Can you run a Debian ARMEL app in Maemo?
 

Can you run a debian armel compiled app in maemo? I am not too worried about hildonization right off, just wanna see if its possible.

There is an Evolution port for Debian Armel and I want to see if it will run under maemo. That way we would have a well established PIM/E-mail suite that works and would use the already in place EDS backend (therefore saving diskspace, et al).

Re: Can you run a Debian ARMEL app in Maemo?
 

Depends how complex the application is I would imagine... mostly Id say no.. Evolution definitely not without rebuilding/porting it.

The reason is dependencies.. the application will depend on different libraries or non-existent ones.. GTK+ and the like.. If it's already ported to ARMEL in Debian though it probably wouldn't take a lot to compile it for Maemo .. but it may not function great until it's been totally ported.

Re: Can you run a Debian ARMEL app in Maemo?
 

check out this, I think it is what you want. But if you want native then no you have to have some one port it to maemo first.

Re: Can you run a Debian ARMEL app in Maemo?
 

I've been wondering about that too.. I'm mostly interested in seeing if I can get some console apps to work, myself (TinyFugue, find (the busybox version is too limited), etc.)

Re: Can you run a Debian ARMEL app in Maemo?
 

It is possible running it directly, but probably unstable and no theming, virtual keyboard and whatever else maemo gives you :)

Console apps are better target, you should run them along with their own debian armel libs they depend to. No easy installation - you have to extract debs manually.

Re: Can you run a Debian ARMEL app in Maemo?
 

I don't want to run any of the Debian/KDE things if possible because I want to preserve as much diskspace as possible and with a n810 we only have one slot of limited size to use for such things.

Anyhow thanks for the answers, that is all pretty much what I figured. I know Maemo is based on Debian and the Gui on Gnome. I just didn't know how close to its counterparts maemo actually was.

Anyone willing to port Evolution.. ;)

Re: Can you run a Debian ARMEL app in Maemo?
 

Evolution runs, it just doesn't run very well. It wasn't designed for our tablets at all.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3071/...877e57b4_o.png

As for preserving space, I recommend buying a couple of SD cards, you can have one with Debian on it for experiments and testing apps. The easy chroot doesn't really bloat your system, you can pull out the "Debian card" if you aren't running any Debian apps. And 8 GB mini SD cards are pretty cheap these days ($38 here).

Re: Can you run a Debian ARMEL app in Maemo?
 

Yeah.. but that's running a debian ARMEL binary in DEBIAN and just overlaying over the top of Maemo.

This guy wanted (from what I can tell) to just copy the binaries from a Debian Armel side; directly to a Maemo side.. and just run it.. without any re-compilation of any kind.

This might work on extremely lightweight; statically linked; applications that don't depend on any 3rd party libraries or binaries.. but typically; you would need to recompile for the maemo environment to get it to actually run in maemo and not just appear to run in maemo :).

Re: Can you run a Debian ARMEL app in Maemo?
 

Yes, I know what he wanted. I was just saying that Evolution works, but, as it stands (using the Debian armel binaries), it is rather bulky and slow and the layout is very difficult to work with on our tablet screen.

Re: Can you run a Debian ARMEL app in Maemo?
 

It can run directly, that's how OOo runs in the biggest viewer, but it is ugly ;)

Re: Can you run a Debian ARMEL app in Maemo?
 

Cool to know it runs, but IMHO Evolution is the best solution to the Email/PIM debacle. Running it directly would be a dog, but we already have EDS in the tablet and some complete solution using that would be a great solution to the Email/Pim problem. Not to mention it would be easy to sync. Right now, GPE establishes its own database so its hard to tie into the default apps and syncing contacts is a no-go. Pimlico pretty much decided to drop devleopment for maemo, and we do have projects like Thunderbird, Abiword, etc happening to see what can be done to port to maemo and be usable. Evo just seems to be another app worth looking into.

Re: Can you run a Debian ARMEL app in Maemo?
 

I certainly cannot answer about every Debian ARMEL compiled app, but you can run some complex, dynamically linked apps very well.

You may be interested in the KDEPIMPI PIM/E-mail suite. The Debian compiled ARMEL release works very well on an N810. Since it's not "Hildonized", a hardware keyboard or Xkbd virtual keyboard (untested) are required...the Maemo virtual keyboard on the N800 and N770 won't work. There are some issues with the on-screen placement of pop-up windows, but they are easy to overcome.