Filecoaster, Preload, Preware, Preupdate..too many?

[cobrakon]

I am a longtime Palm user (M105, M500, Z71, Treo300, Treo650, Centro) and have followed Treocentral for sometime, so it was natural for me to get on Precentral when I upgraded. I'm not one to risk bricking devices so rooting and such was a no-no for me (having fail-flashed many other devices :P)

So WebOS Installer and Filecoaster are released, work perfectly and not only am I downloading apps, I'm updating other Pre'ers so they an too. Life is good.

Then I start hearing about Preload and think "hmm...how will this work? PC has a good dev community, good influx of apps, but now there's another player. I stick with the safe bet and "coast" along.

Now, Preware and Preupdate and getting attention and I am now confused if I need all 4 of these to have all the apps available? Does FC have non PC community apps in it? Am I missing other good things?? It is confusing.

Then the OSK is revealed and I *must* have this, but I see it requires Preware....if I must I must. To my surprise though, I see it "sees" all the PC apps and their update status no less. This is more than what FC is getting me. So I must ask, which loaders are people using?

• Filecoaster
• Preload
• Preware
• PreUpdate
• Other?

[Shadavis08]

preware is the best but it does not give a description of the program to download , filecoaster is not even working right now anyways lol and pre-load is well not very good in my opinion i would go with preware and download filecoaster just to get the description of the apps i load . have a great night!!!

[Shadavis08]

oh and with preware you dont have to worry about the application cap on third party downloads , if you download with filecoaster you will get a not enough memory error after you download so many apps. the cap is in memory used and not sure what that is ,but you get the idea ,later.

[jhoff80]

Okay, I realize that it's not working perfectly for some people, but for many (most?) Filecoaster still works with absolutely no issues.

I prefer the additional things that Preware can do, but for browsing Homebrew, Filecoaster is better because of having descriptions and screenshots.

[Gaurav]

They all have their merits. However I have been using Preware most these days:

Filecoaster - nice because supports direct downloading via url which others do not yet and also offers screenshots of homebrew apps. The con is that it uses the "standard" way of installing apps as supported by the app catalog and hence is limited by the artificial app storage space on the Pre.

Preware - has the most polished interface in my opinion. Can update apps and better categorization of homebrew. Also can apply patches as evidenced by the soft keyboard patch. Hopefully more patches will be enabled. Also does installs homebrew via ipkg method which circumvents app storage limitation found in filecoaster. The cons are that it doesn't support direct download via url and has no screen shots of homebrew

Preload - good place for sharing ringers and wallpapers. Also supports same ipkg feed from precentral and webosinternals. Cons are that the interface is very unintuitive...

WebosQuick install - Great desktop app. Supports patches, tweaks, all ipkg feeds, does etc. I really love this app even more since Jason enabled more support for patches! Awesome app! The negative of course is that it runs on your desktop, not on the Pre...

[sillyricky]

Originally Posted by Shadavis08

preware is the best but it does not give a description of the program to download , filecoaster is not even working right now anyways lol and pre-load is well not very good in my opinion i would go with preware and download filecoaster just to get the description of the apps i load . have a great night!!!

I too use the same method above,

Preware- for downloading, and updating, mainly because they have patches that you can install without rooting and the apps are catagorized.

Filecoaster- Used to be the main program to install homebrew apps, however, now i only use it for the description of apps. Would love to see preware have descriptions for their apps.

Preload - I use only for downloading ringtones, sounds, and Wallpapers.

just my 2 cents!

[cobrakon]

Awesome guys, that helps! So it seems we just need to get the Filecoaster and Preware teams together to combine brains and create "t3h l337 pR3 d0wnLo@D3r". lol.

One other question, in the Repo section of WebOS Installer, there seems to be some crazy ipk stuff available to download. Any of it "harmful" since you can't really see what they do?

[sjcea]

I use nothing but preware now and have uninstalled the others , as for Preware not having a preview . this is not entirely true . most apps have a link on the bottom that allows you to view the app page online for each app . Preware is far and away the best of the bunch IMHO

[TreoRock]

Originally Posted by gfunkmagic

They all have their merits. However I have been using Preware most these days:

Filecoaster - nice because supports direct downloading via url which others do not yet and also offers screenshots of homebrew apps. The con is that it uses the "standard" way of installing apps as supported by the app catalog and hence is limited by the artificial app storage space on the Pre.

Preware - has the most polished interface in my opinion. Can update apps and better categorization of homebrew. Also can apply patches as evidenced by the soft keyboard patch. Hopefully more patches will be enabled. Also does installs homebrew via ipkg method which circumvents app storage limitation found in filecoaster. The cons are that it doesn't support direct download via url and has no screen shots of homebrew

Preload - good place for sharing ringers and wallpapers. Also supports same ipkg feed from precentral and webosinternals. Cons are that the interface is very unintuitive...

WebosQuick install - Great desktop app. Supports patches, tweaks, all ipkg feeds, does etc. I really love this app even more since Jason enabled more support for patches! Awesome app! The negative of course is that it runs on your desktop, not on the Pre...

According to the developer, he believes that is a feature that can mess up your Pre if you install a malicious software. I don't think it is a big deal, because I'm a big boy and I know exactly why I'm installing a new update from a developer who is sending me a private beta link. Now, that I'm using Preware it pretty much makes filecoaster useless because I've gone over the limit of my apps installed.

[PreGame]

Originally Posted by Shadavis08

oh and with preware you dont have to worry about the application cap on third party downloads , if you download with filecoaster you will get a not enough memory error after you download so many apps. the cap is in memory used and not sure what that is ,but you get the idea ,later.

there may not be a cap but this can cause issues later when palm releases updates to their applications. I am guessing there is a reason why there is a cap at this time.

EDIT: Also preware just uses raw linux ipkg commands to install the software. Since the appinstaller is coded in C there is no way to confirm what exactly is changed during an install. Are cookies created? Are databases changed? etc. By preware doing installs this way and not through the official palm method this could cause issues in the long run.

[splmonster]

Originally Posted by TreoRock

According to the developer, he believes that is a feature that can mess up your Pre if you install a malicious software. I don't think it is a big deal, because I'm a big boy and I know exactly why I'm installing a new update from a developer who is sending me a private beta link. Now, that I'm using Preware it pretty much makes filecoaster useless because I've gone over the limit of my apps installed.

Rwhitby was correct, it would be a big opening for malicious software. They are correct by not adding this feature.

[PreGame]

people can also upload malicious software to the precentral catalog. I can use prewares service in my app to also run raw commands.

[Bujin]

I use Preware for my day-to-day downloading of apps, and have a Launcher shortcut to the homebrew app page to look at any descriptions I'd like.

I do also keep FileCoaster, primarily for direct download of images that I'd like to use for wallpapers.

[MarkY]

Originally Posted by PreGame

there may not be a cap but this can cause issues later when palm releases updates to their applications. I am guessing there is a reason why there is a cap at this time.

I too suspect that this could cause a problem for people that are loading a ton of apps. Fortunately my app needs are minimal. Hopefully Palm is just being conservative with the amount of space they need to preserve.

[StoneRyno]

The community needs to work together and be unified. Obviously at the beginning it was stepping stones to get to the point where apps could be loaded from the device but now that we have that everyone needs to join forces and make one app for homebrew catalog instead of competing with each other. Please for the sake of the community unify and make one homebrew app catalog app. Taking from each current app the best and combining it into one app.

[Ecode]

I think eventually one will come out on top... right now I'm leaning towards preware. Right now I think all you need is Preware for the patches and apps, and WOQI. I would bet though, that Jason gets in contact with the Preware guys and migrates all of his awesome work into the Preware interface since it is an onboard gui app. Time will tell though.

[Jason Robitaille]

Originally Posted by Ecode

I think eventually one will come out on top... right now I'm leaning towards preware. Right now I think all you need is Preware for the patches and apps, and WOQI. I would bet though, that Jason gets in contact with the Preware guys and migrates all of his awesome work into the Preware interface since it is an onboard gui app. Time will tell though.

Actually, I have been in contact with the Preware guys. No plans to migrate my work their, besides, they have enough ppl on the task as is, and I have enough stuff to work on, on my own

FYI, one big difference with Preware and the alternatives. Preware currently handles postinst and prerm scripts, meaning it can install all the properly formattinged "rooting required" ipk files that work in WebOS Quick Install (aka apps like my MyTetherInstaller, the flashlight app, Internalz/FileMgr, etc.).

[StoneRyno]

Originally Posted by Jason Robitaille

Actually, I have been in contact with the Preware guys. No plans to migrate my work their, besides, they have enough ppl on the task as is, and I have enough stuff to work on, on my own

FYI, one big difference with Preware and the alternatives. Preware currently handles postinst and prerm scripts, meaning it can install all the properly formattinged "rooting required" ipk files that work in WebOS Quick Install (aka apps like my MyTetherInstaller, the flashlight app, Internalz/FileMgr, etc.).

This is why a single app combining the best of each app is needed. Each group can work on the specific parts of the app that come from their current separate app. I just see no reason to maintain several different apps that do the same thing more or less with separate fringe capabilities in each one. When combining them into a single app would be the most logical thing to do and also reduce total space used by not having duplicate features between the apps.

[Webby_s]

Rookie question going on... And sorry for hi-jacking the thread, if so ignore..

I have preware dl'd, looks awesome but getting org.webosinternals.ipkgservice is not running. Now what to do? Please?

[StoneRyno]

Originally Posted by Webby_s

Rookie question going on... And sorry for hi-jacking the thread, if so ignore..

I have preware dl'd, looks awesome but getting org.webosinternals.ipkgservice is not running. Now what to do? Please?

Did you install the package manager service per the instructions? Restarting the pre may help. If not you may need to reinstall.