Notices

should do it.
you'll need the package "rootsh".

and be careful when entering that command! ther should be _no_ space anywhere in the path (between the first / and .desktop)!

what dependencies does freeciv have?

The reason I ask is I'm getting a sneaking suspicion that something got deleted when I used xterminal to uninstall the client,server and data.
At the time it was an attempt to get rid of the icon that still remained in the app list, so I tried re-installing all 3 from xterminal and then uninstalled from there too. I remember something flashed up on the screen about dependencies, and I should have payed more attention, but I didn't and pressed OK, thinking it must be part of the game.
I'd still love to play freeciv some day, but I am seriously considering restoring factory settings soon. The program seems to have put stray files all over the place, which the un-installer doesn't remove. Trying to delete these stray files means venturing around the innards of the n900's file system, with the risks that entails. I'm just not confident that everything is working as it did before now. A couple of other games wont load, when they used to before, and I'm not certain but I think some bookmarks have moved around or possibly have gone. Also there seems to be less space available on rootfs.
As I said I'd absolutely love to be playing freeciv and keep up the great work and all that, but I do think it's a bit irresponsible to be putting something out there that a lot of people will want to download, when there is no proper uninstall for it and no way to know you've got rid of everything.
Also puzzling is why does it work for some people and others are getting the 'game wont start' problem. Could this be anything to do with something else that's installed or not installed by some people? I have no idea what or why, just an idea.

Maybe so. But you are also accepting possibility of broken packages when using extras-devel or even extras-testing.

libsdl, zlib1g, freeciv-data, freeciv-server, and freeciv-client-sdl. Please let me know if any of these fixes it for you!
You are absolutely right, which is why I am not promoting it back into testing -- it's in -devel right now for development and fixing those problems. I am really, really sorry you can't get it working; I've been busy with my job these last couple of weeks, but am still trying to duplicate the error.

I thought there *was* a proper install and uninstall -- it tested out alright in my scratchbox and on my device, although it turned out (several times) I have been wrong or overlooked things or things I had set up on my device/environment were not marked correctly as requirements. I am very sorry again for these mistakes, and thank you for testing my modified Freeciv package in extras-devel to help find and fix them. (But please realize that's what -devel [and to a lesser extent testing] are for -- it's languishing there because it is still being tested and found wanting.)

That's also possible. It would have to be either a missing file or a missing dependency for the server part, I think, since the sdl-client gets to the part where you can start a game (from your description.)

I'm going to try to put together a better package in a few days; some of these problems could be due to me not packaging it correctly, still. I would really appreciate it if you could test it when I do -- as far as I am aware, this problem is all that is stopping Freeciv from being ready for the next step (and what a problem it is, though. )

thanks for the reply.I realy did not mean for that lasr post to sound like a rant,and people are right about accepting things from testing and devel. I remember thinking at the time; lookng through those repo's, saying to myself 'well I've only just got the phone, I can always restore factory settings'.
Has anyone here done that yet, and is it easy or hard to do? Also is it fairly easy to take a snapshot of what you have installed then just install it again?(or will that mean writing everthing down then finding it from that list). Any pics or other data in the storage area I can transfer to pc then put back.
I'd certainly be willing to try installing freeciv again to see if it works after the reset. Would that provide any answers? I think I'll be making a backup before installing anything new lol.

there you go: http://wiki.maemo.org/Updating_the_tablet_firmware

it's relatively easy IMO.
first you create a backup with the included application. this will contain messages, settings, and a software list.
after flashing the device, you restore the backup, and it will automatically install all applications you had when you took the backup.

if you don't flash the eMMC area, your files under /home/user and /home/user/MyDocs (that's the memory card you see when you connect it using mass storage mode) will be unaffected.

thanks for that. I might give it a try this weekend. Sounds like it's not such a pain to do. I can then make a restore point and try different things out with freeciv.

Freeciv isn't working for me anymore after the Firmware update?

Are you only using Extras-Testing? The post-Firmware update version is only in Extras-Devel because of some problems with it on some devices.

@ kyllerbuzcut -- I put a new version in Extras-Devel, but I was finally able to replicate your problems with a scratchbox install on my laptop, and it does not fix it. I am very confused, it seems the client never connects to the server after starting it...

I uninstalled and reinstalled. Now it's working again.