Hi, On 17 February 2010 09:49, Daniel Martin Yerga <dyerga@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi. > > ----- Original message ----- >> Nelson, >> >> > I must say I am really disappointed at how painful it is to do an >> > update on the N900. >> >> I have to agree. I was especially annoyed by the crap on >> http://wiki.maemo.org/Maemo_5/PR1.1.1: >> >> "There are reports that at least 42MB of free rootfs is needed for >> the update. You have probably installed unstable software from >> Extras-devel or other source with weak quality control. The simple >> solution is to uninstall anything not coming from Ovi and maemo.org >> Extras." > > That's not crap, it's a very wise advise. > If you want that everything works as it should, then only use stable software from Extras and Ovi. You will able to update without problems. sorry, I have to agree with Johan -- it is crap. A living and healthy ecosystem consists of applications that attract users. Not all of these applications are good, it's mainly about quantity (which gives the user a choice). This is one argument for the iPhone (90.000 apps in the store). So basically Extras and Ovi is not enough. I don't know about you, but most news I read were about either the iPhone or Android. That's the hype. Nokia recently either has no media coverage, or a rather bad one. Yesterday for example I heard a newsman saying that "until two years ago, there were no Apps and that people had to stick to applications installed by their carrier." Obviously these people missed ages of Symbian smartphones that allowed to install apps downloaded from the internet. The merger of Maemo and Moblin to MeeGO? Many people consider this to be a bad thing, because of all the changes Nokia made to its smartphone ecosystem recently. There's the Qt vs. Gtk issue (is there a need to port all apps to Qt? Will Gtk be dropped?), which is discussed in comments of german news articles. Maemo 6 goes along the same lines: Why publish a new major version number of an OS, when its predecessor is not even a year old, and still has bugs? Some people wonder if buying a N900 is a good thing, because the question really is if Maemo 6 will run on it. Nobody wants to waste 600 Euro on a device that is deprecated a few month later.. The "Ovi maps 3.0" issue has been discussed on this list, too. Yes, it matters to the end user. Why pick Maemo when the apps for Symbian are much more advanced and mature? Nokia should've released Ovi maps 3.0 for Maemo, too, because it would've shown that they are committing to Maemo. Bottom line: Maemo isn't an established smartphone OS and all the changes recently made don't work in this direction. Apart from that, I really can't understand why Nokia doesn't supply tools that allow to build clean packages, e.g. ones that install in a location of their own, without saving *anything* to a location used by the Maemo OS. This is not impossible, on the contrary: All BSDs have a packaging and build system that does exactly this, same applies to OpenCSW for Solaris packages. Both even install newer libraries if needed... The space issue reminds me of days long ago and nearly forgotten: When I first got my Sharp Zaurus SL-5000 it was a problem to install additional software, and several attempts were made to solve this. That this issue exists in 2010, in the 5th release of an OS makes me wonder what Nokia before. And yes, I know that this is maemo.org and that it isn't driven by Nokia. But IMO Maemo can be considered as being a Open Source project, and as such it is about a community, consisting of active developers and users. And developers AFAIK want powerful tools. It should be in Nokias best interest to cater for its community. Please don't get me wrong, I really like Maemo and had many reasons to choose the N900 about any other device. I don't regret the choice but think that we should openly discuss Maemo flaws. One of Maemos strengths is its openness, which should be of interest for any open source enthusiast. It doesn't rely on an appstore, and its packages are available freely on the net in a well known format. This is simply brilliant and a dream coming true! OpenVPN, an Instant Messenger that can be installed using plugins (or Pidgin), the possibility to use any programming language one wants, a vast amount of media players supporting many different formats -- just to name a few. For the user it simply shouldn't matter where a package comes from, as long as this package has been built using the official tools "and stick to the rules" everything should be fine. AFAIK "maemo-optify" is a community solution, but it should've been supplied by Nokia in the first place. And, honestly, what do you think is the appropriate reaction of any user to a sentence like "The simple solution is to uninstall anything not coming from <insert source here>"? Feels a bit like being slapped in the face... Regards Christian Walther _______________________________________________ maemo-users mailing list maemo-users@xxxxxxxxx https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-users
