Playing with the N800 [LWN.net]

Playing with the N800

Posted Mar 22, 2007 14:26 UTC (Thu) by humberto (guest, #70)
In reply to: Playing with the N800 by broonie
Parent article: Playing with the N800

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.

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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.