By telling you to use apt-get, there was an implied "No, such a GUI option does not exist".
Sorry, i do not, and never did read minds - there is no way in which what you said was the only interpretation possible - nor the shortest.
The shortest would have been a NO.
Beggars can't be choosers, and abusing people that are trying to help you isn't a good way to have them continue helping you in the future.
It's just that, it wasn't helping. In no reply did i see a "yes there is" or "no there isn't" - i'm sorry, but that would have been help.
What i said was in no way abusive, i just stated the facts... there were 4 replies were there not ? 3 of them were written by senior members, right ? And only one reply actually mentioned something close to what i asked in my first post... where's the abuse ?
Sorry for being so abrasive, but i'm coming from a loooong day of dealing with exactly this kind of stuff - i work in Linux development, and i'm perfectly used with the bloody weird way a lot of my colleagues understand the concept of "help" or "clear answer", and usually the only solution when face-to-face cannot be done is to be brusque and to the point, and wake them from dreaming around so that you and them can go back and continue working.
No, I do not believe there is an alternate package manager available for the tablets.
That said, I believe one of the members here tried porting Synaptic, but without a lot of success; a search of synaptic should give more information.
In addition, many maemo packages invoke a few programs that require user-interaction (select menu location, on-screen dialogs, etc) so I believe it is not even possible to do as you ask.
Ok, so by this you mean that it's possible to use Synaptic on the N810 ?
Is there a version already made to work for the N810, or do i have to build it myself (don't think i have the skills, i would appreciate all the help i can get) ?
Oh, no. I Wish there was. What I am saying is that a common excuse for why Nokia did not simply port synaptic is because it would not be usable on the tablet. It is perfectly usable with Easy Debian... In fact, it is easier than the App Manager. Simply tick what I want, and click install.
I don't know of any GUI app for apps. apt-get is the only choice.
What I am saying is that a common excuse for why Nokia did not simply port synaptic is because it would not be usable on the tablet.
"Common excuse"? I didn't realize that "simply porting Synaptic" was a proposed solution that had ever received a response.
The obvious reasons, though, are because it doesn't meet Nokia's requirements for a package manager, and because its UI and resource usage isn't remotely appropriate for a touchscreen device at less than 1024x768.
It is a common excuse. I never said it was a bad excuse. I realize Nokia was trying to keep a constant GUI (not really, but...), and Synaptic is very cluttered. But at least for advanced users or something. Something better than what we have now. Maybe for N900...
And about the UI and resource, I am no where near being and expert, but synaptic runs perfectly on debian, as I said before.
Aaaaaaaahhhhh, why it is such a common occurence that new members ask interessting questions - at least for me - and then refuse to think about what was proposed? They rather bite the helping hand because its not covered in candy.
After reading the answers proposing apt-get I wonder if it is enough to install an application w/o additional packges? Maybe there is a way to extract the needed program information from the backup file?
IMO, synaptic really doesn't bode well on the device.
If you move that scrollbar down a little, you'll be moved from a to z straight away. And you can't resize that "No package is selected" despite it having a thing to resize it - it doesn't work. This isn't a chroot BTW.
No, I do not believe there is an alternate package manager available for the tablets.
That said, I believe one of the members here tried porting Synaptic, but without a lot of success; a search of synaptic should give more information.
In addition, many maemo packages invoke a few programs that require user-interaction (select menu location, on-screen dialogs, etc) so I believe it is not even possible to do as you ask.
Thank you.
Well, can't say i'm surprised, the entire tablet OS is full of horribly bad decisions. I'll get to using apt-get and the backup utility. Bloody Maemo.
It is a common excuse. I never said it was a bad excuse. I realize Nokia was trying to keep a constant GUI (not really, but...), and Synaptic is very cluttered. But at least for advanced users or something. Something better than what we have now. Maybe for N900...
And about the UI and resource, I am no where near being and expert, but synaptic runs perfectly on debian, as I said before.
The requirement for a constant UI doesn't exclude a simple ticker next to a package.
No, i believe it was just a simple stupid decision, based either on lack of time or interest in making something better for a product that really few people would use, or on some obtuse UI designer / architect / developer / management material (there are plenty of them there, trust me on this one).
Ah well, too late to complain now - just wish i was in Maemo back when they were working with the app manager and when they were designing the N810 to have the OS and all applications on the smallest flash memory available.
