I tried to change my keyboard mapping and when I did that, maemo booted but it hung at the "dots" screen. Using a meego n900 recovery image and angstrom OS, I now have an image you can load to memory using maemo flasher which will brings up a console and mounts the internal RFS as well as all available MMC cards. Using this image I fixed the keyboard layout, no reflashing the entire OS required and no forethought to install a boot menu required. ATM I am trying to add proper documentation including where to find source but it should be ready by Monday this coming week.
Might I recommend looking into the rescue boot method provided by Matan? I suspect that if you combine the two, you can make a simple installable package which would allow you to completely forgo the need to load the kernel into memory from the flasher utility - thus allowing recovery without the dependance on another device.
At the same time, I definitely appreciate the value of having a recovery OS image available that can be deployed from the flasher without any previous installs. So my personal suggestion would be to do both, if you have the time to do so.
Might I recommend looking into the rescue boot method provided by Matan? I suspect that if you combine the two, you can make a simple installable package which would allow you to completely forgo the need to load the kernel into memory from the flasher utility - thus allowing recovery without the dependance on another device.
At the same time, I definitely appreciate the value of having a recovery OS image available that can be deployed from the flasher without any previous installs. So my personal suggestion would be to do both, if you have the time to do so.
If I had the forethought to install something before mucking around I wouldn't have needed this flasher is misnamed in this case. Nothing is installed to the device. It's just used to load a kernel and a ram based files system (initrd.) Reboot and it's all gone.
flasher is misnamed in this case. Nothing is installed to the device. It's just used to load a kernel and a ram based files system (initrd.) Reboot and it's all gone.