Playing with the N800 [LWN.net]

Playing with the N800

Posted Mar 22, 2007 1:19 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193)
Parent article: Playing with the N800

<em>Such a message would perhaps have been acceptable ten years ago on some distributions. One would not expect to see it on a Debian-based system in 2007. There is no excuse for an "application manager" which is unable to handle dependencies anymore.</em>

The application manager handles dependencies just fine, which is why it shows that message. Unfortunately, the repositories can be, um, tricky. For me, I discovered I only had the bora-extras repository, but needed to add bora as well.

(Disclaimer: I work for Nokia on the N800, but have no particular insight into why this is.)

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Playing with the N800

Posted Mar 22, 2007 1:51 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]

Nope. "Handling dependencies just fine" means automatically downloading the depended-on packages, like apt-get does, as well as making sure that package repositories are complete and consistent. Messages indicating missing dependencies are bugs, either in the software or in the package repository.

Playing with the N800

Posted Mar 22, 2007 2:12 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link]

Nope. "Handling dependencies just fine" means automatically downloading the depended-on packages, like apt-get does

The application manager does exactly this.

as well as making sure that package repositories are complete and consistent.

How exactly should an application running on a random user's device fix bugs in a package repository run by Nokia?

Messages indicating missing dependencies are bugs, either in the software or in the package repository.

Bingo. As I said above, the repository seems to have some issues.

Playing with the N800

Posted Mar 22, 2007 11:54 UTC (Thu) by broonie (subscriber, #7078) [Link]

I believe that the application manager on the N800 is actually an apt front end. As you say, buggy repository and/or repository adding instructions.

Playing with the N800

Posted Mar 22, 2007 14:26 UTC (Thu) by humberto (guest, #70) [Link]

Yes, the package system uses debs, and apt-get works. The problem is when an app depends on a package that isn't in the default repositories.

The .install files have a work around, you can list several "required repositories", and the package system should be able to pull in all the dependencies.

Searching through the maemo wiki should help find installation instructions for many of the multiple-repository packages, while the .install files get written.

Playing with the N800

Posted Mar 22, 2007 22:49 UTC (Thu) by mgedmin (subscriber, #34497) [Link]

Ah, no. The .install files in the current version can only specify one repository. And that's the problem: apparently vim and gnumeric need some dependencies from some other repository (most likely repository.maemo.org with or without extras).

That's a big shame, especially when such problems are not noticed when testing .install files on tables that already have those extra repositories configured. (I created the vim and gnumeric .install files, and they Worked On My Tablets.)

The solution, I suppose, is to abandon this repository mess and upload all packages to a single repository (Maemo Extras is the obvious candidate).

An alternative solution is to wait for a new OS2007 update with the new .install file format that allows one to specify more than one repository. I don't think this one is as good, because some users will not upgrade their OS, and some developers will not notice that some dependencies come from a different package.