Second question first: Why is it so hard?

Good question. I'm a FreeBSD user going back quite some years, and I must admit, I don't find anything in this debian-oriented package management "easier" than what we've had on other platforms, including FreeBSD, for eons.

Granted, one of the principal issues noted with maemo is that the package repositories are decentralized with no central index. Knowing what to enable, include, etc is dependent on entirely too much folklore.

Its too bad that (and please correct me someone if I am wrong) that there isn't one central application index so that something like

% portmaster /usr/ports/multimedia/ukmp

would install, or upgrade, ukmp and all its dependencies. GUI equivalent of course too.

A centralized index would of course require some resource time from the maemo/Nokia folks, but packagers, not the index managers, mostly do all the work themselves anyway.

This model exists already out there elsewhere and works very well. Perhaps it even works in the regular Debian world too; I can't comment on that. But its worked for many years on FreeBSD and I don't see why it couldn't be used as a role model for a "consumer" device that shouldn't make everyone track down missing dependencies manually.

Granted, it is slightly more difficult in that binaries, not source, is the preferred distribution mechanism. Maybe the device should ship with a compiler enabled as a "backup" plan.

Back to the present: When single click install works, it works well, but it does feel rather fragile to this relatively new N800 user, but relatively experienced Unix hand.

First question second: I suspect you may have a repository not checked as available (perhaps "Extras") - check in Application Manager, Tools, Catalogues and view/edit the details and uncheck "Disabled" if checked. Then try it.

(and again, that isn't a good situation for a "consumer" device)

PS: I'm not blasting Nokia but trying to provide some constructive feedback. I totally get that Nokia, at least in prior OS releases, is learning to walk before it can run in this new device category. I just hope they are able to run soon... and take advantage of all this effort they've put into this market.