Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

My n900's wifi chip is damaged so I can only download through 3g which is getting expensive. So I'm wondering is it possible to just download the application as a .deb or something on my pc and place it in my n900 and then installing it locally on my n900?

Thanks in advance

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

Yes, it should be possible. Download the debs, transfer them to your n900 and than use dpkg -i #.# as described in http://wiki.maemo.org/Installing_applications

icke

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

or if you dont want to use the terminal, just tab with the n900 filemanager on the deb, the deb will be installed in a few seconds :)

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

Thanks for the replies, where do I find the deb files?

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

Some of the developers on here have a wiki page where you can download the .deb packages, you'll just have to search for them or ask the devs themselves, too many to put links up.

Once you get a link to the package, connect the phone to your PC in mass storage and download direct to the device or memory card

If it's stuff from Ovi Store and elsewhere it's gonna be a hard job getting hold of the .debs.

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

U can download debs from Ovi Store also if its a free package.

Download the User Agent plugin for firefox and change it from there...

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

I think the methods mentioned here might work only for package that does NOT need to pull in other dependency files.

I can think of three possible alternative:
1) USB-ethernet connection
2) have the n900 developer 'simulator' setup and then use apt-get to get your package(and the associates dependent files), then transfer the files to your real N900 for install.
3) find a nice guy(or the author of the package) on the forum and see if they can send you/give you the entire package.

I have not tried these method, but in theory it should work. If I am wrong on this, please feel free to correct.

good luck

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

lots of the [announce] threads on here, amongst others, will have a link to download the . deb, transfer it to your n900 whatever way you see fit. open the .deb with the n900's file manager and it will install, couldn't be easier.

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

And then some ppl still ask why Meego (and LSB) use and prefer rpm-package system and not deb.

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

couldnt you just mirror the maemo and extras repos locally and even maybe onto an sd card and use a local file:// apt repository?

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

USB- and Bluetooth-networking is challenging to set up in the first time, but the reward is worth it.

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

Why, do you think that RPMs magically avoid having dependencies? There's pretty much zero difference between what an RPM and a DEB file are capable of containing - most of the issues people have with one or the other are down to the tools being used rather than the packages themselves.

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

Every app in the repo has a package page, do a google search for the name of the app + package + maemo.

For example this is the package page for Theme Customizer:

http://maemo.org/packages/view/theme-customizer/

If you follow any free armel link (either extras, testing or devel) you'll arrive at the package instance page where you can directly download the deb for that particular package.

http://maemo.org/packages/package_in...omizer/0.9-65/

Kind Regards,
D4rKlar

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

I think that it's not as easy as you write. Because each package depends of another package. I Mean, each dependencies lacks another dependencies that you will be obliged to download, and at the end, you remark that this new file depends of another dependencies. :eek: :eek:

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

If you use apt-get in the Terrminal you can type "apt-get install <nameofpackage> --print-uris"

The "--print-uris" part of the command instructs apt to just print the download location, size, and hash (to verify the download) of each file you need to download instead of actually downloading and installing the files. You could redirect the output to a text file and move that to a computer where you can download the files, you can then install them manually with dpkg after you have downloaded them and copied them to the N900.

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

would this be possible on ovi store for example;
you get a limit to how many times you can download a app etc but what happens when you reach said limit an you desperately need to re-flash, an then you go to add your fave game/app from ovi only to find your DL limit is up

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

No, but when downloading paid apps from the Ovi store before installation they get saved in /home/user/MyDocs/.tmp, copy the file elsewhere to keep as a backup before telling the App Manager to install it.

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

noop question:(, would one change the repository for apt-get on a linux box(say Ubuntu) to pointing to the maemo repository and then execute the apt-get to download the packages(with all dependence).

cheers,

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

No, if it worked at all it'd just mess up your Ubuntu install.

You just run that command on your N900 and if you wanted its output to go in a text file you'd append something like ">/home/user/MyDocs/packages.txt" to redirect the output to a file called "packages.txt" on your MyDocs partition.

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

I was referring (but not mentioning) to the fact that doing package install that way (dpkg -i) one doesn't check the authenticity of the package in any way. If it would be a rpm-package instead, the GPG-signature would come embedded and would be checked automatically before installation (rpm -i).
Dependency-wise the two system are identical, but not security-wise.

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

nice one now i have a reason to install tempy

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

I don't think Tempy will help with this. Tempy is for saving Flash videos, which get saved in a different directory.

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

@retsaw, thanks for your feedback. btw, I was thinking to use apt-get to download the packages/files only and NOT to installing them. I might have not made my question clear; sorry. Would that still work?

My rational is to get all these packages onto a SD or some local storage as backup; then I would be free from having to be online for re-install of these apps. I know there is a backup app(ie. the one in extra testing/dev) that does a good job for the N900; but it would not help for the case where I want to do a clean re-install of everything.

Sorry for the some what long winded post:p; I look forward to your comments.

Cheers,

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

But that check relies on getting the public key from the repository it's from, which you get when you first download the RPM repository setup file. If you grab an RPM for a repository you don't have in your list, it will throw a signing error and you'd have to use --force to make it install the rpm anyway. (Or download and install the repository and its key.)

I will grant that it's nice to at least have an attempt to automate some minor level of security into the package manager. But really, it's not that terribly secure. All that signature means is that the repository you're getting data from has signed it. Most repositories will auto-sign anything uploaded. A signature doesn't mean it's been validated in any way to not contain bad software, just that it came from that particular repository.

Frankly, if you're downloading and manually installing packages (rpm or deb), you're probably taking some trust issues on anyway in where you're downloading it from. Just like you do for enabling a repository to start with, in either system.

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

You should be able to, yes - you'll need to use the "-d" flag to apt-get to prevent it installing the packages.

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

The repository's GPG-public key is most likely in the system already, unless you are installing from scratch when installing manually package by package is practically impossible anyway.
So in the situation like the OP is talking about, having rpm packages would cause check of their authenticity correctly and without extra trouble for the end user.

Having embedded GPG signature in the package makes it possible to check there was no MITM-attack between you and the repository even if you transfer and install packages in some other means than with "normal" repository tools (apt,yum,zypper) straight from repository to your end system.

In the ideal world, a developer (automatically) signs the .src.rpm -package before it is taken to repositories to be build and signed with repository's GPG-key. Or, if you get the package straight from the developer, it is also automatically signed when developer builds the binary or source package (rpmbuild -ba --sign). RPM-package format makes this all possible and consistent. Debian people would make FOSS-world a favor and let go of its stubbornness and change from deb-package system to rpm, like LSB wishes.
With deb-system there is quite lot manual work to do so authenticity chain wouldn't have weak links between a developer and an end user. Many people just refuse to see it, although in this thread again the weak links are obvious and visible.

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

It's do-able, but would alse involve copying across the dpkg database (so it knows what is already installed and thus which dependencies are needed) and getting it to use that rather than the one for the Ubuntu install, as well as getting it to use the Maemo repositories. I'm sure it can be done, but I'm not sure how simple it would be to set up.

Re: Is it possible to download applications on pc and then install locally on the n900?
 

@Rob1n, retsaw: thanks for your comments. I have Ubuntu on a VM and will give it a try.

Cheers,