I've installed several click-and-go applications on my N800 OS2008. Some others, I've had a lot of trouble.

I tried to install rtcomm from the website, but it says I am missing libraries. I can't seem to find them anywhere. Supposedly they are part of the Chinook set, but when I find that and try to install, I just get a text file that doesn't execute. What am I doing wrong?

I'm now trying to install Maemo Mapper, from https://garage.maemo.org/frs/?group_...elease_id=1203. Half way down the page, there are two links for OS2008. The first one is the .deb file. I click that one, and the file tries to load, but terminates because I don't have a required library.

The next link is a tar.gz file. If I click that, the system doesn't have an application to open it. Does that link contain the needed libraries? If so, how do I open and install them?

The tar.gz contains the sources, that's for people who wanna devellop the program.
For you the deb is the right file. You must see which libraries are missing and find them. Or install the first 3 repositories from http://www.gronmayer.com/it/index.ph...&system=maemo4 (not counting the Nokia ones) and the libraries have big chances to be there.

On the topic of installing applications, here's one:

https://garage.maemo.org/projects/stock-plugin/

Is there a way to tell whether it's in a repository, and which one? Or do I have to download the .deb?

If you go to the link that lilavati provided in her post above, there is a search function. You can put in the name of the package you're wanting and it will tell you what repository it's in (if any) - you might have to search for 2007 and 2008 to find the proper repo. If you don't find the package in an existing repo then you should grab the .deb file.