Notices

Hey! I was wondering which apps we can safely install on the N900 now. If we activate maemo extras, there is a good list of apps we can use, but are they safe? Or we should only install the 10-15 apps that are available without maemo extras?

I think all of them are okay, they just try to scare u. I activate extra-devel and i install a bunch of cool programs and nothing wrong with them.

Some of the must have program like....qtirreco, FM radio, Maemo Mapper, Knots2, OpenArena, ScummVM, Pidgin Internet, recorder, VNC viewer. I can actually RECORD FM RADIO w/ "RECORDER"..wow!! And then i can set it as my ring tone. I can use qtirreco to control my TV....amazing! I can use Knots2 to stream ANY VIDEO IN ANY FORMAT on the phone...amazing. And Open Arena and ScummVM are amazing games with awesome graphics. I can use VNC viewer to look at my PC and interact with it like i am @ the pc (though i wasn't too fond of it).

And then of course there is NES, SNES, SEGA, VGBA emulators.

Thanks a lot for your useful reply!

You should still be careful, try apps one at a time from devel espescially.

Non-obvious problems can result, i.e. if an app is unoptimized, your battery may drain faster than you would expect. The FM Receiver app used to inadvertently disable the mic for instance.

If an app is not 'optified' it will speed up the filling of your root partition (which will brick the device)

I highly recommend reading about any app you install here first, especially from the devel (and to a lesser extent testing) repos.

anyone know if numpty physics is safe to install. im dying to play that

be careful guys on downloading apps... from extras-testing mostly on devel... they are not recommended to use becoz it might break ur phone.... but if u still want is it on your own risk.... just want remind u guys.... =]

To the OP:

the apps frpm nokia you can take as safe and use without any concern.
The apps in extras are almost completely safe, and you should be able to use them without trouble (there's about 90 of them.)
Apps still in testing should be treated with a little more caution. Check them out in the repository list first to see their karma and and serious issues which have been reported.
Apps in extras-devel should be treated with a lot of caution.

Hope that helps.

Maemo extras are apps that were not made by Nokia? Has these apps been tested? And what are the ''extra-devels'' everyone is talking about?
Thanks, and pardon my noobyness

basically it's 3 steps.

A non-nokia free app goes into extras-devel first

After the developer feels the the app is stable enough for more generalized testing it can be submitted to extras-testing

After enough users test the app in extras-testing, and vote for it, it will be promoted to the extras repository.

So apps in the Maemo Extras repository have been tested by end-users in the extras-testing and extras-devel repositories.

and the infamous other way...... people just putting deb files on websites to be downloaded...

I think kathy got it dead right though....

Extras-Development - Warning. Only use this area if a) you know what you are doing, b) you are prepared they could damage your device, and even brick them.

Extras-Testing - These should be better for you and are there for testing. Definitely go and check out their current karma, as in most cases the ones nearing 10 karma are very good. A few have almost made it through without being optified. So like me, i've only installed a few - and almost run out of rootfs space. Just be prepared, and check your device after each install.
Just remember - not everyone can always test everything - but anything that may not work should be very fixable by this stage As we all know, Microsoft software is buggy as hell in most cases, but they release updates for people - same scenario here

Extras and Nokia repositories - Should both be safe. This is not to say that software runs differently to the way you expect it too. You can report a bug whenever you want if you thin kit is a bug. Or if unsure, screenshot and describe your issues here to see what others think

(Ctrl+Shift+p to screenshot your device, your image will be saved in the images folder, i then use pixelpipe to share to flickr, and can then show the picture in here )

Advanced search on these forums are your friend - it is most likely someone has posted previous issues or bugs. So remember when you post to give your issue a clear title!
Good Example - UK Vodafone Internet / 3G - File download issues
Bad Example - Why doesn't Vodafone let me download stuff?


Anyway back to the apps! - Extras-Testing always needs extra testers, so please pop in and take a look - start by testing the ones with good'ish karma for safety's sake, and when you get more confident, you can start testing any you want

Good luck!