First, let me stop a moment and explain that I lost my job a week ago. So if you see me a lot on this site, it's because I already have a new job and am starting in two weeks, and I have a lot to do before then, but for the next couple of days, the only thing on my mind is getting out everything I've been thinking about with my 770. In the spirit of making this device too awesome for words (and it's very nearly there already), I am putting in a lot of effort to help the community. So if you're getting tired of seeing my name, or that I'm hogging the site, I sincerely apologize in advance. I will slow back down once I get back to work. Until then, expect to see me being a big bandwidth hog around here. I hope you will be okay with that.
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ZIPS & RARS

(Added to Bugzilla as an Enhancement: https://maemo.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=650 )


We seriously need Zip or Rar capabilities for the 770.

As it stands, there is no way to unpackage files inside of zips, or rars, and I keep having to tell my friends to stop sending emails with Zips and Rars, but no one listens. The only computer I have is my 770, so it needs to be self-sustaining!

Plus, there are dozens of images, and books, and mp3 packages I have downloaded that I cannot extract the Zips/Rar's and get those files out. They are useless, and since about 50% of the traffic online happens inside of Zips and Rars, it's really frustrating to not be able to get to the files.

Just something, a cheap knock off program that can get into Zip and Rar packages would be extremely vital, in my opinion.

Thanks.

There isn't "no way" to use ZIP or RAR archives on the 770. I've said as much several times on these forums and I'll say it again.

If you want a command-line version of unrar, download this archive. It contains one file, which is unrar compiled for ARM. It runs fine on my 770 under Xterm.

Presumably you can find a command-line binary for unzip from one of the various ARM flavors of Linux, as free unzip code is readily available. FBReader supports Zip files internally, for example.

If you want a GUI to access ZIP or RAR files, that's another thing. I agree, it would be nice if the File Manager could support archive files of this kind (and TAR files as well) but it's not exactly a standard OS-level feature for a handheld device like the 770.

Will you please provide a sample screen-capture or just a list of line by line directions of how you use this file from xterm to extract rars?

I am xterm illiterate, so will you provide step-by-step newb directions? Once I make it work the first time, I'll be all set from then on.

Include, if you will, how to extract to our MMC's. This resource will be very helpful to us, so I thank you in advance for any time you put into carefully describing how to do this.

Take care.

gzip/gunzip are native on the 770 already (command line tools, accessed via xterm).

Milhouse, my understanding was that gunzip won't work on a ZIP archive that contains multiple files.

Ceklund, I didn't read at first that the 770 is your only computer. Unfortunately it wasn't really intended for that purpose. I don't think you can reasonably expect to do development on a device of this kind without access to a desktop computer. The things you want to do will simply be too cumbersome.

Can you provide example text for how to unzip something then?

Let's say my filename is AmazingVistas-31.zip and it has 15 megs of pictures from National Geographic. How do we unzip them to a folder on my memory card called "Pictures/Scenic" ?

Thanks in advance from us newbs who will appreciate these examples.

Drat, I tell a lie gzip/gunzip works only with a gz archive - for .zip archives you need zip/unzip which unfortunately are not native to the 770 so will need to be downloaded separately.

Normal syntax is along the lines of:
By default g/unzip will extract the whole of the archive to the current directory. Additional command line options should allow you to specify the output directory, obtain a list of the contents of the archive and extract individual named files from the archive.

...and there will be a problem of course with the 2006 OS where these arm binaries will no longer be usable...

Until such binaries become available, I'm going to have to stay with the 2005 OS.

Which, of course, sucks majorly.