Greetings,

today I and a quite a few other guys run into serious trouble by applying the, kinda' big, package update bunch.

Regular desktop linux distributions use a "system", where bugfixes are released continually - i.e. once a new distribution version is released, the fixes for broken stuff go out as developers work, on-the-fly. And major upgrades (like when kernel/desktop major number is changed, etc.) are later released (combined with those fixes, mostly) in a form of dist-upgrade, or a new CD.

Meamo5 developers currently don't do it that way - the first update since official n900 release happened just today. In between a load of minor changes happened - resulting in >1000 updated packages.

Now I understand, that Maemo developers don't want to get bothered by users, who have misc. 3rd party pkgs installed, and have problems when updating packages - they simply release a "firmware version no. XY", which is ideally supposed to be installed on a clear machine.

This way of course, N900 will never work as a computer - it seems like Maemo devs still want to live in mobile world, where continuous updates are apparently unimaginable...

This lead to a current situation, where many users, including me (otherwise I wouldn't be writing this "article", obiously :-) ) ended up with broken machines - because some of the 1000 packages broke something....

In my case, they broke a lot (messaging, web browser, audio controls - and I didn't test everything yet...) - so I better reflashed the device competely, instead of finding which package(s) is "bad" and wasting a day debugging stuff (without source code)...

Now if these updates were continuous, it would probably happen too - but I could simply revert some of the packages to older version. Can't do that with 1000 updated packages :-) This is what man does in linux world... Not reflashing (=reinstalling) "PC device", but simply playing with packages...

Would it be too much to ask? Regular updates OTA, like once a week? At least now, while the device is new and supported. Do we have to wait another 2-3 months to get broken stuff fixed (and receive new bugs in return)?

Wouldn't it be quicker for everyone, if Andre Klapper wouldn't comment under one of two-three bug reports that "it seems fixed in internal release" - but intead one could fetch the updated package and report back instantly?


Hope some of the devs replies...


Andree

Just a thought on my behalf... Microsoft does updates like the second tuesday of every month, and ATI releases new Linux ATI drivers once a month as well.

Maybe Nokia could setup something similar? Instead of a massive bug fix update... they just commit to fixing a couple (bug fixes) every X days/weeks/months.....

Not that I think it's a huge deal personally.. but I can see where you're coming from.

I prefer also to split firmware update (like cellphone FW) + kernel and application layer. The reason is pretty obvious - we can NOT return back from 51.1 because it mixed with FW update. But it looks like some people start having issue with 32wd_to AFTER upgrade (not sure that it is true and consistent - no bug reports from them, just talking, however...)

just use the command line flasher with the old image.

Are you sure? Some people says that 51.1 includes microcode for cellphone chip (new microcode) but previous images do not --> difficult to return to old microcode.

I also feel that the updates are pretty late but I also kinda understands why Nokia is doing it this way. Have you checked the threads regarding the latest firmware? Nobody can assume all users know Linux basics, but some users are just plain ignorant and doesn't even bother searching before starting new threads and posting the same question on solved issues. Now imagine if they all start posting "bug" reports. It would be a nightmare. But it has been proven that the open model works including incremental updates. One major difference between something like Fedora and Maemo is that Redhat is not responsible when your PC blows or when Ubuntu messes up your network card, but Nokia would most probably get sued if the N900 makes you deaf when you "upgraded" using the dev/unstable repository and the sound driver was buggy. There maybe other reasons why they don't follow the typical OSS/Linux way of developing free software but I am sure one day we might see such a process for Maemo as well.