I suppose there is a whole bunch of new people on the maemo forums since the release of the N900, and I guess a great deal of those, like myself, who fit into the testing-image of the N900 but not in the devel part.

the line between testing and devel, for a non-linux, first time internet tablet user like myself, is somewhere around beeing able to find out you need rootsh and the basic linux commands to find, copy, rename and edit files and folders. you're OK with things like changing the vibrations for the touchscreen, or some LED color changes in mce.ini when you read the thread.. apt-get on the other hand, is already a mistery, if someone spells it out, you can copy paste an apt-get command into xterm, but in fact, you're not realy shure you know what you are doing.

But you know the risk you're taking, I reflashed already and came out of it with only minor problems putting my backup back. I guess, just by reading true this forum, I will be able to do it again even on a bricked phone.

For people like me it's hard to find the right place on the forums/brainstorms/community and if you find a thread it's sometimes verry hard to determine if a thread is for your level or not.

That's why I would recommend to have a extras/testing and an extras/devel subforum in which every app has his own thread, wich has the corresponding brainstorm link and bug reports in the OP.

So an app in alpha, early beta stays in /devel forum, I can have a look at what's brewing but know what 's not to touch yet, when it 's promoted to /testing, it gets a new thread in the /testing forum. That will also be the place where testers will look to find a manual/wiki, discuss the app, and give comments, look for known bugs and fixes, and report new ones.

And eventually vote, because I understand the /devel /testing /extras promoting system as well as the sandbox/brainstorm hierarchy depend on votes.

The problem ATM with the forum for (wouldbe) testers like me is, If I search for a random app I can hardly find a thread that is related, let allone the voting system for the app/sandbox/brainstorm/bug/ or a user manual or other usefull info about it.

I hope someone can relate to my view and give his/here opinion. I tried to make myself as clear as possible, don't know if I managed.


bye

I can fully relate, I also suggested that an extras-testing mailing list would be created. See also this thread about general issues with the current situation.

(Threads to be merged?)

no more emaiiiiiils! wdell not for me anyway. would much rather search an extras forum then 3 newsletters.

Yes, this would be a cool idea. Like the thread could be auto-generated when a new app hits the repo and the top post in the thread would be the details linking to it's bugzilla, upstream website, it's link in maemo.org/packages, etc. Then you could just read the first post to get all the latest info (as it would be refreshed with new releases) and check the thread itself for specifics.

There'd have to be a separate subforum for each one, like you say, to keep things clean.

This isn't the same thing, but somewhat related, in that some user has made RSS feeds of apps as they hit the repo:

http://packages.portal.net.nz/reposi.../binary-armel/
http://packages.portal.net.nz/reposi.../binary-armel/
http://packages.portal.net.nz/reposi.../binary-armel/

Something like that could be used as a starting point. It would be way easier to implement if a new thread was started each time a new release was made. This may even be better for end users as well, so the followup posts aren't stale info.

Nice brainstorm.

i agree with the OP's comments... i do want to know how these commands work too... sure i can follow instructions, and past stuff into xterminal... i just dont know what im actually doing

is there a good resource for what commands do what in Maemo (linux debian whatever etc)

never had much to do with the commands before, even basic ones.... i know windows ones like cd\ copy del md etc... but not their linux equivalents...
Cheers...
®

Im also a noob when it comes to Linux but have found this link useful;

http://busybox.net/downloads/BusyBox.html

Just wondering, are you using Search or "Power Search"? I think this website shoud make "Power Search" its default. That would be one less hurdle for the newbies.

Google is your friend.

Something like this should also visibe in the application manager on the Devices all together with a changelog for the applications.

You Should reach the application releated thread or a entry point here at maemo for each application right from the application manager.