Installing a developer filesystem and switching back to the original filesystem
January 9th, 2006
Have you felt the temptaion of trying the developer system for your Nokia 770?. It is a full featured GNU/Linux system, with some utilities by default (such as SSH) and more possibilities than the restricted official Nokia release (for example, you can use Python).
The main problem is that if you install it, you will miss all the Nokia applications (including the wonderful web browser), the system will be available only in english, and with poorer fonts.
But don’t worry, you can always switch back to the official filesystem. Let us see how…
First of all, take care of your data. The backup tool of the official system does not store the installed applications, and it only back up the files in the directories that you can see with the File Manager. When you flash any system, everything in your device will be erased. You can later recover some of the files with the backup tool, but remember its limitations.
Download the developer filesystem. You will need the MAC address of your device.
Download the flasher utility.
Download the original filesystem (also from Nokia.com).
Now you are ready to try the dark side 
of your Nokia 770.
Give permissions to execute the flasher utilty
chmod a+x flasher
Unzip (if zipped) the developer rootfilesystem, and flash it. You must turn off your device, plug in the USB cable, execute the next command and the turn on again your device (be sure that your battery is full, and the device is unplugged from the AC):
./flasher -r Maemo_Dev_Platform_rootfs.jffs2 -f -R
You will see a progress bar in the device, and maybe some messages. After finishing, the device will reboot with the new system. As you can see, there are not all those fancy applications, but the system seems to be faster, and you can play with a lot more things
When you get bored with the developer filesystem, you will probably want to come back to the fancy Nokia official system. Don’t worry, it is easy. Again unzip (if zipped) the official Nokia filesystem, and execute
./flasher -F Nokia_770_0.xxxx.xx-xx.bin -f -R
where x can be any number (be sure to download the latest version of the software).
If you want, you can also now enable root access in the official filesystem, adding the –enable-rd-mode option:
./flasher -F Nokia_770_0.xxxx.xx-xx.bin -f -R --enable-rd-mode
Again you will see a progress bar, and maybe some messages. When the bar finishes, the device will reboot with the new original filesystem. You can now restore your backup with tool in the control panel.
In the Maemo wiki, there more information about how to flash an official filesystem and a developer filesystem.
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