[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] The future of the Application installer

[From: Tomas Frydrych]

Marius Vollmer wrote:
> It don't regard the 770 as an embedded system.  Once you talk about
> installing arbitrary software on a system, it is no longer embedded,
> regardless of how limited its resources are.  It is also quite
> resourceful actually.  I think there is a lot to be said about using
> the 'real thing' when you can.  I think we can use dpkg+apt
> resourcewise, so we should.

The big issue is the screen realestate: even in the File Manager it is 
difficult to get to your files in a folder if  you have more than 3 or 4 
in there. The same goes for the installer: I am not sure what kind of UI 
would make it possible to trace a large number of dependencies without 
it being major pain, which is why I actually quite like the applet only 
keeping track of applications, not the system. If you want the installer 
to be fullblown dpkg frontend, there should be a 'normal user mode', 
that would be similar to how the intaller works just now, and some kind 
of an 'experienced user mode', and make the 'normal user' mode the default.

Synaptic-like view of the system can be overwhelming even on a big 
screen with mouse and keyboard -- whatever you do, design it first of 
all to work for the ordinary user; just because the hackers find it not 
powerful enough does not mean it is bad.

Tomas

		
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