Just to add my $ .02:
I used dropbear to get root access on my N800, changed my user passwd, and also locked the root account, after changing sudoers as described in the wiki @ maemo.org.
This was all done with osso-xterm 0.13 from the repo, and I have hit o rodblocks. Everything is just peachy.

You should checkout becomeroot, you do not need to edit sudoers file. Just install becomeroot and ssh or xterm and you have root.

thanks for the tip. I did check becomeroot out, but I prefer the tight control editing sudoers gives me. I set it to only allow user to launch a root shell upon authenticating with a password. otherwise no one gets root on the tablet, through openssh or otherwise.

I'm pretty much a newb so please correct me if I have misstated something here. I don't mean to imply that becomeroot isn't secure, I just don't know EXACTLY what it is changing, whereby doing it manually I know just what has been changed.