have you tried adding "rootfstype=ubifs" right before "root=ubi0:rootfs" ? I've seen you tried it yesterday, but what happens if you do same steps as today and add this one in front of "root=ubi0:rootfs"? or try to change "ubi.mtd=rootfs" to e.g. "ubi.mtd=0" (actually the last one may be stupid, I have no experience in uboot on n900, but i remember setting ubi.mtd as a number on beagleboard or some other development board, not as string... it's just a suggestion which you may ignore )

Yup, I'd try that - it's the only important boot argument you're missing. Anyways, it's weird that it can't find the rootfs partition on ubi0. It's supposed to show up automatically when the ubifs module is loaded (which is built in, and should therefore be... automatic.)

Hi all,
I'm trying to install the tools .deb from the first post but I get "incompatible application package" error. I have a newly flashed N900 PR13 without CSSU. Any ideas what's causing this?

@misiak and @hurrian,

Yup, for some reason I forgot to type "rootfstype=ubifs" as part of the command line. That might explain the different messages from the kernel.

Oddly enough, I have a copy of the roofs on the eMMC (for backup purposes). If I only had a kernel with built-in MMC/EXT3 modules..

Once I get this whole mess cleared I will prepare a combination of U-boot environment, Kernel(s) and backup-rootfs (Maemo, Rescue, Nemo, whatever, the more the merrier (e.g. on eMMC *and* also under MyDocs as a fs image, whatever) so that the N900 will be completely unbrickable even if USB *and* SD card are not functioning.

How are you installing it?

Just download the .deb and (as root) do dpkg -i u-boot-tools..

Post (exactly) any errors you get.

We should probably ask Pali or FMG to build a kernel-power with inline MMC and EXT4 modules. We won't be flashing it on NAND, but keeping it for u-boot to boot into. My efforts at making an initrd for Maemo aren't going anywhere.

BTW, making an image of both rootfs and home is nice, since you can simply use RescueOS to mount and replace all the files

I actually asked Pali to provide such a kernel, but apparently its size, together with U-boot (which is what I wanted) would be >2MB.

Actually my plan for last weekend was to make such a kernel myself (FBCON, MMC, EXT2/3/4 as well as removing some stuff). This "minor" issue with my hacking-N900 got in the way.

I guess I could use my spare N900 (which for now I just kept mostly unused, except for letting my little daughters play with tuxpaint -- they love stamping pinguins on the screen) for testing this new kernel (which I actually have already compiled -- but not tested yet).

Some day I'll manage to test the kernel as well as prepare the whole infrastructure[***] for making unbrickable N900s. But not this week, and not the next

[***] Including, for Maemo5, a full rewrite of /sbin/preinit, and, where necessary, every damn /etc/event.d/ script so that *nothing* can decide to "arbitrarily" reboot the N900 causing a reboot loop. The decision to reboot when "something goes wrong" was plainly wrong.

If the worst happens, preinit/whatever should just load fbcon (if not loaded or built-in) and just drop the user to a normal shell. Rebooting doesn't help anyone!

The new kernel wouldn't be flashed on the NAND, it'll be kept as a separate option in u-boot to boot. We won't be dealing with the 2MB flash size limit.
*Note, you can take out the UBIFS and cramfs drivers which are inlined into the kernel. Why do we have those when we intend to boot into eMMC?

Furthermore, we can simply tweak bootmenu.scr to have the eMMC boot system as default. No biggie.

And the result is ?

Oops, forgot to write about it. At the moment I'm not 100% sure but I think what I tried was:

setenv mmckernfile bootimg.../zImage..
run trymmckernboot

But I just saw U-boot saying "Starting..." and it stopped there.
I suppose that the kernel actually booted (until trying to mount root) but without any console=tty0 command line the poor guy didn't print any messages on the screen. But obviously I cannot tell for sure.

I don't even know if I set the atagaddr or not. The phone is now in a drawer at home and I'm at work. I'll bring it to work tomorrow and try it here..