Installing Application on MMC??
 

I have a quick question?? IS there a way that I could install application on my MMC??

It doesnt seems to give me an option for installing the application. Just installs it on the device it self.... :(

Thanks in advance for any suggestions....

Nokia has set up the 770 so that you cannot install applications on a memory card (probably because they figured users weren't clever enough to realize that, if they took out the card, their applications would be gone. It's not because Nokia designers are stupid. Really, it isn't :rolleyes: ).

The only way I can think of to circumvent this, is by applying the hack of copying the entire 770 filesystem to memory card. Mind you, it's not an easy one, but you should be able to find references to it on the forum.

Last note: the moment someone brings out an 8 GB RS-MMC, I'll apply it on my Nokillo (Right, after buying the card, obviously).

Also, by default, mmc1 is mounted with the noexec option in /etc/fstab

I have a second partition formatted as ext2 mounted at /media/mmc2 without that option and I can execute programs from there if i wanted to.

But, as far as installing applications there, the package would need to be built to install to my particular non-standard mountpoint.

If you're really hurting for filespace for applications you can look into unionfs and mount a union to /bin and /usr/bin etc but that introduces other issues. what happens if you remove or change memory cards?

df tells me I'm only using 59% of my internal memory. I'm not too conserned yet.

Well, not that I am saying they are stupid, but if Nokia (well, Linux distros in general) were clever enough, they'd packaged each application in its own directory letting it write and read its data files from the application's directory.
A la Mac OS X.
That'd be REALLY clever and would make up a REALLY clean file system (an 'Apps' directory on the root and one on the memory card, that would be looked for apps whenever the card is inserted in).

Also this has big advantages: installing or removing an application it's just a matter of copy or removing the directory.
To mantain a list of installed application there would, indeed, be a sort of installer that, after JUST copying the application (let's use Mac terminology here) 'bundle', would update the list of installed application.

Would THAT be great ?
I think it REALLY would be.

--
anidel

That's the way Psion used to do it on the Series5...

But that'd mean inventing a new packaging system and developing both the user-space and developer tools; whereas apt is a proven system with a mature toolset and well regarded functionality.

And you see what happens when it's not implemented in an absolutely 100% correct, userproof way.

You are correct in that it would be a lot of work, but the proposal would make a lot of sense on a handheld platform. After all, special graphics engines were developed for handhelds, while there was a good existing solution (X), so it's not as if it's a first...

I would not call it clever at all. I would call it simple.

Linux is multiuser networked operating system and the filesystem hierarchy is suitable for this.

Writing data to application directory is not clever and secure in multiuser system or in a system where aplications are shared from server via network (NFS).

However such system would be of course enough for single user systems (such as some desktops or PDAs) but still I wouldn't call it clever for many reasons (how would you backup only user data without applications?).

Re: Installing Application on MMC??
 

I don't see the problem; the application bundle is not modified by the user. User settings and data goes into ~/Library/appname or something similar.

Re: Installing Application on MMC??
 

Hmm.... what about copying the whole /usr/bin directory(or at least parts of it) to a place somewhere on th e mounted sd/mmc card and then place a symlink , like: /usr/bin -> /mnt/card1/apps/bin. If this is going to make problems, then one can always just copy big files like libraries and databases to the card and then link them....

edit: Or one can use the --bind parameter in fstab.

Re: Installing Application on MMC??
 

Agree, cuz otherwise you have to call microsoft clever too, partly due to the fact that most application have its own directory under "c:\program files" and when something bad happen, you could delete the whole folder and reinstall. Of course I'm not talking about registry yet, but we are just talking about files structure, right.