[Announce] Faster Application Manager (Maemo5)
 

Faster Application Manager tries to be what the name says, a fast-to-use graphical front-end for apt-get, written from scratch and optimized for the N900/Maemo5. It's WAY faster than the built-in manager, allowing multiple selections before time-consuming operations, etc, etc...

It can:
- Install, upgrade and remove packages (select multiple before performing operations!)
- Filter packages quickly by category or status
- Sort packages (by name, date or size), search packages, blacklist packages
- Get changelogs for packages from maemo.org
- Optionally handle ALL packages, not just user/ categories
- Manage repositories
- Works both in landscape and portrait mode

It can't:
- Integrate into the system's auto-update functionality or Ovi store

I haven't heard of anyone messing up their system with this, so I'd consider it "relatively safe" to use... All the standard warnings of extras-devel in general still apply, though.

http://maemo.org/packages/view/fapman/

NOTES:
- Make sure your network connection is online or your operations will fail
- A log file of the last operations is available at /root/.fapman/lastlog.txt (also accessible through the menu). See the log if you receive error messages.

You may also donate :)

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

"fapman"... Kinda suspicious name, dont you think? ;)
I'll try it out now :)

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

lol @ appname

but you're right, the app manager is very slow, even more on PR1.2..
gotta try this as well.

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

Tried upgrading two packages, got "Error Exit code 100, status 0"
Any ideas?

EDIT: Otherwise looks great, portrait mode supported, search could be better(should filter out entries IMO). It's extremely quick too! (As advertised)

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

Make sure you are connected to network before starting the installation/upgrade. The app currently can't enable the connection by itself and will fail.

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

this app uses rootsh? Fapman will not launch as I use rootsh 1.8 and rootsh is now disabled. So it fails to even launch into the app.

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

Yeah, rootsh is used to launch from the .desktop file as root. Version 1.5 works, but I guess I'll have to find an alternative method then.

You can alternatively start the application from the terminal with

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

How is this used? I am trying to run from the newly installed icon but a message about rootsh comes up and it closes...

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

is there any way we could natively use this as an ovi store activated App Manager?

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

fapman, eh? Coding late at night? ;p *runs*

Drop a file in /etc/sudoers.d and run update-sudoers in the postinst. Run it in the postrm, too, if you feel the need.

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

For free apps, it only needs to read .install files correctly (you can switch default applications easily I suppose).
Since Nokia edited apt so that it can't install from user/hidden (E: Handler Silently Failed), you'll need a modified apt package. Since the ovi store doesn't use repos, I see no reason why this can't be posted.
http://mohammadag.ucoz.com/apt_0.7.2...test_armel.deb

Edit: oh and if you install it, it will get 'upgraded' to the "same" version from the repos, so you should
to pin it.

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

Cool Super COOL app name :D Kudo

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

Man This guy deserve a hug :D He saved our N900 from falling into a blackhole of App Manager. This app is lightning fast.

But I get the Error Code 100.
Status 0

Almost there :) Please fix it

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

It now uses sudo instead of rootsh, so it should launch from the icon for everyone.

Update to version 0.1.1. After that there will be a log file of the last operation available at /root/.fapman/lastlog.txt
It should tell what goes wrong.

You can see it with

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

I will wait for a more stable version, but yeah, its a real shame that the app manager is so slow :(

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

Trying now, looks really promising =]

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

this is repos yet?

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

Awesome piece of software. works quite nice.

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

Wow, nice app. Goodby App Mgr!

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

Screenshots please? :)

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

I like black and white.

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

This sounds great, looking forward to testing it :D

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

Even though I prefer formal looks on my phone, this FAPMAN design, with those funky icons, makes it not boring to look at.

And more importantly, it's fast enough that makes me choose several apps to install or uninstall! Great job!

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

Nice work! I look forward to seeing a more complete or final version :)

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

Version 0.2 brings you:
- A simple, preliminary way of managing repositories
- Better error messages in many places
- Don't fail installation because of unsigned packages
- Some smaller bugfixes

Version 0.2.1 tries to prevent the built-in application manager from messing too much with the repositories

Repository management works as follows:
It reads the repositories configured in the built-in application manager and adds extras-testing and extras-devel if they are not already included (they are disabled by default if you haven't previously enabled them). This list is then saved to /root/.fapman/repos.list. You can't add new repositories in the UI (only enable/disable existing), you have to manually add them to the file or use the built-in application manager to add them and then delete /root/.fapman/repos.list

If you encounter an error message which only tells you an exit code, please report what is in the log file (/root/.fapman/lastlog.txt).

Oh, and by the way if someone wants to create a better looking set of icons, that would be welcome :)

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

Really needed application here!
The original app.man. is seems really slowing down everytime it has lanched.

But...
Maybe better try another app. name!
LOL

Is "Fappman" better?
:D

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

Damn you!!!

I've been working on my version called pkgman for weeks

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

Wow, this is golden. Implement a "sort by date" filter and it's a godsent!

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

Hey mate i bloody love this app so much, any chance to change the color of the text its really hard on the eyes with the black and white text but overall is the best thing since a slice of bread

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

Working good so far. Only thing that tripped me up was having to click on "Update Catalogs", then "Upgrade Applications". Guess I'm just used to the old app manager and clicking Update to refresh/get list of upgradable apps in one step.

Thanks for this.

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

I agree that it would be useful. The problem is that apt-cache does not store package date information anywhere... Any suggestions what would be a good (fast!) way to get it?

Version 0.2.2 should auto-update if the catalogs are older than 24h. I could make this an user-configurable option at some point.

Anyone know how to signal hildon-desktop/menu to reload application icons? The built-in application manager uses some more elegant way than simply killing it :)

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

I know that AppWatch has this function. That tool is a P.I.T.A., tho.

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

Thanks for this app. Although, did you consider working on the existing Application Manager code (which is open source) to try and improve that, rather than reimplementing from scratch?

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

I'll have to give this app a thumbs up, since I can't stand the original App Manager because it's so darn slow. However, I'm wondering the "Updating catalogs". It's taken me now over 10 minutes and counting, is it supposed to be that slow? And yes, I have lot's of repositories open:

• Nokia
• ovi
• Maemo.org (aka Extras)
• Extras-testing
• Extras-devel
• Fremantle tools
• Joikuspot
• Opera

So I guess my choice of repositories "might" have something to do with the slowness of updating? :D

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

The Faster Application Manager is now searching for updated catalogs like 10 mins. Is that normal ? xD

Rebooted now and it's incredible fast ! Great.
Would just like to see the app icons in a future version, the rest is really great :cool:

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

I wanted to do something with Qt, so no :)

Yes it can take a long time over a slower connection if you have a lot of repositories (or if the repositories themselves are having a slow day). The package lists easily add up to several megabytes, take a look at your log file after doing a particularly long update.

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

Not working for me:
Getting: exit code 100, status 0, when trying to upgrade a package.

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

After reading this, I think I'll wait until it moves to testing.

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

Are you using the latest version (0.2.2 at the moment)?
Does this happen with any package or just one particular package?
What is in your log file after trying to install?

Re: [Announce] Faster Application Manager
 

Ok the lastlog.txt was mentioning a failed install called Horizontal Call. I unistalled this and tried installing anything and it worked :)