[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] Installing packages in extra storage?

[From: Gustavo Sverzut Barbieri]

Hello,

Is it possible to install software on extra storage, like MMC or some
other kind of share (smb, nfs, ...)?

Nokia 770 with just 64Mb may raise some problems and we must have
platform support for this feature. If this feature is not available I
will write a enhancement proposal and try to implement it.

I think of something like a special directory that, if available,
would be included as overlay to currently installed packages. Add and
Remove scripts would be required to initialize/finish support when the
extra storage with extra packages is detected. And I see 4 ways to
make these aplications available:
 - export PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH: not really useful since entire
environment must be restarted to use these variables
 - symbolic links: not a clean solution, but works... I dislike it too.
 - remount directory as overlay to system: may have problems when
installing new software on device, it would go in extra storage
instead
 - maemo support: application launcher/menu would detect new software
and launch it directly from extra storage. Problems may arise if
package was dependent on absolute paths. Clear solution is to provide
scripts to setup environment and fix package to use this new
environment instead of hardcoded paths. The best solution IMHO.

any ideas?

--
Gustavo Sverzut Barbieri
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Computer Engineer 2001 - UNICAMP
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