Changing iPhone 3G Root Password

1) Jailbreak your iPhone

I'm gonna assume you did this already, if you're actually trying to change your root password. There's no reason to change your password unless you jailbreak your iPhone, because no one will be able to access its command line in the first place.

• PwnageTool: http://blog.iphone-dev.org/

2) Enable and use Terminal on your iPhone

• Open the new Cydia app that PwnageTool installed and install MobileTerminal
• Launch the new MobileTerminal app (Skip to step 3)

2.1) (Alternate) Enable and use ssh on your iPhone

• Open the new Cydia app that PwnageTool installed and install OpenSSH

2.2) (Alternate) SSH into your iPhone from a computer on the same network

• Get the iPhone's IP from Settings > Wi-Fi > Blue arrow next to your network > IP Address
• At the command prompt (In Terminal on Mac or an ssh client on a PC):

  ssh root@iphone.ip.address.here

• Enter the default root password: alpine

3) Change your iPhone's root password

• At the command prompt:

  /usr/bin/passwd

• Enter your new password twice as asked.
• You may also want to change the password for the 'mobile' user:

  /usr/bin/passwd mobile

You Win! Now random people wont be logging into your iPhone.

iPhone 3G (Remote App Crash)

So I got my iPhone 3G today. I stood in line 2 hours before the AT&T store opened and then got my ne 16Gb black an hour later. There were only 25 people in front of me, which is way betetr than the 500+ I saw at fashion island yesterday.

Anyway, it's a pretty awesome phone and I'll probably review a few features and apps, but I just wanted to document a problem I had that I couldn't find written up.

I had been using the Apple Remote App to play music on my computer and start tv shows. And then one time when I opened Remote my iPhone went to a black screen and then showed a white apple logo. The slide to unlock globe eventually came up, but it scared me for a bit. It turns out my iPhone had crashed and rebooted.

So I thought everything was fine until I noticed on the top left it said No SIM and wouldn't let me connect to the computer when I plugged it in. I was really hoping it hadn't somehow wiped my SIM card, which would suck. Thankfully I was able to get it back to normal by just rebooting the iPhone:

• Hold down the home and power buttons and slide to shut off
• then push the power button to turn on.

Mac OS 10.5.3/10.5.4 nvidia 256 Colors Driver Fix

I can't take credit for the idea, I found a poorly translated blog post that explains it. He found the fix on the MacRumors forum. Anyway, lets start from the facts.

Problem:

Mac OS 10.5.3 nvidia video card drivers no longer support 256 colors mode, and 10.5.4 didn't fix it. This means that all your old favorites no longer work, namely Diablo 2 and Starcraft (Both games by Blizzard).

Fix:

Revert to 10.5.2 Drivers. Seems simple, eh?

Unfortunately most people don't have a second computer sitting around that they haven't upgraded yet. So the key is to find a legal free download. Thankfully Apple still has the Leopard Graphics Update 1.0 available. And to get into those compressed files without actually installing it (since it probably wont install on a 10.5.3+ OS anyway) you have to run a piece of shareware called Pacifist that lets you view the files to be installed by a package.

WARNING: If you have 10.5.5 already DO NOT USE THIS PATCH. It will cause your computer to fail to boot.
10.5.5 Fixes 256 color mode for Mac Pros and MacBook Pros with nVidia cards, but not MacBooks or MacBook Airs with intel cards.
If you have a MacBook or MacBook Air, in order to get 256 color mode you must be using these 10.5.2 drivers on 10.5.4 or lower.
NOTE: Starcraft now works in thousands of colors.

My Contribution:

I didn't want to re-explain the process for non power users. So I've extracted the nvidia drivers and created a double click package that backs up your current drivers and reverts to the 10.5.2 ones.
Download (Version #4 - 22.4mb compressed dmg):
mediafire.com mirror
(1000+ downloads of the latest version as of 7/13/08)
(6100+ downloads of the latest version as of 10/1/08)

Yay! Have fun re-living your Diablo 2 days waiting for Diablo 3 to come out!

To Restore:

To revert to your backed up drivers just run the installer again! It should say uninstall on the customize page.

Manual Restore:

If the above doesn't work you can try the following in Terminal:

sudo chown -R 0:0 "/System/Library/Extensions Backup"
sudo cp -r "/System/Library/Extensions Backup"/* /System/Library/Extensions/

Drivers in this Package:

AppleIntelGMA950.kext
AppleIntelGMA950GA.plugin
AppleIntelGMA950GLDriver.bundle
AppleIntelGMA950VADriver.bundle
AppleIntelGMAX3100FB.kext
AppleIntelGMAX3100GA.plugin
AppleIntelGMAX3100GLDriver.bundle
AppleIntelGMAX3100VADriver.bundle
AppleIntelIntegratedFramebuffer.kext
NVDANV50Hal.kext
NVDANV40Hal.kext
NVDANV30Hal.kext
NVDANV20Hal.kext
NVDANV10Hal.kext
NVDAResman.kext
GeForce.kext
GeForce2MXGLDriver.bundle
GeForce3GLDriver.bundle
GeForce7xxxGLDriver.bundle
GeForce8xxxGLDriver.bundle
GeForceFXGLDriver.bundle
GeForceGA.plugin
GeForceVADriver.bundle

Update Version #1 (7/3/08):

- If you get a prescript error then you probably didn't have all the drivers that it tried to backup. Either that or you were running it a second time and the drivers were already moved.
- If you get a postscript error then it failed to set the permissions after installing the files. I'm not sure what would cause this yet.

Update Version #2 (7/3/08):

-The prescript is a bit more robust now and checks for the existence of files before trying to move them.
-The postscript has been removed. The installer should now handle the permissions itself.
-If the backup files exist on your hard drive the installer will only allow you to uninstall, at which point it will restore them and remove the backups.

Update (7/3/08):

-My server couldn't handle all the downloads so I've mirrored the file on mediafire.com

Update Version #3 (7/4/08):

-I added the drivers for the Apple Intel integrated cards, 950 and X1300 series.
-I also contained the pkg in an apple dmg, which compresses a bit better than zip.
-I'm not sure why so many people aren't getting the files installed. The installer is supposed to handle that part, and I have reports that it does work on more than just my machine. Worse comes to worse you can at least run the uninstaller, since the scripts seem to work for everyone.

Update Version #4 (7/4/08):

-I was finally able to duplicate the problem of the scripts running the files not being installed. I believe it is a limitation of PackageMaker that it doesn't want to let it install into system folders.
-So I've made a new package (version 4) that backs up your files (prescript), installs the new files into the /tmp/Extensions directory, moves the files to the correct location and then deletes the temp files (postscript).
-Hopefully this solves the problem. I was able to fully revert to my 10.5.4 files and then run the package backwards and forwards without problems. Hopefully you all will have the same results this time.