New 800 user
 

My N800 is on the way - got it for the bargain price of £150 from play.com

I'm intending to use my mostly as a media player, photo viewer and for surfing. Any recommendations re. software for this or should I leave it as it is out of the box? Would going to straight to os2008 be recommended?

TIA.

Re: New 800 user
 

Welcome!...if I was you, I would be using it as it is out of the box, because in short time (all we hope that!) you will be enjoying two new, important releases: official OS2008 and Canola2. :)

Re: New 800 user
 

But also you can try some other apps for OS2007: fbreader, omweather, Canola, quiver, maemo recorder, etc...but keep in mind once you upgraded to os2008 you should reinstall all the apps.

Re: New 800 user
 

It depends on whether the final OS2008 release is out by the time you get your machine. If yes, then upgrade immediately, if not, then wait.

Re: New 800 user
 

I'll be the dissenting point of view then. I say upgrade to OS2008beta right away. That way the applications you use will be the same ones that you can continue to use when OS2008 final is released, and the backup/restore from beta to final will work better than going from 2007 to 2008.

Re: New 800 user
 

Maybe, some frustration implied with the OS2008beta can cause prejudice :)

Re: New 800 user
 

The only reason I'd recommend against this is because they're going to end up installing all their applications and getting everything setup then having to do it (mostly, thanks to the improved backup/restore) all over again. Better off the wait a week or so and only have to do it once. ;)

Re: New 800 user
 

I've had my n800 for a week or so and I am installing anything that looks interesting just to try it out, with the intention of wiping it clean when OS2008 is released.
That way I get to experiment and then I will only install the stuff I actually use.

Re: New 800 user
 

Quiver is supposed to be good for photos. FYI.

Re: New 800 user
 

All this installing and uninstalling, does it leave junk files like it does on a windows OS?

Re: New 800 user
 

A properly packaged application shouldn't leave anything behind, but you most likely will end up with at least some left over config files, directories, etc.

Not much can be done about that aside from contacting the developer and asking them to make a nice script to remove everything generated by the program after an uninstall.

Re: New 800 user
 

Well, a normally well-done package will only leave config files.
And this is good, it takes a few hundred bytes and in case you reinstall the application, you still have your settings.

Re: New 800 user
 

It's no fun when you remove an app, but the config file stays, and then a year later when you install a newer version of the app, it craps out because of old junk in the config.

I've got years of bit-rot on a few machines, it's amazing anything works on them at all :)

Fortunately I'm a big fat geek so I can usually track down the evil..

Re: New 800 user
 

On real debian, if the config file has changed (either because you modified it or because the default one shipped has changed) then it will ask you
Keep your config file
Take the new default one and make a backup of yours
Show the diff

But on the IT, I've not been able to completly erase a config file.
apt-get --purge remove <package> does not work.

I've really never had a problem with config files. Usually I will show the diff and then use the maintainer one, then use tkdiff to merge back my settings in the old config file.

Even if it's not straightforward, I don't see how they could have done something better.

Re: New 800 user
 

I was thinking more of config files, or other junk, generated after running the program (not originally part of the .deb)

It's generally not a huge problem, but it would still be neat to have the postrm scripts ask about removing left overs created by the executables, of course I don't expect most maintainers to ever actually implement this. I would personally never bother since I'm lazy :)