compile. To edit the config file you have to do first " make rx51_defconfig" before

The problems I had was the compiler listed on that page "arm-linux-gnueabi-" I didn’t have since I was on 64 Bit archlinux. After research I replaced it with "arm-none-eabi-" after installing "arm-none-eabi-gcc 6.1.1-4" program on my laptop. Also if you are using that then u need to install "arm-none-eabi-binutils 2.27-1' to avoid compilation errors

3. The other problem I had was "make INSTALL_MOD_PATH=/mnt/target modules_install" which I didn’t understand and copied blindly! Basically this creates the modules to be used with the kernel. So you have to specify a directory where you want to place the modules so u can retrieve it later! So for example like I did u can make a directory where you can access or keep the modules. So I used a directory on my home partition titled ARCH. So like me u get "make INSTALL_MOD_PATH=/home/fred/ARCH modules_install". This will give u folder titled "lib" which contains your modules

4. So if u have followed the instructions u get a kernel zImage which you will find in the boot folder located in /arch/arm. Copy it to a location you can retrieve later

5. That’s the most trickiest part. It took me a week to read up on how to compile a kernel. If you get any errors just google. Everyone has had those problems before.

6. Next is installation of ARCH Linux Arm on the SD card.recommended partition size is 4GB. Just know your partition ID. Also the partition should be formatted as ext3,4. I formatted as ext4

7. Download the latest tar from this link http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/ArchLi...-latest.tar.gz and untar it to your SD card. You can do this on your laptop like I did or on the N900 itself. Its faster on the laptop tho. I just mounted my SD card on /mnt. It could be different in your case.

8. Next I recommend downloading the old rootfs that Skry originally did. That’s because it has very useful configuration files. The link is still available from ftp://bokmal.de/alarm-n900/alarm-n900-201306-rootfs.tar. Untar it to a separate directory on your computer.

9. Copy the zImage that you got earlier to /mnt/boot

10. Go to your modules folder and copy the folder "lib" to /mnt/usr/

11. Copy the files rx51_us.map" from skry rootfs. Its located in /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/arm/. U would copy it to /usr/share/kbd/keymaps. This provides a keymap with useful shortcuts on the keyboard!

12. Also download an old version of systemd. The current version causes errors on boot so systemd doesn’t start. I got it from http://tardis.tiny-vps.com/aarm/pack...v7h.pkg.tar.xz. Copy it to /mnt/home/alarm. U will need it for later

13. Then unmount ur SD card and put it in your N900. On your N900 you need to create an item menu for your ArchLinux. A sample is given right on the first post of this thread. I had to add "rw" to ITEM_CMDLINE="root=/dev/mmcblk0p1 rw rootwait init=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd omapfb.vram=0:3M,1:3M,2:3M quiet" as ArchLinux would boot up as read-only file system.

14. The zImage needs to be changed to a uImage before u can boot. The instruction is in the uboot thread. If you want you can change to the boot directory on the sd card and perform the commands there.
Install package u-boot-tools and then run
mkimage -A arm -O linux -T kernel -C none -a 80008000 -e 80008000 -n zImage -d zImage uImage

15. If u have done all this , done your uboot item correctly, updated bootmenu when u reboot your n900 you shard have archlinux in the menu or whatever u named it. Select it and it should boot. That will get you to a console. The username is "root" and password "root"

16. Now you're logged in! I downgraded systemd as the current version 231 does not run properly. U can do this by changing to the directory where u saved the systemd tar. Install it by pacman –U systemd-230-7-arm7vh.pkg.tar.xz

17. If you want to use the n900 keymap you can edit the file /etc/vconsole.conf. Add the line KEYMAP=rx51.us.map

18. All the above can be done in chroot as well. However if u don’t know what that means then u cant try it. I did it on my laptop. However you have to use qemu-arm-static. It's explained nicely on this site "http://tinkering-is-fun.blogspot.com/2009/12/running-arm-linux-on-your-desktop-pc_12.html"

You can reboot and login again. What you do next is up to you. Look at the ARCHWIKI for details. U can choose to work in the console or install Xorg or desktop environment. I have tried LXDE (which) im comfortable with and Enlightenment . That’s a whole kettle of fish which I would describe in my next post.



Sorry if there are any errors. I'm an amateur just like you.