Notices

I'm a Linux newbie but trying to learn fast - so if anyone can give me a bit of help it would be much appreciated...

I'm trying to install OpenVPN on my N800, with the intention ultimately of being able to connect to the OpenVPN server on my desktop machine.

The ApplicationsCatalog2006 at maemo says that the OpenVPN port has been tested and works on the N800, and has a link to a site:
http://guerby.org/ftp/nokia800-deb/
The install instructions say to install the openvpn2.0 deb file, and a supporting liblzo1 deb file, and also to copy an openvpn file to a specific directory.

But how do I install these two deb files? I have looked on the forums and tried using "Install from file" in the download manager, but this just says the two deb files are "incompatible appication packages".

is there a way of doing this from the command shell. If so, what are the commands I need to install the two deb files? Presumably I can copy the other file to the specified location using the mv command?

Sorry for such basic questions but I am trying to get started with the N800 and learn Linux from a book. It's great to be able to ask real people for help too....

Any other OpenVPN tips greatly appreciated too!

Look around here for "dpkg" and "Red Pill Mode".

At least on the 770 that did the trick.

Disclaimer: I haven't tried to install OpenVPN (yet. I'm holding back a bit in the hope of it appearing in a repository, to simplify the installation).
But: To install a .deb that won't install from the app. manager I would
1) Install osso-xterm and becomeroot (search maemo or maemo wiki)
2) Use 'sudo gainroot' in xterm to get to a root shell
3) Install the package as follows (which is in the root directory of the external card in this example):
dpkg -i /media/mmc1/package-name.deb
4) If this complains about missing packages: Go hunting, install them either the same way (manually with dpkg), or through the application manager if at all possible.
5) If this still fails: Post here.
6) The above are generic instructions, your mileage may vary for OpenVPN.

It would be great if someone who's actually installled OpenVPN would correct/fill in the above if there's something missing.

Thanks for the reply. From hunting around the Internet I was under the impression that dpkg -i would actually do the whole install in a single process - is this not correct?

Anyway, the next step is creating or modifying the config files. What's the best way to do that? Looking at the forums it looks like many people use Vim - is this the best command line text editor to use, or can anyone recommend a better one.

(My Linux book has instructions for Vim on Ubuntu - I'm hoping it would be the same in the N800?)

Thanks again for bearing with the novice questions....

If you've never used vi/vim before, it may help to install midnight commander (mc) and use its built-in editor. Much simpler, and quite enough for a few changes to config files.

dpkg -i is more like rpm in this respect - it'll only install from the file(s) you specify. Unlike apt-get, which will resolve dependency issues and download the required additional packages as needed.
On the other hand, dpkg -i will not refuse to install entirely (unlike rpm), it'll half-install a package with missing dependencies, so that later apt-get commands that happens to install the missing dependencies will finalize what dpkg -i started. If the dependencies could be resolved by on-line packages, that is. Otherwise it's package hunting and more dpkg -i.

I hope that made sense..

It seems "apt-get install OpenVPN" from xterm should be able to load all the dependencies. I have not tried. I was having the same problem with my N770 reporting LIBLZO1 as missing when installing GPE-Calendar, I searched everywhere for it to install it but I always got the error the package was invalid or incompatible.

In my case the solution was to re-install the latest ITOS2006 (Which was actually the same I had) that reloaded the missing library and I was able to install GPE-Calendar and other apps. In your case you can re-install the latest ITOS2007 if no other resource comes up.