This topic is to share experiences of installing softwares in Sailfish using Terminal (CLI - Command Line Interface) tools (pkcon, zypper, etc), extra repositories, etc.

Tested on Sailfish port @ Nokia N9.

Set the Developer Mode in Sailfish Settings : choose a password, leave "Allow developer updates" not selected, save. So now you have Terminal and remote connection (via "ssh nemo@<ip-number>").

The pkcon command has many options, see here some documentation.

1) (Don't work on recent Sailfish versions) Jolla file manager, use Terminal to install using pkcon :
$ pkcon install jolla-fileman
This file manager seems to be in alpha/beta state until now (15/12/2013).
There are other file browsers in Jolla Store (File Browser, Cargo Dock) and Warehouse (Filetug).

2) nano text editor to be used inside Teminal :
$ pkcon install nano

3) zypper tool, to complement pkcon :
$ pkcon install zypper
But zypper can't be used at same time with Jolla Store. See some zypper documentation, and zypper cheat sheet (page 1 and 2).

4) programming languages are available and simple to install :
gcc 4.6.4 (with gcc-c++, gcc-objc, gcc-objc++), perl 5.16.1 (already installed), ruby 1.9.3, tcl 8.5.8, tcl/tk 8.5.12 (with mer-tools repository), vala (0.16), etc. For example :

4.a) Python 2.7.5 :
$ pkcon install python

4.b) C/C++ (gcc/g++ 4.6.4) :
$ pkcon install gcc gcc-c++
Yeah, you can compile C/C++ code and run .o objects at CLI. No Harmattan aegis limitations anymore

5) additional softwares in mer-tools repository, e.g. :
dosfstools, emacs, git, htop, less, mtools, parted, powertop, rsync, ruby 1.9.3, strace, sudo, tcl/tk 8.5.12, zsh.
First enable the repository by entering root (with Developer Mode password) :
$ devel-su
# ssu ar mer-tools
# ssu ur
$ pkcon refresh
Now you can install, for example :
$ pkcon install htop less powertop
htop creates an icon which doesn't work, but inside Terminal it is ok.

6) OpenRepos.net via Warehouse client has many CLI softwares. NielDK published more than one hundred : apache, bash 4.3, cpufrequtils, imagemagick, lynx, mc (Midnight Commander), php, qemu, screen, wget, etc.

Is Midnight Commander available anywhere?

No, even with mer-tools enabled.

In OpenRepos.net there is Midnight Commander for MeeGo Harmattan only.

I guess it's good to propose to add it to mer-tools.

wget would be nice too, in the meantime binary attached (might need 'pkcon install gnutls' for ssl, not sure)


edit: wow, building on-device is a bliss, MC compiles/installs nicely, just make sure to configure with '--with-screen=ncurses' as there is no slang currently, subshell (ctrl-o) works, opens .tar.gz, yay! (now we really need hwkb, synergy compiled without problem but as it depends on X crashes right after start, any other options to make use of N900's hwkb?)

if you're not picky, 'curl -O' is an acceptable replacement readily available

wget suffered from GPLv3 fate But adding it to some community repo is a good idea.

"Fatal error: Authentication failed (is SSU set up correctly?)
" yes it is?`. What the **** is this ****?. Last step install fails?

The Harmattan one works fine - just extract it along with libslang and voila

Is GHC (haskell compiler) an option? If not, I might build one myself .