the hell of Maemo repos

On 11/21/08, Dmitry S. Makovey <dimon@makovey.net> wrote:
> Mark Haury wrote:
> > Everybody who owns one of these tablets is not a developer.
>
> according to original poster he was after Kismet. That is not a toy your
> "average" user would install. He did know what he was asking for. He did
> know about etiquette on ML and he should've checked the facts before
> accusing people. Mark, you didn't help the cause - you've inflamed issue
> too. Sorry, that's the sad truth.
>

...except this is not an isolated incident. I've had similar
experiences. Sometimes a "simple" update of one app through App
Manager is enough to cause problems.

As for reflashing, Chinook is still better than Diablo as far as
stability and certain apps working properly. I've had my tablet long
enough that it came with Bora, and there were compelling reasons to
upgrade to Chinook. The final Chinook upgrade was a nightmare because
the backup/restore didn't work and I had to reinstall everything from
scratch. The only compelling reason to upgrade to Diablo thus far is
the "flashless" updates, except people have been reporting similar
breakage with those...

So get off your high horse: these issues affect everybody, including
the novices.

Mark

2008/11/22 Dmitry S. Makovey <dimon@makovey.net>

> first of all: why do you reflash your 770? Ever since I've got my 800 I
> have reflashed it exactly once - to get Diablo. Is there some specific
> requirement of 770 to reflash it so often? Is that because of the fact
> that pre-diablo systems can't be upgraded without reflash?


Because 770 gets easily corrupted...

In 770 you can originally only install up to half a hundred of MB apps more
or less... This is clearly not enough for an active end-user...

After doing some research and asking Fanoush's help, I edited the first wiki
"how to easily boot from your MMC" (or MMC for dummies like me). Now this
wiki is a classic, and has been deprecated (without asking me at all, it's
ok, this is the way wiki works, I understand it perfectly) and substituted
by something that I'm still not sure whether it also works for 770 (I'm
going to check it this weekend).

So that I finally managed to boot from MMC and install all apps I really
needed... The problem is that this system gets easily corrupted (last time
it was because I tried to format corrupted MMC vfat partition, but did it
the wrong way and made unusable my ext2 partition, so that I need to start
again from ground zero). To clone the system to the MMC you need to start
from a fresh flashed device (I've experienced many kind of problems when not
doing so).

Secondly: you seem to know which packages you want/like/use. Why don't
> you have them handy someplace safe? every linux system I own (which is
> much more than one) has a "cache" of packages I have installed currently
> in one form or another so that in case my system/internet/something else
> goes in flames - I can rebuild safely. You reflash your device - you
> know you will need packages you have installed currently, why do you not
> keep copy of them? You seem like an "advanced" kind of person. It's a
> common sense, considering you've ran into that problem before.


Because nobody told me to do so. I never imagined that Nokia and/or Maemo
would be so irresponsible as to allow this to happen. I've never built my
own Debian repo. So I thought that my needed deb packages would be there
safe in the net... Of course, before starting this thread (some minutes
before) first thing I did was to save in a folder all my deb packages. I
even downloaded kismet package from a private owner who was so kind... so
that the thread was just a complain against Nokia and Maemo, though my
problem was already solved half an hour before... The aim of my complain was
to help other users not to suffer this same problem (that I had already
solved for me)...

Instead of accusing Nokia I would suggest to go to the "source" of the
> problem and ask repo maintainers for reasons why repo has disappeared
> and what are the alternative solutions if any.


In my humild (and maybe wrong) opinion Nokia is the "source" of the problem.
That's what people see when I boot my device (that I tell them it's not a
PDA but a full GNU/Linux box laptop, and I even teach my students C++
programming compiling simple programs directly in the 770): "Ohh, it's a
Nokia..."

Just going around and blaming the biggest elephant in the zoo is not going
> to bring back to
> life your goat that escaped over the fence. Yes, situation with repos is
> a Zoo and Nokia is the biggest animal there so it is convenient to yell
> at them at all times, but not always is it their fault.


Well, that's your point of view... (and many others' here in this list).

I'm an N800 user. I shot my foot off on more than one occasion just because
> I've
> decided to get "adventurous" and include or enable something Nokia has
> very little (if any) control over. Would I want Nokia to seize control
> and protect me from myself? No. I want to be able to screw up and learn
> from it. What you're asking is for Nokia to take full controll. No
> apples here thankyouverymuch. I like my eco-system exactly the way it
> is. Repos are responsible for their content and are should answer to
> their users. Nokia is (as a repo owner) reponsible for content in it's
> *own* repos and it should remain that way.


I agree with that.


> I applaud their effort consolidating repos, however I don't expect that
> Nokia will have all
> repos consolidated.


Before Nokia tried to "consolidate" any repo my problem didn't exist... My
problem came with Nokia's decision... So though they're indirectly
responsible for that... (from my point of view, of course).

And *that* is up to repo owners. Repo owner took
> repo offline - ask them.


I don't agree with that.

Salut,
Sebas.

2008/11/22 Dmitry S. Makovey <dimon@makovey.net>

> according to original poster he was after Kismet. That is not a toy your
> "average" user would install. He did know what he was asking for. He did
> know about etiquette on ML and he should've checked the facts before
> accusing people. Mark, you didn't help the cause - you've inflamed issue
> too. Sorry, that's the sad truth.


I'm not a developer. I'm just an advanced user. I use kismet for educational
purposes.

Salut,
Sebas.

2008/11/22 Faheem Pervez <trippin1@gmail.com>

> I don't know (and don't care frankly) if this has already been said but tz1
> plans to upload kismet soon to extras-devel. Tz1's version of kismet works a
> lot better than the one from Eko1 anyway (I've run tz1's kismet successfully
> on an N800 for 24 hours. People could not even get 1 hour with Eko1's
> version).


extras-devel??? where is extras-devel???

$ curl http://repository.maemo.org/ | grep extras-devel

gives ZERO result... what should I do now? Do you understand what I mean?

If it really exists a folder named extras-devel in
http://repository.maemo.org/ it should be explained in the main website
where you can find a detailed description of all folders in the site... Do
you understand what I mean when I say that Maemo is a mess? and there is NO
reason for this to happen, because solutions are sooooo easy...

Salut,
Sebas.

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On Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:55:28 +0100
"sebastian maemo" <sebastian.maemo@gmail.com> wrote:

> If it really exists a folder named extras-devel in
> http://repository.maemo.org/ it should be explained in the main
> website where you can find a detailed description of all folders in
> the site... Do you understand what I mean when I say that Maemo is a
> mess? and there is NO reason for this to happen, because solutions
> are sooooo easy...

The main page has a nice link to https://wiki.maemo.org/Extras

It's so easy, only READ MORE and TALK LESS.

- --
Daniel Martin Yerga
http://yerga.net
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On Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:47:47 +0100
"sebastian maemo" <sebastian.maemo@gmail.com> wrote:
> Before Nokia tried to "consolidate" any repo my problem didn't
> exist... My problem came with Nokia's decision... So though they're
> indirectly responsible for that... (from my point of view, of course).

Again, Nokia don't tried consolidate any repo, the pushing of the
extras repository was because the Maemo Comunnity want it.

I didn't see anyone complaint when it was proposed, you should have
explained your reasons when it happened.


> And *that* is up to repo owners. Repo owner took
> > repo offline - ask them.
>
>
> I don't agree with that.

If the developer agree with upload her packages to extras and
close her repository, but the developer close her own repository without
upload the packages to extras...


- --
Daniel Martin Yerga
http://yerga.net
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2008/11/22 Daniel Martin Yerga <dyerga@gmail.com>

>
> > If it really exists a folder named extras-devel in
> > http://repository.maemo.org/ it should be explained in the main
> > website where you can find a detailed description of all folders in
> > the site... Do you understand what I mean when I say that Maemo is a
> > mess? and there is NO reason for this to happen, because solutions
> > are sooooo easy...
>
> The main page has a nice link to https://wiki.maemo.org/Extras
>
> It's so easy, only READ MORE and TALK LESS.


Dear Daniel... the apps you've developed are so useful that I won't take
into consideration your yelling at me...

But do you actually think that you're right???

Maemo is a fucking mess and you've just shown it to me:

http://repository.maemo.org explains there only exists extra folder and
https://wiki.maemo.org/Extras explains the contrary, that there also exists
extra-devel folder. What a fucking mess is this? and who's responsible for
that?

So please stop yelling at me and read more before talking so much...

Salut,
Sebas.

2008/11/22 Daniel Martin Yerga <dyerga@gmail.com>

>
> I didn't see anyone complaint when it was proposed, you should have
> explained your reasons when it happened.


Why should I complain?... I think it's a great idea... when it's done with
care of course... you cannot disable a repository until you confirm that all
packages are correctly transferred... But it's so logical thing that I
really don't understand what all you are talking about...

Salut,
Sebas.

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On Sat, 22 Nov 2008 20:19:32 +0100
"sebastian maemo" <sebastian.maemo@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Daniel... the apps you've developed are so useful that I won't
> take into consideration your yelling at me...

Well, thanks. I won't take your last thread as consideration because
you have been helpful many more times in the mailing list.

> But do you actually think that you're right???
>
> Maemo is a fucking mess and you've just shown it to me:
>
> http://repository.maemo.org explains there only exists extra folder
> and https://wiki.maemo.org/Extras explains the contrary, that there
> also exists extra-devel folder. What a fucking mess is this? and
> who's responsible for that?

Well, if you look at one page that isn't announced in anywhere, and
that users shouldn't look to search for information, it generally
happen that you get outdated information, as it's this the case.
Also, a static page is more difficult to update than a wiki page.

But, I encourage you to write good reports in bugs.maemo.org of things
you see than are so "fucking mess", and sure the people in the
community will do its best to fix it.

> So please stop yelling at me and read more before talking so much...

Oh, no, I wasn't yelling you, at least I didn't want it. I only
was remarking the words, not yelling.


And please, don't take this so seriously, people shouldn't get
angry using its tablets, else the contrary.

- --
Daniel Martin Yerga
http://yerga.net
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sebastian maemo wrote:
> Why should I complain?... I think it's a great idea... when it's done with
> care of course... you cannot disable a repository until you confirm that all
> packages are correctly transferred... But it's so logical thing that I
> really don't understand what all you are talking about...
>
You've missed the point: Nokia/Maemo.org didn't ask to take down repo -
they have asked to move packages over. Owner of the repo made a decision
to unplug the repo and abandon packages in it (See Niels email for
details). I think it it quite clear what has happened and I can't see
how Nokia/Maemo.org is at fault:

1. Mail gets sent out on behalf of Nokia/Maemo.org
2. Repo owner has the impression that none of his packages are in active use
3. Repo owner unplugs the repo
4. User community gets upset with Nokia/Maemo.org

Clearly first thing you should do: contact repo owner and clear #2.

It is easy to blame Nokia/Maemo.org, but please do this when it's
deserved. This case clearly doesn't qualify.