Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

I can confirm this too.

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

C'mon, sjgadsby, a smarter flashing tool would have suggested it! :) Sure, you could dismiss my criticism as a simple ranking maneuver, but that's just a convenient way to dismiss a good idea out of hand. Considering most BIOS flashing tools give you the option to make a back-up of your old BIOS image, wouldn't it make sense to do the same here?

To see such a thing in action, read up on nandroid's back-up option on Android handsets. It's what I do on my Droid--I make a back-up of the current state of my handset (kernel, OS, apps, setting, everything) before I do anything drastic like flashing a new ROM.

Sooooooo, again, I say: A smarter [insert OS flashing app/procedure] would make suggest a back-up before flashing a new OS. :)

Let's also not forget, the forgetful. Ah, I see it was too late for you.

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

Soooo... is this your argument against, say, a crash prevention system? You do realize that we WANT to have things which can prevent the bad from happening, as opposed to simply telling the family of the diseased that the driver was an idiot--Especially if it turned out that it was not the driver's fault, like brake problems or something.. and especially if there was a cheap and easy technology that could have prevented it.

Simply putting a procedure in place to alert the user and optionally launch a firmware backup solution would be akin to a cheap and easy technology that could have prevented data loss during such upgrades and other situations.

...Or weren't you interested in the progress of technology to make our lives better and easier?

Clearly, Nokia could do better. Others have.

I really don't like this idea that Maemo's back-up/restore depends on a connection to be able to restore applications. My Droid certainly doesn't depend on it to restore nandroid backups or even Titanium Backup backups. So why is Maemo Backup so.. weird? I totally agree with you there. You should be able to do what I already do on my Droid--just say RESTORE... THIS BACKUP FILE.. GO! And just wait and then reboot. Done!

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

I betcha 99% of people who wouldn't have thought of doing a backup would've ignored any warning/alert to do a backup. They like to click "Next", "Next", ..., "Finish".

sjgadsby's post mostly explains why Maemo's Backup works the way it does. It's more of a "dynamic" backup and has advantages/disadvantages compared to the ghost-like backup that nandroid does. Advantages include being able to upgrade/downgrade and still restore your installed apps and settings.

You should be able to do this when Backup Menu V2 is ready.

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

I just spent a few hours replacing the icons I made to go with my nine-desktop setup. This was after running backup. I also lost my ipv6 connection and had to remember how I had set it up. I wish backup was a bit more robust, but what the heck, I usually gain from a bit of extra practice in setting up my N900. If I forgot how I did it, I need to reinforce that learning, I tell myself.

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

This might be easy:

Did you install ANYthing from extras Testing & Devel or any place outside of maemo.org or Nokia repositories. If you had then you had it coming. When you install stuff from those repositories you have to be prepared to anything!

If not then you have found bug or HW defect.

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

But all the nice stuff is in -devel!

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

This is the oldest trick in the book. Anyone who HASN'T installed from extras testing or devel is out of their mind, in my opinion. So this is something like telling someone with a car problem, "did you EVER go over 65 miles per hour? Because your tires might go flat at any second if you ever exceeded that speed!"

If Nokia had provided a big selection of apps, people wouldn't be driven to the risky ones. As it is, if you don't run risky ones, you are missing lots of essential features.

In my experience (1) running these risky apps is WAY LESS RISKY than is implied. I've been installing them without any hesitation for three Nokia tablets in a row and hardly ever run into serious problems, and (2) It makes a darned good excuse, though.

Just remember, if you EVER go over 65 miles an hour, any part of your car might fail at any instant and it's no one's fault but your own!

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

Whatta F.

My point is that if you install anything from testing or devel then you are on your own. I expect total clusterfck any second when I have apps installed from those repositories. If shait hits the fan then it´s just me who is responsible! Installing stuff that is under testing or devel. I do not blaime Jesus or God or Santa Claus or Nokia I blame Myself!

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

So, by these standard a stick of dynamite can be considered an alpha version of a gas tank cap?

Is this what the robustness and security of the Linux system is reduced to? Don't run anything unapproved? I thought that was the Apple security system.

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

I do not understand your analogy. Nokia is responsible for official gas tank with official tank cap. If you choose to change it or make modifications to it then you are on your own. This is how real life works!

You can brake N900 by single command from x term. You are able to brake it in many different ways. Just install stuff from webpage x and BOOM there goes dynamite! You are responsible 100% on what you install on your system. I would say that If you only install stuff from Nokia repositories and it brakes then you are entitled to contact nokia care. But if you choose to fool around with your device because it´s possible then you are on your own. Simple as that. I do not know if this whole responsibility thing is too hard to understand. If so then I´m really really worried about my fellow internet warriors around me :|

Should hammer have some kind of security method that prevents user from hitting himself/herself? It´s probably possible to make security method that makes it safe but it comes with cost of easiness of usage.

.edit
OH and BTW When people are using Nokias own application manager to install stuff from maemo.org please READ the warning text. It´s not there just for fun.

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

Some kind of giant "cone of shame" should probably do the trick for preventing serious injury but not for thumbs ;)

http://icanhascheezburger.files.word...b51a767d55.jpg

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

wait, I thought I saw that when I was updating OTA...

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

hi,
for what its worth:

the n900 is a quite expensive peace of /almost/ perfect hardware. that almost is the anoying part: you see what the phone could be if it was not for some sloopyness(like wiring wrong pins, display protection, usb mounting). small issues wich result in unecessary bad userexperience.

same sloopyness continues with the software. a customer who buys a expensive phone that is broadly adverticed can expect a that it just works out of the box. he can expect that an update just works out of the box - without loosing any of his data or settings. at least it should warn the user.

open source and linux is a good thing. sure there is a lot but not enough working software in the open to run a phone with that alone. still i think its beneficial for nokia to at least have a lot of software available to use. i would think it should be possible to implement the rest asuring high quality standards and i would think doing so is less effort than implementing everything from scratch inhouse. and i would further think that with the linux community creating more and more support for phones it seems wise and benificial for future nokia projects to support that community.
so in essence not delivering a high quality reference implementation on the phone is difficult to understand. the more difficult as part of that is already implemented by the linux community.

even more difficult to understand is if nokia is not able to deliver such an sound reference implementation that it prevents the linux communty to do it. statements like nokia want to stay strong lable in this context are funny at best. i would think bad userexperience with a nokia phone does not realy strengthen the nokia lable. and i would think giving the people the possibility to implement somthing better would strengthen their label for they could use that software not only for a better user experience with this phone but also with future phones.

so i comletely understand the rant. nokia isn't responsible for things user do to the phone and every operating system that may run on the phone. but nokia does have a responsibility to deliver a full functioning phone via a refence implementation and a customer can expect high quality standards regarding this implementation.

still: the n900 is quite a good peace of hardware. the anoying thing is: it could be a so much better device.

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

I betcha 99% of people who had a back-up tool pop-up (instead of just a reminder) as part of the procedure the way most BIOS flash tools do (or even the convenience of having it just one-click away, like ROM manager/nandroid/etc on Android) would click on NEXT.. NEXT all the way into a back-up before ending up flashing. Your point really SHOULD be that people will generally follow NEXT prompts--maybe that's the place to put a back-up tool. :P

The way Maemo back-up works isn't very good because it doesn't restore a last known good state. If something is flawed along the way (say repository goes offline, you end up not being able to get an Internet connection, corrupted repo data, etc.) you can't restore your device back to the last known good state. BACKUP/RESTORE IMPLEMENTATION FAIL.

At the VERY least it should be an optional back-up method available to users as part of a flash upgrade, for crying out loud. :P

I think you missed the part where it was done with the firmware flashing tool--where there wasn't any opportunity given nor even a reminder. I'm pointing out that, as a matter of routine, it should give you the opportunity to create a back-up copy of the current system state that you can flash back onto the system in case the new firmware flashing ruins things.

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

come on man, a random deb can do anything to your device. that is why only tested apps can go to the extras.....

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

Actually that was my point though not explicitly stated, but you're smart enough to conclude "that unless a backup is made default most people will just skip it".

Am I correct in saying that your beloved nandroid is not a standard tool provided by a default android installation? If so, why are you not comparing like with like? What is the default android backup tool like?

As I said before, you can install and use the optional Backup Menu V2.

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

There is absolutey nothing wrong with the robustness or security of Linux. But any fool knows there are risks in running alpha or beta software on ANY OS.

Apple's security system is just let the Emperor Jobs decide for you what's safe, not let you decide for yourself whether you're willing to accept risks for rewards.

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

hi,
a backup is nice if you have a windows machine that has no better ways to handle upgrades. but hold on, this is a *nix system. it has a filesystemstructure that is made for distribution upgrades while keeping local and user data intact!
indeed an old debian slogan was: "and it never changes your settings without asking you first" and they kept the promise for a long time.
well maybe hard to achieve sometimes. at least inhouse software should upgrade smoothly without discarding any userdata and without necessity to backup, for it should not touch anything the user changed without asking.

edit: for the point that made here for other software sources:
well if YOU mixmatch things this is your problem. addon software goes to local or opt.

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

A backup is a universal requirement for safe data on any operating system anywhere in the world.

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

keyword: backupstrategy or "nobody needs backup, everyone needs restore".

i cannot give you an indepth introduction into backupstrategies.
but short:

you have distribution dependend data and local data(you may distinguish further).
if you want to restore the distribution dependend data you restore it from the distribution server. just reinstall.
you can't however restore the local data from the distribution server. so that needs extra backup.

if you make an upgrade and don't like it: you do a roll back to the old version and reinstall the old software. you need no backup for that.

that of course only works if you have local and distribution dependend data strictly separate. otherwise you can't do the rollback.

edit: 2 examples:
1) take an adressbook application. now you have the app and all your adresses. if you have them separate you update or reinstall the aplication anytime and have all your adresses still in place. if you don't like the new version you just install the old version and you still have all the adresses.
if this is not possible for some reason(e.g. format of how adresses stored changed) the installer/updater should /ask/ you what to do and never ever just discard your adresses. further an update should be able to manage to import the old adresses(that by all means not deleting it without asking).
2)non distribution applications:
addon debs just need to be packed in a way to install to /usr/local instead of the main distribution. that way you keep a) the distribution sane and b) dont delete any addon software with an update. you /can/ offer addon "shops" that provide addon packages that are independend of the distribution.(the addon might work or not but this is no concern of the distribution.) and if an upgrade of the distribution breaks an addon it's up to you to handle that. but it's only the addon that is broken and not the dist and can be updated once there is a new version.

another note to addons: the package management works on a policy set by the maintainer of a package. so the maintainer can choose to hold back an update of an addon untill the distupgrade happens and have the update installed with the upgrade. on the other hand he can choose a policy to deinstall the addon if dependencies no longer met(the software wouldn't work anymore with an upgrade) and the addon would get deinstalled. in the latter case still the userdata(that is the adresses in the example) stay on the system as long as the user doesn't explicitly say he wants to have the whole thing purged, that means with a new version of the addon the adresses are there again even though the app was temporarily deinstalled for it was broken.
this and much more is what the packagemanagement is capable of.


[no this is not easy but this is what packaging and creating an distribution is all about.]

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

Correct--now it's a matter of whether the developers of these applications are too lazy or aloof to bother to make them a bit less prone to permitting errors.

nandroid isn't a standard too, no. However, Android Market does make a similar back-up of your installed apps and settings on their remote servers for you as part of their market--thereby putting on the same footing as the Maemo back-up tool. And.. when you sign into Android Market on a new phone or a wiped phone, it immediately gives you the opportunity to begin restoration automatically. But, wouldn't you expect a better OS to do.. yanno.. better? Where's the progress?

Will it do full state images like nandroid?

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

Hi,
see you miss my usecase and i think of many others.

- i do want to update. i do want all the brandnew stuff. i do want bugfixes and so on. i do not want the old outdated stuff.

- i want the button to click when an update is available-

- when i push the button i expect the update to work. i do not want to manually download and flash something.

- i do not want the updater get confused because i have some addons installed. i want to have the addons and the update still working. and addons workink as far as possible and some assistance if they don't work with the update anymore.

- after the update i want all the customizations i made manually to be still in place. e.g. my desktop background should be the way i had it. i want to have /all/ my customizations untouched.

- i want addons. i really want fancy addons maemo doesn't have and dosn't need to have- i do and i want to be able to have such addons on my phone. i want it without getting the update confused.

- thats more upstream wishlist: i want the second packagemanagement ring. i do not want that the updater tells me that an dist application can't be installed for it depends on an older library of the dist wich was replaced by a newer library of an addon. as user i don't want to fuss around with pinning. i has to work out of the box. i want to install my fancy addons and i want the distribution not disturbed in any way by it.


don't get me wrong: maemo does it right 98%. but it's the missing two percent that gives me a bad experience. my settings are gone - that is anoying even if other settings are in place like it should be.

backup is fine. but /i want the update working/ .

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

It DOES work. Since I got my N900 in Nov 2009, I've done all upgrades OTA with absolutely NO problems. Nothing has been lost or changed in the process, everything stayed perfectly intact as before (except Titan's kernel-power, of course). No doubt 95% or more - who knows, maybe 99.9% - of N900 users have done the same. My device has never been flashed and runs great, stable and fast. I doubt I'll ever need to reflash the OS as long as I use it.

Now, if you've had problems with updating due to package conflicts or general software breakage, it's almost certainly because of something you did. Maybe it was software installed from the devel or even possibly the testing repositories. That's alpha and beta software. Maybe you did some other modifications also. It's not Nokia's fault or Maemo's fault or even the developer's fault if you can't deal with the risks involved doing this stuff. It's your fault for installing it.

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

Thanks for What. haaaa!!!!
for keeping you waiting for nothing ( OFFFFF )

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

sure. It was because of something i did! and i do want to do it. i want to customize the phone. the problem is that what i did was gone after the update! it should stay away from my customizations. i want them the way i had them.

don't say not possible: if an update on a server would override a serverconfiguration i don't want to see the uproar.

the second problem is that i /want/ to install addons without breaking the pakagemanagement!


-- as a sidenote: the pakagemanager and the multiinstall don't even know about each other ...

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

Ahmmmm...Have you used linux before?

I´m not saying that all different linux distroes brake, but all desktop version of different linux distroes what I have had I have manged to brake just by installing stuff from devel repositories or outside of repositories.

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

yes. for some decades. and i refer to lfs and /usr/local or /opt

on most servers you run a dist with customized configurations and additional software.

and please also note the wishlist item for a second ring(distinguishing between dist and addon software) but you can do it without that (install to /usr/local).

reference standard:
opt:
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-...FTWAREPACKAGES

/usr/local
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-...LOCALHIERARCHY

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

I would rather they spend their time implementing new features, fix bugs etc first, before spending time hand holding people.

QED

With Maemo backup, your personal data stays personal. With Android market you're sending your personal data up into the cloud somewhere and have no idea who else have access to it and what they are doing with it.

And there you was complaining that Maemo backup required an internet connection to restore. Anyway you're confusing OS and backup tools.

Yes, that is why I mentioned, since that seemed to be the kind of backup you wanted.

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

I have to admit that I do not completely understand whole structure of packagemanagement system, but what I have seen on my desktop and on my N900 is that I´m able to brake it just by installing stuff from testing, devel or outside of repositories. After all all applications are just bits and pieces of lego castle that you have just build. It collapses pretty easily if you are not careful. All responsibility is on 3rd party devels and most importantly on user.

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

It's irrational to expect any OS to anticipate and play nice with any and all of thousands - millions - of possible modifications, customizations and software combinations and leave everything perfectly intact through a major OS update. All things considered, I'm impressed with how perfectly the OS updates have gone. Much better than my old Android phone did.

As I said, I've never lost anything on my fairly highly customized N900 except the power-kernel stuff I knew would be gone. Nothing, from the custom boot video to widgets to email settings to icons changed at all! As a long-time Linux user I knew I very likely wouldn't - and shouldn't - lose anything, considering the changes I'd made. As a proclaimed long-time Linux user you should've pretty much known what to expect too. IOW, through your Linux knowledge you should've known which modifications or customizations were of a type vulnerable to change or loss in a major OS update. So it's still on you.

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

we agree very much. i do see the same problem as you see. but i also see solutions to the problem. and we need them now. we need the "dumb" user to do things that previously were reserved for experienced admins. this is imo the leap to take. *nix has all the concepts we need for that. what we need now in addition to that is to make them "userproof". the good things that was given to admins to maintain systems comfortably we need now for the users(failproof).

this is a phone and users love to install addons on a phone, customize it and ... this a serious usecase that imo cannot be done away by saying: users never were able to do this.

you have the apple store, you have ovi, you have xyz store : this is what the user want and should get. again: this is imo a serious usecase.
yes: /i/ can configure my phone so that it does what i want.
and /i/ can fix most problems that might occur. but this is not about if some experienced folks can use the phone. this is about the avarage user who wants to use the phone and just want it to work and want to have a great userexperience.

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

like i said apt indeed handles it for a long time. like i said the debian slogan for a long time was "and it never changes your settings"

further maemo actually does it most of the time excactly the way i want it! even more there is a standard that says how it has to be to work and it exists for a very long time. so far to impossible.

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

i share your pain @ OP

but the part with the apps not being backupped.... well thats just bad luck :D

other than that, it was very inconvenient to get my device updated.
i had to use "faster appmanager" to update OTA. no official way of updating worked. OTA from the official appmanager asked me to use the pc suite. pc suite said that i'll loose everything so i should backup. not too much of a problem, but still kinda annoying considering the fast appmanager did OTA-update without complaining a single time.

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

I for one do agree that updates have been very smooth from downloading to installation. But dude seriously atleast dont lie... Icons revert back to stock icons after maemo updates !

Re: Yay thanks a lot Nokia... NOT
 

hi,
i think i made my point. and i think not looking at issues will not improove maemo while looking at issues will. and it might be good to look at discussions led 20+ years ago(and earlier regarding filesystem) about similar things on servers wich were no different. many years are gone and again and again the same arguments from some while others develope solutions. those with the solutions prevail not the ones who insist to keep their shortcommings.
i'm out of this thread. peace!