I mean specifically, what is the "Diablo" repository and how is it different from "fremantle?"

I'm trying to be careful with what I do to my N900 here, but at the same time I want to explore what is available for it. I know about the warnings associated with downloading from extras-testing and extras-devel, so there's no need to repeat those here for me.


While I'm on this topic, I'd like to take the time to adress something that's been on my mind. Namely, that I find the whole setup and process of exploring what is available for downloading onto my N900 - by using the maemo site - very confusing and off-putting - and I am not the type who gets confused or put off very easily!

I enjoy reading these boards, and I appreciate all the back-and-forth about different devices, their strengths and weaknesses. I for one appreciate the position of the N900, precisely because of its openness, as opposed to the "commercially bound-up" approach of Apple products, to give a common example.

However, if Nokia, and the MAEMO team, and even the regular power users that frequent these forums, really had it in their hearts to put their money where their mouth is, and offer a product that provided freedom from the typically commercialized products that are the alternatives to the Nokia N900 (Android, iPhone, etc), then they would make the entire process of browsing, exploring, and applying applications to the N900 a much more available and user-friendly process.

Sorry to raise my voice, but I didn't want this point to get lost in all that I had to say. The repositories as they currently exist are cryptic, labyrinthine, and opaque. And by that I mean both browsing them on a computer and as they are listed for download in the applications area on the N900.

A little more description of what the item is, how it works and what it does, a little more support in terms of use, a few illustrations or screenshots - these are standards that most people are accustomed to just about anywhere you go on the web, but are strangely lacking on the Maemo site.

Again, I'm sorry to sound like I'm lecturing the site-ops or coders/uploaders of apps here, because everything they do is appreciated by all of us. But would it be too much to ask for a little more user-friendly approach to fixing up our N900's the way we like, in the spirit of freedom that is the raison-detre of the N900 (as I see it), without having to be an experienced Linux user?

I expect I will be told the party line, that "if you don't know what you're doing, you should stay out of the repositories", but I think that is a weak excuse and just another example of exclusionary thinking. If the N900 is about freedom of use for its owners, then it should be made more accessible, not less, to make that freedom of use a reality. And when I cannot even find a simple explanation of what the different repositories mean, that makes me feel that the "freedom" is only for a particular group who has the knowledge already, with no effort being made to assist those new to the means and methods that get used on a site like this. And that isn't much like freedom.