Install PC Connectivity on a 64 bit host

This short wiki page describes the personal experience of installing PC Connectivity (the "Host part") on my 64bit Linux Box. From the title it sounds more complicated than it actually is.

Contents

Precondition

  • A Linux Box with Debian/Ubuntu at 64bit. If you have a 32bit one, you should ask yourself why are you here in the first place.
  • You need to be a bit more than a newbie: I'm not going to describe you what to do command by command.

How to

Step 1: looks easy in the beginning

  1. Follow the instruction at http://pc-connectivity.garage.maemo.org/2nd_edition/installation.html to install the "Tablet part"
  2. Stop right there.

Step 2: why it's not easy

If you try to add the repository for the "Host part" at your /etc/apt/sources.list and run a $ sudo apt-get update, you will see the problem. Your Linux box is naturally looking for the 64bit packages. That are not available.

But, your machine can actually run 32bit code: you just need some more "hand work".

Step 3: looks like I'm helping you

  1. Install filezilla, ssh and ia32-libs
  2. Download from http://pc-connectivity.garage.maemo.org/repository/pool/intrepid/main/: host-pc-connectivity_0.6_all.deb sbrsh_8.0maemo2_i386.deb sbrshd_8.0maemo2_i386.deb ssh-key-exchange_0.1_all.deb
  3. Install one by one the files you just downloaded with dpkg -i --force-architecture PACKAGE_FILENAME

Step 4: but then I abandon you to yourself

100% of the time what will happen is that you are going to receive messages about unfulfilled dependencies. DON'T PANIC: just install what you are asked and install the package again.

Do this "try and catch" process, until you don't have any other error and everything installs fine.

I know, I know. you would have prefered the commands to type one after another one. But it's hard to predict what software you have already installed on your machine, so the "dependencies resolution" is something you need to do yourself.

Enjoy! ;-)