Notices

Hmmm, oddly enough I seem to have a mix of both, I have never noticed this.

So the best thing to do is check the debian manuals

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/ma...n.html#control

http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-pol...l#s-priorities

Yey! I've finally figured out how to make the characters smaller to fit more of them on the screen. That means the Qt port is now completely superfluous.

In 1.0.2, on is way up.

[OT]Huh? I thought that HAM is the thing that power-users don't want to touch with a long stick, considering that you can die of old age (and boredom) before that sucker finishes single any_operation. Besides, apart from imaginary "possible problems" with using FAM, that joergR implied as possible to exist (without actually specifying, from a technical/code point of view, what he may have in mind), that no one ever saw in real life, there is no much reason for using HAM over FAM.

Not surprisingly, all this "bad press" reminds me of busybox-power case (or even Pali's/freemangordon's kernel-power case, before few guys on IRC came to their senses), when authoritative comments and personal dislike from some ego dudes shed bad light on other people's work, in a completely unjustified manner.
[/OT]

Sorry for ot, pichlo.

There are potential issues that can happen when using apt-get over HAM in Maemo, due to the differences between Maemo and Debian packaging and repositories. FAM is a GUI for apt after all. There have also been reported issues from auto-removing after every use.

FWIW this is not the reason for me avoiding it, I feel this is important to point out, hence continuing this OT.
Firstly, if I wanted to use apt, I see no reason not to open a terminal and type away I don't see a need of a GUI for it.
FAM uses it's own catalogues which IMO is adding more unnecessary bloat to Maemo.
Finally the source code for HAM has always been available, I see no logical reason why this wasn't checked out and worked on first before deciding to write a GUI for apt.

Thankfully this has recently come to the attention of fmg, who has and will continue if possible to fix and speed up HAM as part of CSSU.

Tagged as speedyHAM these HAM fixes are currently available from the development repo and make HAM lightening fast. Well, as lightening fast as a package manager can be that's looking through repos full of uuencoded icons

<OT>
I actually like having a GUI front-end to certain CLI tools. It makes life easier. FAM allows me to filter packages by parts of name, read some details about them etc before I decide to install or not. I am sure apt can do something similar but looking up the apt help every time is a bit of a hassle

HAM can do the same but as far as I am concerned it has two major disadvantages. One, it does not show you all the available packages but hides those it deems "too advanced" for the simpletons like you. This Microsoft-like approach is the main reason I avoid it like a plague. The second major disadvantage is that it insists on installing or removing packages one at a time.

For those two reasons alone I never use HAM. The fact that FAM also happens to be faster is just s free bonus for me.
</OT>

Nice one, I remember looking for such thing a couple of times in repos, then just searching for a webpage to copy from. This makes internet connection not needed. Very cool addition (FAM FTW, ham was just pushed/insisted on by cssu devs as some upgrades supposedly were too extreme and ham handled them safer iirc, though never seen anyone complain about fam bricking their device, so might've been just playing it safe)

This has now been resolved Plus you can also choose the font and the size of the characters in the main chart. Currently without affecting the info panel on the right or the edit box.

In 1.0.3, on its way up.

[OT]While important topic indeed, maybe we should start another thread about package managers?

Anyway, what pichlos said about benefits of having frontend is *exactly* what I use FAM for - it's just much easier to browse things that appear in repo and search for things that may do the thing that I need. 'apt-cache search' and 'apt-cache show' alone is much more troublesome to use, IMO.

Examples of problems, please! It is exactly the argument that I tagged as "some imaginary problems that no one ever encountered". I use apt-get and FAM for everything since dawns of time, and I never, ever touch HAM for any new N900's that I put my hands on. kernels, CSSU, whatever. Never had any problem, and never heard any details about what those problems may be. AFAIK, those "possible problems" are another hoax that joerg_rw injected into public - just like some misinformations about busybox-power and kernel-power in the past - without any proof or reasonable technical explanation. bb-p and kp myths died on their own (mostly, thanks to some quasi-agressive conversations between kernel-power developers and said hoax-maker, on IRC), but "FAM shaming" seems to live happily, god knows why. Maybe because there is no maintainer around, to defend own package against unfair accusations and outright lies.

And don't even get me started at the "possible problems due to automatic autoremoval of unneeded packages" checkbox. It is freakin' optional thing, and complaining about it is as valid as accusing apt-get of having "autoremove" option (which is exactly the same thing that FAM uses with this checkbox). I sincerely hope that anyone using this know what she/he is doing.

Overall, the whole thing is very sad example of complete lack for hard work of other people in the "Community" (FAM hasn't coded itself, you know), based on some ego-hat creating hoaxes and spreading it, due to personal dislike for said project. That alone wouldn't be a problem - unreliable, yet extremely opinionated people happen everywhere. What worries me, is how easily "Community" pick up on those things, showing disdain for other's people work without actually checking on facts/verifying them on your own. I don't know, relying on false "authority" of some arrogant dudes is so tempting, or what?

That is good to know, thank you. I'm glad that someone decided to take look at HAM, after all - IIRC, the fact that no one decided to do it before, was a little "behemoth" codebase of HAM. Now I'm stretching my memory to ancient ages so excuse me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall FAM author writing "somewhere", that he decided re-writing it from scratch as apt-get frontend was actually easier.[/OT]

/Estel

Yes, please.