Porting Applications from Ubuntu/Debian
 

Hallo to everyone in this forum. I am reading it about a week now, and I am very surprised of the support you can find here.

First time posting though, so here is the big question:

I am reading in a lot posts about porting applications from Debian-Based Linux distributions, but what are the possibilities of this getting done?

I am sure that its not a walk in the park for example install the linux .deb file on the phone, but I also think that its not impossible (vlc player for example is very close)

I did some research but I couldn't find some kind of instructions showing someone some steps to port Debian applications to Maemo. I think that someone expert instead of working on his own, should show the way to others. Imagine how many applications would come out helping others.

That's all, my greetings from Greece. Excuse my bad English, its not my native language.

Re: Porting Applications from Ubuntu/Debian
 

Why so much silence? Perhaps what I said was stupid? :confused:

Re: Porting Applications from Ubuntu/Debian
 

you can't just "port" a deb file over. The application needs to be recompiled from source for the ARM processor, and in many cases might need some updates done to the user interface of the application. It's a bit more involved that you think...although I can't speak from experience. I'm just beginning to learn C++ myself currently.

Some apps will be easier to move, like command line utilities or ones that don't really use the UI (OpenArena/Quake for instance...they launch full-screen and don't use window manager elements). Others like GIMP would need a heavy re-write to make them work well in 800x480.

Re: Porting Applications from Ubuntu/Debian
 

Debian actually has an entire repositories of armel compiled applications.. but they haven't been hildonized. So the ones pagesix was referring to about not using a UI would be extremely easy, as they would just need to be "optified" (putting everything in /opt).

The ones that run on ARM/ARMEL debian with a UI but not in maemo would run in Easy Debian here on the forums by qole. And they would require anywhere from really easy, to really complicated amounts of modification to get them to fit into the Maemo UI structure. It really all depends on the application, and how intensive the UI is.

Re: Porting Applications from Ubuntu/Debian
 

Depends on the application, but in general you have to do these steps:

1 - Adapt the UI for Maemo (finger friendly UI, less buttons,..)
2 - Compile and package the application for Maemo.

Seems easy but for complex applications is a lot of work, you can find more information in these links:

http://wiki.maemo.org/Documentation/...eveloper_Guide
http://wiki.maemo.org/Documentation/...rting_Software

Re: Porting Applications from Ubuntu/Debian
 

Thanx for your replies guys!

I thought so - it would depend on the application.

Very helpful links VDVsx. They answered all my questions. ;)

So i think its time to start learn programming!:cool: