Notices

1.A noob here.you can install rootsh from repositories and can have complete control on your devise.
2.you can install anything from x term using the command apt-get
3.you can remove,replace,rename any file from it.
4.Have in mind that it causes TAD (TERMINAL ADDICTION DISORDER).The primary symptom is without any reason you will become root and close the terminal again.Even for simple GUI task you will go to X-terminal
5.Google it and become one among us.

My my, what a lovely ideological war ground this turned out to be. I must say I myself am all for teaching people to fish

However, googling is a difficult skill. It's relatively easy to find details about something you are already familiar with, but quite hard when trying to understand something completely new. For example, googling "xterm" produces the xterm wikipedia page, which is practically useless. So, I tried "basic terminal help" and got this as the first hit: http://newsourcemedia.com/blog/basic-terminal-commands/
Much better, eh.

To continue with the analogy, sometimes, when teaching people to fish, you need to start explaining what the sea is. And that trees grow twigs that can be used as fishing rods. Yelling at them "Here's a twig and some fishing line, now go catch some supper" rarely leads into much anything.

Still. I learned this stuff some ten odd years ago, trying to install Debian Woody on an obsolete piece of ¤##%#"%#¤". Of course the X server didn't start, and I had no clue why. Eventually I figured out that I should try editing XFree86.conf... but with what. All the tutorials told me to use emacs, so that's what I did. Except that, of course, I couldn't use it at all (still can't today, I found vim and stuck to it). Couldn't exit it either. Oh well. Long story shot: some 10 fresh installs and about as many days later I had a working system, no questions asked.

So... I'm a bit thin on patience with those whose first instinct is to ask for help when in trouble, instead of taking it as a challenge. Still, to all those of you, who feel like me about this, I advise you: Don't send those people naked into the jungle. At least give them a knife, warn them about the snakes, and suggest skinning something for a garb.

Oh, some one said, that linux is not for the lazy. WRONG. Linux is precisely for those, who are constructively lazy. For those, who want the problem solved for good with one sitting, instead of tackling it over and over again. The opposite of which is self-damagingly lazy people, who never want to bother with anything, for any period of time, regardless of the benefit.
Proper laziness is a virtue, not a sin!

@Suurorca

You're not a fellow perl programmer are you?

No, I don't think he likes sodomizing himself

/me runs

Oh, I thought that was what perl was for?

I was born one year before Linux was. We went from an Amiga family to a Windows family in '95, and I didn't even see my first Linux machine until I was about 9. It was a Mandrake box, and almost everything running on it was an Xterm session. I remember thinking that it looked way more complicated than anything needed to be. When I turned 17, I started building computers out of spare parts and installing Ubuntu on them. I discovered the usefulness of the X terminal when things started breaking. (There's nothing more frightening than the video drivers crapping out and kicking you back to VC1; especially when you have no idea what any of this text stuff means.)

But that's desktop Linux. The N900 is a little different, since Maemo5 was built for the device and vice-versa. You don't need to screw with ndiswrapper to get your wireless antenna to work. You don't need to edit xorg.conf to get your mouse, keyboard, and monitor to play nicely. Xterm is essentially there for the power user. I use it all the time for tweaking configurations, killing rogue processes, and anything I do that's network-administration related is all done on the commandline.

So, what is the function of X-Terminal? On the N900, it's a useful tool for power users, and it's a must-have for the Linux guru. If you're a regular user, you shouldn't have to worry about it, but I'd recommend you start learning how to be a power user if you want to get the most out of your device. The N900 has way more potential than any other phone, because it's so closely tied to its Linux roots. If you're only using it for Angry Birds, it may not be the right phone for you.

Thinking back to when I started using Linux, I learned everything I didn't understand on forums just like this one. I usually just googled and lurked, because I was afraid of asking questions that would make me look like a noob. I relied on people asking the simple questions, and helpful people answering those questions. Ever since Nokia threw the baby out with the bathwater, the N900 has turned into a bitter elitist's device. Honest questions are answered with "Lrn 2 linux or GTFO, noob." You can't build a strong healthy community like that.

As in the world, you have to find your way to the helpful people here. I remember reading a newspaper article about a visiting foreign family that made a wrong turn in Los Angeles and as a result one of their children died, and not from a traffic accident.

I have seen wonderful threads lately explaining to newbs (and to me) how to create scripts so you can click and run them just like programs.

It is not true that this place has become elitist since Nokia dropped the MS-bomb. You might get mugged if you wander in the wrong neighborhood, but that has always been true. Learn to talk to and listen to the natives and you will find helpful answers and probably friends as well.

The use of the command line (x-term for all you noobs out there) is everything that is anything (except what that is nothing
)