i got a nokia 770 a few weeks back and ive been messing around with a few applications on it. it was great to use when i was away last weekend and didnt take my laptop with me – i could surf away and watch some converted avi files.

so now with me heading off home for a few weeks i decided to put gaim on it so i can use instant messangers on it when i can find an open wifi point.

there is no official release of the gaim programme for the 770 – but there is a few ports of it done by other people for the 770. so i try one a few times only to realise that it was for a pervious version of the firmware of the 770. fair enough. so i go looking for the version that is made for the current firmware.

now im not a linux expert by any means, in fact the amount of time ive messed about with linux systems is most likely under 5 minutes. so, let me see if i get this straight. to download the gaim application for the 770 you have to tell it where to get the files online – so you enter in the “repository” information. easy enough it would seem, except that its tedious to do by the simplest method and not entirely easy using the other methods:

now there are 3 ways you can load those (and other) urls: 1) click on the title bar of the application manager, then tools, the application catalog and then key in each url 2) edit /etc/apt/sources.list from an xterm window (you’ll probably need root and an editor like vim, or use echo >> 3) ssh to the nokia and then cut and paste from the website! this is the easiest i think.

okay, so no3 seems the easiest. until one reads the text that tells you how to carry it out. nothing on that page made sense. almost every point raised at least two questions.

so i gave up and wrote this instead. i remember back in 2000 or so when i got a handspring visor – i searched the internet for sites that had applications for it – i found some but quickly became bored with most of them. same happened over the last year or so when i got my first s60 phone. when i look online in various sites for applications for the 770 i get a lot of flashbacks to palm and s60 application hunting – except with this one i have the added workload of having to spend hours working out how to install the application, in the end i just give up and ask dave for help. (help dave!)

(just sorta figured out that going through the tedious copy/paste on the 770 makes it easyish to get the repository list into the application manager. so im getting there – but still, i know the 770 is meant for the early adaptor – and as such is a bit rough around the edges, but to require so much of the user is a bit much to ask – and dont even get me started on the whole upnp thing)