Installing software on MMC

[Titus]

Installed first additional software, Abiword via Application Installer. Everything worked fine, but one question arised: Installer software never asked, if I wanted to install it on the device memory or MMC, like my Nokia 6600 does. After checking memory info on the device, I presume it was installed on device memory.
I just bought brand new 1 GB MMC, so I would really like to use MMC's memory as much as possible, because it seems to be that also web-browsers cache, email,newsfeeds also use this quite limited 64MB device memory for their data, and there is no way in the options to change it (e.g. Web-browser cache->Use MMC).

How can, or can I install software on MMC card?

[FoulPlay]

This is a strange one.

I've had the device since August and still have not found a way to install to anything other then the device memory. Yet if you open the Control Panel and open up Memory, there's a view that displays memory use on the MMC and includes a category called "Installed Applications".

In conclusion, um, I don't know =/

[Titus]

Is this only Application Installer's feature ie. can developer influence where to install program, when making a package for Application Installer?
Nokia, please do something before it is too late: We'll run out of device memory, if good programs continue to emerge to this device. I want to install them all!

[pycage]

Applications are installed into /var/lib/install to not mess up with the rest of the system. It should be possible to make this a symlink pointing to somewhere on the MMC. The filesystem on the MMC, however, is a dumb FAT and the card is mounted with noexec flag.

I did not try it, but I'm sure that by reformatting the MMC and modifying /etc/fstab, you could install applications on the MMC.

[andymulhearn]

Applications are installed into /var/lib/install to not mess up with the rest of the system. It should be possible to make this a symlink pointing to somewhere on the MMC. The filesystem on the MMC, however, is a dumb FAT and the card is mounted with noexec flag.

I did not try it, but I'm sure that by reformatting the MMC and modifying /etc/fstab, you could install applications on the MMC.

I did find a link where this something like this was discussed but it involved hardcore geekery and building your own versions of fdisk so I walked away at that point. :eek:

[bhima]

If you're referring to the page I wrote on maemo.org, I only built my own version of fdisk because I didn't have an MMC reader handy :)

You can reformat the RS-MMC card under Linux quite easily. I gave myself two partitions, the first one standard FAT and the second one ext2. The 770 mounts the first partition normally, so it looks like I have a 2MB card. In xterm, I type "mount /dev/mmc<blah>p2 /sw" (or wherever you want to mount the second partition) and it's there. It's not actually that hard. :)

[buzzlightyear]

If you're referring to the page I wrote on maemo.org, I only built my own version of fdisk because I didn't have an MMC reader handy :)

You can reformat the RS-MMC card under Linux quite easily. I gave myself two partitions, the first one standard FAT and the second one ext2. The 770 mounts the first partition normally, so it looks like I have a 2MB card. In xterm, I type "mount /dev/mmc<blah>p2 /sw" (or wherever you want to mount the second partition) and it's there. It's not actually that hard. :)

Anyone able to give a step by step guide on this for us linux "virgins" :D

[andymulhearn]

If you're referring to the page I wrote on maemo.org, I only built my own version of fdisk because I didn't have an MMC reader handy :)


That was the one :)


You can reformat the RS-MMC card under Linux quite easily. I gave myself two partitions, the first one standard FAT and the second one ext2. The 770 mounts the first partition normally, so it looks like I have a 2MB card. In xterm, I type "mount /dev/mmc<blah>p2 /sw" (or wherever you want to mount the second partition) and it's there. It's not actually that hard. :)

So if you have a Linux system and a reader that will read MMC you can format/partition the rs-mmc however you want? That soulds pretty useful.

As Buzz says, any chance of some further info for us linux beginners (I have a ubuntu system lying around) on what can be done and how?

Andy

[Titus]

It seems to me, that for average user, not Linux expert, this memory limit is here to stay for now on. Using xterm or hacking firmware before you can get your software to work is no option for mass market product. In my opinion it limits 770's usability as a PDA, especially if program's data files (e.g. even browser's cache) also are on system memory (e.g. GPS software would probably need alone more memory than 770 is capable of providing). Not that Nokia ever marketed it as a PDA, but still a little disappointing.

[putkowski]

If you're referring to the page I wrote on maemo.org, I only built my own version of fdisk because I didn't have an MMC reader handy :)

You can reformat the RS-MMC card under Linux quite easily. I gave myself two partitions, the first one standard FAT and the second one ext2. The 770 mounts the first partition normally, so it looks like I have a 2MB card. In xterm, I type "mount /dev/mmc<blah>p2 /sw" (or wherever you want to mount the second partition) and it's there. It's not actually that hard. :)


THIS really isn't as difficult as it sounds. I'll be doing it if my unit arrives and I'll be happy to type as I type.

Great news about it's mounting the FAT. Tried that to a Windows machine via wifi?

[waddell]

It should be pretty easy to make a compressable disk image using UNIX/LINUX for the various card sizes. Then under windows, you'd just need a small program to write the raw image over the top of a new card. A modified version of the floppy creation program used by the *BSD installers could do the trick. Any unix geek should be able to make the images, and any windows programmer should easily be able to make the image writer program. I wonder if the different brands of media have different have different numbers of sectors, in which case we'd need to make images for each kind of popular rs-mmc card. I haven't tested this - just thinking out loud.

We could proabably also add a small script to the FAT partition which could be copied to the device and then run as needed to mount the ext2 partition on the card.

As much as I like UNIX, it might be nice if those who don't want to learn it did not have to go through any extra trouble.

[RogerS]

You can reformat the RS-MMC card under Linux quite easily. I gave myself two partitions, the first one standard FAT and the second one ext2. The 770 mounts the first partition normally, so it looks like I have a 2MB card. In xterm, I type "mount /dev/mmc<blah>p2 /sw" (or wherever you want to mount the second partition) and it's there. It's not actually that hard. :)
I second the comments indicating this would be really useful.

Does your comment about reformatting under Linux being easy extend to reformatting under WinXP?

And when I connect the 770 to my WinXP laptop, it sees the RS-MMC card as the E: drive. Is that where I would do the reformatting of the card? Or are you talking about executing this reformatting within the 770's environment?

Thanks for taking the time to explain to yet another crossover Linux newcomer.

[mbassett]

Just a quick query: I know that a symbolic link needs to be made on a "proper" :-) file system, but does it's target have to be on one? If not you could move /usr/whateveritwas/install directory onto a FAT formatted card, and still link to it...

[fpp]

That's OK for data, but will lead to problems for software (executables).

Actually there is a third way that could allow to install maemo apps in a "proper" Linux filesystem on the MMC card without reformatting or partitioning it (so it stays usable from a Windows PC through USB). It's done with a single (arbitrarily large) file stored on the FAT32 card, containing an "image" of an actual ext2/ext3/etc. filesystem. Through a trick known as "Linux loop devices" it is presented to the OS as a regular disk partition, and mounted like one.

I don't know how to do this myself, but I use it every day : on my Zaurus PDA I have a 50+ MB, writable Python development environment stored in such a file, stored on a FAT32 SD card, and to the Linux system it appears just as a regular bunch of directories in its main memory, through symlinks. The hero who provided us with this even created an installation package, so it's "download-and-click".

I really think this could be a good compromise between ease of use (no messing around with the MMC card) and functionality (Linux apps that work reliably from the card, without sacrificing Windows connectivity).

Although it's semi-magic to me, to many of the Linux hackers avidly wainting for their unit to arrive at this very moment, it's probably really old news, so I guess it will become a common option soon enough.

More info :
http://pyqplayer.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/bin/view/Main/PythonZaurusImage

[mishref]

Since this is supposedly a soft launch, We should make a sticky and write the features that we would like OS-2006 to have (e.g. install to rs-mmc).

[konttori]

Just as a quick thought, maybe someone could be interested in making a small graphical mount manager. This would also nicely help people who want to use a full size MMC card(as currently system only detects mmc inser on bay door close).

[Remote User]

Is this only Application Installer's feature ie. can developer influence where to install program, when making a package for Application Installer? Nokia, please do something before it is too late: We'll run out of device memory, if good programs continue to emerge to this device. I want to install them all!
I suggest that you pay attention to the howto's that are beginning to spring up on this web site and learn how to create icons that will open up remote displays to all the apps that are on the networks to which you have access and authorization. This device is not best used as a tiny little PC but as a remote display device. It isn't a question of Nokia listening to your pleas to fortify the 770 but rather one of you listening to Nokia's efforts to provide you with the ultimate network display device. The device that holds all your apps and has all the memory and storage you'll ever need is a Linux PC on your network. The device that lets you access them all with freedom of movement and convenience of size is a 770. The 770 is never going to be both of those things. It's a supplement to your Linux PC, not a replacement for it. Read Real Nitro's howto's and throw off your frustrations. Nokia can't help you but you don't need Nokia's help. You just need to get your head around the idea that you live in the network computing era.

[Remote User]

It seems to me, that for average user, not Linux expert, this memory limit is here to stay for now on. Using xterm or hacking firmware before you can get your software to work is no option for mass market product. In my opinion it limits 770's usability as a PDA, especially if program's data files (e.g. even browser's cache) also are on system memory (e.g. GPS software would probably need alone more memory than 770 is capable of providing). Not that Nokia ever marketed it as a PDA, but still a little disappointing.
Not picking on you - I'm responding to what you're writing...
Xterm is absolutely the option for the mass market. Opening an X term and a window on a remote app is a trivial task for a desktop icon launching script. Real Nitro's already documented it. Once the icon is created all you have to do is touch it and you have a window on any remote application that's up and running. And you can have several windows open at once, each one on a separate remote app. If you're frustrated or disappointed you don't understand how easy it is to make use of the 770 in the way it was intended, as a remote wireless touchscreen display to a world full of remote apps, whether they're running on a PC in the room you're in or on an application running on a cluster (or grid) that's on the other side of the world.

You don't have to install any such 'desktop' apps on your 770 - you only need to access them from your 770. Forget how it's done on a Windows PC, or on a Linux PC that emulates the Windows PC experience. That's not what the 770 is about. Sure, it's a bit of a PDA, but it gets its real power from the remote resources that it effortlessly accesses. Honestly, it took Real Nitro about five minutes to figure out what to do with a tiny little hint that I gave to him and his initial reaction to seeing all that software jump up on his display was OMFG! And he didn't install any of those apps, or run out of memory, or drive his 770's processors into the ground or hack any firmware, or anything! Plus, he wrote a howto for you. Try to 'get it' - you can if you try. Leave the island - swim in the ocean!

[Titus]

Thank you Remote User for your encouraging words. I just read RealNitro's Howto on subject, and it sounded very interesting. I will most certainly try it. However our definition on "mass market product" probably differs. I seriously doubt that Nokia's average customer (not just 770's first buyers) has a Linux computer running the X-server and sshd on his/her network.

Many seems to have rather strong opinions on how to use Nokia 770. Using it as a PDA might be one option. I would like to have software like Abiword and Plucker and I am really grateful for programmers who are doing hard work for porting these applications. If only thing we really need is SSH and xTerm, all the developers for 770 should stop they work right now, everything is done already?!

[RealNitro]

Thank you Remote User for your encouraging words. I just read RealNitro's Howto on subject, and it sounded very interesting. I will most certainly try it. However our definition on "mass market product" probably differs. I seriously doubt that Nokia's average customer (not just 770's first buyers) has a Linux computer running the X-server and sshd on his/her network.

Many seems to have rather strong opinions on how to use Nokia 770. Using it as a PDA might be one option. I would like to have software like Abiword and Plucker and I am really grateful for programmers who are doing hard work for porting these applications. If only thing we really need is SSH and xTerm, all the developers for 770 should stop they work right now, everything is done already?!
I think there will be two classes of N770 users. One 'class' will _always_ use their N770 in a local network (possibly connected to the internet) to access/controll other machines. The other class wil use it like a PDA. And the device will please both of those 'classes'. The first class will be able to browse local websites to controll iTunes or other jukeboxes, use remote X-windows (or a remote X-session (http://intr.overt.org/blog/?p=18), stream video to it, surf the web, ... They will use the N770 as a remote or a terminal for their server or desktop pc.
The others will be able to install all kinds of small apps to read e-books, play games, manage their tasks, surf the net (when near a hotspot), ...

And really, setting up a computer to run an X-server and an ssh server isn't that hard. Any experienced computer user can do it. Just find a computer with a free partition and install Ubuntu Linux (http://ubuntulinux.org/) on it. I'll check what it takes to get the ssh server running on a default install tonight. I think it will be a matter of checking a box and pushing a button. (It might even be installed by default.)

[Titus]

I see this device's future as a "classless device". First of all, it is internet tablet for a quickie internet experience with wonderful resolution no other device can provide in the same class. In the future you can also use it as remote controller AND pda AND notepad AND e-mail AND database AND ebooks AND voip AND gps AND "add your enthusiasm here". Right now I have used it couple of hours as a portable internet radio with excellent sound quality coupled with quality headphones ( I just wish, there would be option for not turning wlan off, when cover is on). It might be not the best device to do above mentioned things, but it's power is in versatility. So I still think it is a valid question, if we can install software on MMC :)

[RogerS]

Not to digress from this fascinating thread, but I thought putting the cover on only turned off the display and did nothing whatsoever to wlan or Bluetooth.

[Titus]

Not to digress from this fascinating thread, but I thought putting the cover on only turned off the display and did nothing whatsoever to wlan or Bluetooth.
It disconnects wlan connection and then of course internet radio drops out. Shame, it would be nice to protect screen while listening. Haven't tried it on bluetooth.

[Remote User]

I doubt that Nokia's average customer (not just 770's first buyers) has a Linux computer running the X-server and sshd on his/her network. Many seems to have rather strong opinions on how to use Nokia 770. Using it as a PDA might be one option. I would like to have software like Abiword and Plucker and I am really grateful for programmers who are doing hard work for porting these applications. If only thing we really need is SSH and xTerm, all the developers for 770 should stop they work right now, everything is done already?!
The X Server is the software that runs on the 770 which displays the GUI (based on information sent over the network to it from the app) and accepts user input (which is processed where the app is running). The X Server is already installed on the 770 and so is dropbear SSH. All that's needed is to install OpenSSH instead (Real Nitro explained why and how to). It shouldn't take too long for somebody at Nokia, or maybe Matthew Alum at openedhand.org to make OpenSSH the default SSH. Another step that will help most people is to simplify the creation of desktop icons that contain the SSH script. The icon contains a trivial, one-line script that amounts to tuning in what channel you want to watch, to use the TV metaphore.

It's very insightful of you to note that developers should take note of this and ignore it at their peril. That's absolutely the whole point of the comments I've been making. You see, the GNU+Linux and BSD communities think X is how you do graphics, keyboards & mice on those operating systems. Well, yes, that's true, but it's also how you split an application into two parts so that users don't have to directly deal with the hardware and software costs of the computing resources which actually run the apps. It's very similar to the way a TV viewer doesn't have to directly deal with the costs of producing TV programs that are broadcast (or otherwise delivered) to the viewer's TV.

All any existing X app has to do is to serve up its GUI to the 770 in the 770's display format - 800 x 480. The app will even be a touchscreen app - automatically - without any code at all in the remote app. If the client application is capable of detecting the resolution of the X server's display and of automatically sending GUI information to it that suits that specific resolution, then that X app has been written correctly and is useable now.

[GenD]

I was just reading the PDF of the manual and noticed a couple of quotes which shows Nokia's intention for the MMC card:

The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet is supplied with a [...] reduced-size MultiMediaCard (RS-MMC) for media storage. -- Page 6.


Your device allows hot swap, which means you can insert and remove a
memory card while the device is on without disturbing the system. -- Page 9.


You can back up information to a memory card and restore it if necessary. -- Page 40


I'm tending towards not fighting the intentions of the device. It is best to use the RS-MMC for holding media -- eBooks, photos, video clips, etc. -- not applications (you'd lose hot-swapability) or application data (you'd lose hot-swapability plus the built-in backup utility will not know about any application data you store there).

That being said... I'd be happy to have more space for storing applications and application data, if someone figures out a convenient way.

[jadusty]

I can appreciate that there are many opinions on how and why people want to use their machines, but along the original lines of this thread, has anybody really documented a worthwhile solution (particularly for a Linux newcomer like myself - though I'm technically competent in the Windows environment) on how to install apps to mmc? The wiki seems to point back to this thread and I can't see the woods from the trees here. I'm not particularly concerned with hot swapability, and x-windowing is fine if my machine would hold a connection for more than a few minutes and I had a permanent connection to a wireless network (which I don't.) I don't mind switching the machine off before removing the mmc because this will happen rarely for me. I want to maximise the available memory and will look into partitioning and swap files as well. As far as I'm concerned the mmc is there and I want to use it to the best of its ability in order to spare the small amount of on-board memory on offer. If I have to backup an image of my mmc manually then so-be-it.

From what I can gather, by the time you consider all of the potential apps that will be available from maemo over the medium term, 64 megs seems an awfully puny amount. I bought a Sony Clie about 3 or 4 years ago and it had the abilty to run apps from the memory stick then. It surprises me that this functionality is not available out of the box now.

Has anybody found a good solution that they can add to the wiki in a clear a-b-c kind of style? Or point me to some place where this has been well documented already.

Many thanks.

[mikelococo]

Has anybody found a good solution that they can add to the wiki in a clear a-b-c kind of style? Or point me to some place where this has been well documented already.

I haven't seen the procedure honed to this level yet, having been on the lookout here, on the wiki, and on the maemo lists. I've expanded the wiki page (http://www.internettablettalk.com/wiki/index.php/Installing_Software_on_MMC) a little to try to make it more clear what hurdles need to be overcome (and also added a link to a mailing list post where someone describes how they accomplished it). If you're not comfortable experimenting, it might be best to hold off on this until more folks have weighed in on how it is best accomplished.

Mike

[Milhouse]

I've expanded the wiki page (http://www.internettablettalk.com/wiki/index.php/Installing_Software_on_MMC)...

Completely OT - but why is there more than one Wiki for the Nokia 770? Shouldn't we be updating a single 770 Wiki, my preference being the Maemo.org wiki (http://maemo.org/maemowiki) in the "HowTo" section? Having two wiki's seem divisive and it appears that iTt is competing with maemo.org (which I'm sure is not intentional, although I just don't see any other reason for a second wiki when one already exists elsewhere...)

[mikelococo]

Completely OT - but why is there more than one Wiki for the Nokia 770? Shouldn't we be updating a single 770 Wiki, my preference being the Maemo.org wiki (http://maemo.org/maemowiki) in the "HowTo" section? Having two wiki's seem divisive and it appears that iTt is competing with maemo.org (which I'm sure is not intentional, although I just don't see any other reason for a second wiki when one already exists elsewhere...)

I see the two sites as complementary, co-existing in the same way that user and developer mailing lists do. The two wiki pages on converting videos (maemo version (http://maemo.org/maemowiki/VideoEncoding), itt version (http://www.internettablettalk.com/wiki/index.php/Multimedia:Converting_videos_to_Nokia_770_format)) I think are an excellent example of how the two sites can cover the same topic from different perspectives.

Mike