Another word on application catalogues – tutorial
IMPORTANT UPDATE: one of users, Huschke, insisted on putting reasonable info on reliability of applications from extras-devel and extras-testing. I agree with what he is trying to say, these repositories are created for applications not yet approved by Nokia and Maemo community, even if hosted by Nokia and Maemo. These software packages are considered unsafe for your device! Before you add these catalogues please be sure you know what you’re doing.
Before I get to the point let me remind you about previous word on catalogues, where I’ve covered most of general informations about where to find packages I’m writing about. I will also remind that applications from extras-devel and extras-testing are there because they’re not completely ‘safe’ for your N900. This time I will give you step-by-step tutorial how to add them to your device. This thing was mentioned here and there many times, but some of you may have missed it.
First of all run your App manager as usual. Then open menu from toolbar and choose Application catalogues option, which will give you possibility to add new software download sources.
App manager menu
When you have it opened look if you already have extras catalogue, should be installed by default but may be disabled.
Catalogues list in App manager
Catalogue details in App manager
Open catalogue settings and uncheck Disabled field. If you don’t have this catalogue(s) add new with one of following settings:
For extras:
Catalogue name: Maemo Extras
Web address: http://repository.maemo.org/extras/
Distribution: fremantle
Components: free non-free
For extras-testing:
Catalogue name: Maemo Extras-Testing
Web address: http://repository.maemo.org/extras-testing/
Distribution: fremantle
Components: free non-free
For extras-devel:
Catalogue name: Maemo Extras-Devel
Web address: http://repository.maemo.org/extras-devel/
Distribution: fremantle
Components: free non-free
You can check weather package you’re looking for is available in extras, extras-testing or extras-devel using maemo.org Package Interface, which I’ve mentioned before. Just type word from package name and examine findings, package details will give you clue on where to look releases of what you need.
maemo.org Package Interface
From now on I will try to include link to this tutorial every time I post info on extras-testing or extras-devel packages, I hope it will help you.
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Please visit Nokia N900 Forum
Dude, you should really put a much much much much much much much bigger disclaimer up!!
Not only could someone who downloads stuff from the repos extras-testing and especially extras-devel seriously crack or damage their devices, but it could also harm the person itself e.g. by installing a demon in the background that sends your personal data or even passwords through the internet to some malicious guy… Why is that possible? Because NOONE garantees you that the untested and unchecked apps do not contain unwanted or malicious code! There is a reason why their is a Q&A process in place!
@Huschke:
I see your point, nevertheless it’s safer to use applications from official devel and testing from maemo.org than for instance install from completely unknown source by downloading .deb package, don’t you think?
I personally think none of really malicious apps will last long enough in maemo.org repositories for me to download, install, test for few days and review here.
@Maciej:
Of course downloading a .deb from a completly unknown source is way unsafer, but only because something is unsafer doesn’t make doing something unsafe safe, now does it?
Leaving the security aspect aside, there are also a lot of other reason why you should not download stuff from the extras-devel and extras-testing repos like unoptified apps (=apps that fill up your rootfs in no time) and such.
Additionally I wouldn’t call maemo.org an offical repository per se. Sure, the site might be hosted by Nokia, but the Q&A process and the development is mainly done by people from within the community. If you ask me, the only reason the maemo.org repo is enabled by default in the preinstalled firmware is the high quality Q&A process in place and I think advising people to avoid that is just not a very good idea.
Ultimately I would say that giving people a choice is always good and I appreciate you helping people with this truely awesome blog, but a huge disclaimer wouldn’t hurt, would avoid complaints and would let me sleep much much tighter at night
Cheers,
Huschke
Thanks, keep up the good work!
@Huschke:
I think we can behave like community, you have something important to say about safety, I have my ‘safe’ background with devel and testing. You’ve read the update above an I think we can call this some kind of compromise.
Thanks for comments, I appreciate constructive criticism since I find myself pretty far from perfect, any other comment on this blog will be welcome and I will surely take your words into consideration.
[...] For more info on devel and testing catalogues visit Application catalogues tutorial [...]
“Additionally I wouldn’t call maemo.org an offical repository per se. Sure, the site might be hosted by Nokia, but the Q&A process and the development is mainly done by people from within the community.”
- I trust maemo.org comunity even more than nokia itself
And without testing repository there is so little usefull aps.
Lets say midnight commander or mplayer…
Is there really no way to install sis applications on Nokia N900?
@Aboubakr:
.sis files are for Symbian and Nokia N900 is really far from Symbian, at this point there is no way to install such application and as far as I know making emulation environment may be hard to achieve and may eat up lot of system resources, I think there is no point in making this, porting applications is easier.
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