Where in the world are you finding all these .debs to install, anyway?

What are you asking for here? You suggest an easy command line tool as a solution, but don't find dpkg acceptable. Is it that you need dependency resolution? That's exactly why we have the repositories and apt-get, and avoid using manually downloaded debs.

GA - I would imagine they are changing the setting via red pill which (and I am paraphrasing here the exact syntax) says show all packages.

When you turn that on you get basically every package. Dangerous in the extreme if you dont know what you are doing - or at the very least are prepared to flash.

It is very easy do dpkg a .deb by just reding on a forum "to install this app put it on the SD and run blabla/blabla" - even a monkey can copy-paste knowing it will get a banana!
It is even easyer to enable the extras-devel with no red pill required to totally mess your device up.
And to top the cake with a cherry there's the nice installable rootsh that opens the way for ultimate bricking - all easy to install and use.

You people don't get that this is not your geeky home computer, this is a mobile device that people have to be able to use easy and on the go.
No one has enough distributive atention to play in terminal while walking on the street nor can they type while barely hanging around in a bus (yes I do use the bus :| )

I suggest a nice and elegant solution: Make a nice "app" just like "rootsh" to enable the red pill mode and put them both in the extras-devel.
Is it that much to ask?
People that don't use rootsh will most likely never install "pillsh" either.

There barely are any.
I found the debs for Open TTD and wanted to install them MANUALY just because I CAN, that was it.
I found it unconfortable and painful that to simply install an application I had to use the keyboard, but as that wasn't enough, things are going to be much nicer after completley removing red pill.

In my opinion, and I mean it in the most non-offensive way, the fact that you people think it's "better" to use terminal and make that judgement for all users out there makes you uber-lame geeks!
It's because of people like you I write this message from a windows OS instead of Linux, people like you guys made a great OS but keep dragging it down with their nerdyness.

People learn and adapt more easily with interactive menus and GUIs - I know many of you might consider a blinking cursor interactive, but most of us do not.

Every user+ eventualy gets to the commandline for a reason or another, but getting there ("this soon") for barely installing an application - it's just sad.

Yes, I do think that a lot of the time using the terminal is the better option. NO, I do not want GUI functions to be removed due to this.

You're completely missing the point yet again. A package manager is much more user friendly and safe than installing applications the Windows way, and discouraging standalone debs will protect 90% of the users from themselves. We posters are trying to point users to something BETTER, not something nerdier.

I'd be with you 100% if Nokia had disabled dpkg, but since it's there this is a total non-issue. I've already used it, but I know what I'm doing. You don't.


Edit: if you're trying to install potentially dangerous packages while walking on the street, you're already doing it wrong.

My problem is... the "users" out there want to have all the cool toys of the uber-lame geeks and then expect us to fix it for them when it doesn't work right.

There's a reason why uber-lame geeks have some seriously cool toys or desktops that do some amazingly fancy stuff.

We break crap.. and then fix it ourselves. Then we break it again.

User's break crap... and then whine. WTF?

When it's ready for a "user" to be playing with it.. it'll be in the extras. If a "user" is feeling experimental, they can then use testing or devel. Installing .deb's that are not from any maemo repo.. just one randomly found on the internet that happened to be compiled for ARMEL.. is extremely dangerous. And the software that is not shown by default without red-pill mode in the repository are useless for an end-user. It will be added when it's needed.

And this is also what I refer to as a "windows" user mentality. Everyone just wants to point and click and install whatever nifty thing they found on a website and bam: virus', trojans, malicious software, or broken computers (tablets).

Is the terminal an end all solution? No.. I see people running around here that have just enough knowledge to realize they can run over to debian or ubuntu's repo's with 1000's of ARM/ARMEL software and just install it by, as you say, copy/paste monkey->banana!

Then it doesn't work.. and they want to know why? Why should this be any easier? It's obviously easy enough.. and still a problem.

So, yes. I'm an uber-lame geek, and I support not making it super-easy for your normal users to destroy their devices because they don't know any better.

The difference between Nokia/Apple or Linux/Windows is that you CAN... but that doesn't always mean that you should!

Well keeping a "pillsh" into extras-devel should not affect security in any way or certanly "just as much" as rootsh does.

It's not that by disabling redpill, users will never install .debs, they surely will and they will crash their OS and maybe even brick the phone.
It's about keeping redpill for people who know what they are doing since this is a MOBILE device and typing folders and subfolders to reach a .deb with a 15char name is simply NOT POSSIBLE FOR PEOPLE ON THE GO.

I am dead sure I'll brick my N900 sooner or later and maybe I'll whine for help, or maybe I'll find the solution my own. Messing with stuff around is simply part of my learning process that guarantees that the second time I'll brick it will be in a new and original way

For me the only thing that disabling redpill can do is postpone the time of bricking from "on my way home" to "honey I'm home, don't bother me I just found this great app"

I don't say we let the users super-easy brick their phones, I simply want a super-secret-hidden-enableable way of installing .debs as easy as I install apps from repositories for when I'm in a non-typing situation.

Unfortunately.. it never stays super-secret for long =-\.

Besides, why would you load a possibly harmful app when in a place where you might not be able to recover from it? I mean.. I personally *hate* it when my Android phones dies because the battery life is nothing short of horrendous... because to me the most important part of a phone: It's there in an emergency.

If you're on the go and you brick your device.. what do you do if you get hit by a truck ?

Well I will get hit by a truck if I have to type concentrated...
But with a little red pill I'm sure to finish installing/bricking fast enough to notice the red light

All I want is a little installing convenience

You'll see that in the following months you'll be swarmed with dpkg masters saying " my device doesn't boot anymore, I tried turning it off and on again and I have even removed the battery, what should I do next?"

So you see, killing the red pill mode won't stop the brickers, it will simply replace an easy to use installing method with an easy to use installing method that involves typing...

You know about tab, right?