Ideal Pyra configuration & Accessories


Wally

I am a banana!
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Given that most of us will be upgrading from the Pandora to the Pyra, I'd like to get your opinion on things.

As we all know the Pyra will have:

1) Internal NAND of unknown size.

2) MicroSD slot

3) 2 SD Cards as we are used to on the Pandora.

With the Pandora from the beginning I had the thoughts of:

1) I would use the SD cards in my computer as well.

2) Fat32 Would be fine as I use OS X and OS X doesn't have native EXT support. (Neither does Windows as a matter of fact)

3) Bigger SD cards = Better

4) Could keep everything synced fine.

5) Hey TV out! Cool

6) USB devices yay!

What really happened with the Pandora:

1) WiFi sucks big time.

2) SD Cards can wear out (Particular the lock switches) if you switch devices all the time (and forget to eject DOH!)

3) I tried an EXT FS once and found it impossible to manage from my OS X machine. (I tried the VM approach and it works but it's not ideal).

4) Fat32 sucks if you want big files.

5) Craig Rothwell.

6) TV Out cables arrived too late and are using old tech which i've mostly moved away from (My TV is compatible but eh Pyra release is so soon!)

7) USB Devices were not so fun to configure.

8) Purchased 2 * 256GB SD cards and realised I have cluttered everything up on SD 1.

My Aim for the Pyra including usage:

1) Treat it as a single device - SD Cards stay inside device.

2) Have a 12 month 3G Prepaid SimCard. (Optus offer 18GB over 365 days with unlimited social media but not to be used with dropbox backup as will cost more than good)

3) Utilise the HDMI output with the TV and docking station (if we get one) and use it to play games with the retrode and Bluetooth controllers (Yay PS1) and have family videos at ready.

4) Configure MicroSD Card for Applications & AppData and backing up said data to DropBox via Symbolic Link

5) Utilise one 256GB SD card for ROMS and Game Data and the other for DropBox, Music, TV shows and Movies.

I would like to know what people's ideal plan is for the Pyra, especially the following:

1) What is the ideal MicroSD card size? My thoughts are towards 64GB but another part of me is saying bigger.

2) Are you going to isolate the Pyra so it doesn't require a PC for download of applications?

3) Are you going to use the Pyra on your HD television / Monitor as a Desktop device or gaming console?

4) Where is the primary location you will be using your Pyra? Mine is away from home (particularly travelling and commuting to work)

5) Would the Pyra prompt you to sell other devices you might not use?
 
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1) if the eMMC is large enough I'll most likely not bother with a microSD card. As you can't use both at the same time.


2) pretty much how I run the Pandora now.


3) occasionally.


4) Ignoring family on holidays, at work, when I travel.


5) I'm a horrible pack rat for antiquated computer equipment. So I will keep my Pandori.
 
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1) Like TrashyMG, I might not bother with a microSD unless the built-in storage is too small for me. Definitely planning on large SD card sizes, though, for games and media and maybe booting another OS. I doubt I'll go above 64 GB until bigger cards get cheaper.


2) Definitely. Once things are set up I'll leave my SD cards where they are. With a good Wi-Fi card, there's no reason why I can't download and/or sync everything I need. :)


3) Knowing me, I'll keep it portable most of the time. I might connect it to a TV a few times, but not often.


4) Anywhere and everywhere! The ability to have a full portable Linux system plus the gaming elements appeals to me greatly.


5) I was considering getting rid of my netbook in favor of the Pyra, but I recently installed Manjaro Linux on it and I'm enjoying playing with it, so I'm not sure... Don't have a Pandora to consider selling off.
 
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1. No clue.

2. I don't use another computer to do much for my Pandora.  Usually only charging, and that is rare.  It will most likely be the same for my Pyra.

3. Probably, but I won't know how much until I have it.

4. Everywhere except the shower.

5. Unlikely since I use most devices it would "replace" for several purposes.  It would be nice to not need another device for calls and such.
 
What I wanted on the pandora was:


Handheld gaming retro


Audio player


Laptop


Bonus: C4a


It delivered on all points, except for the keyboard, making it something i cant write on.


Ended up switching OS-es a lot, pandian3 today. Hopefully all known-to-work efforts will be consolidated on just the one platform.


Not sold on systemd though.


With the pyra i hope the uSD is MMC1, since that is the fastest one, supporting 104 mode. (according to things ive read)


Ext2 is a safe bet, but there is f2fs, btrfs and a whole heap of others. There are some interesting things that can be done with union file-systems.


I dont plan on using the eMMC at all. Wont sell my pandora. It will be used for terminal only. Not that i need that.


Sneakernetting files across is old, and ill (again) only use wireless or usb.


Additional use-case for pyra is photography for me.


Potential bonus: Replaces cellphone
 
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I would like to know what people's ideal plan is for the Pyra, especially the following: 1) What is the ideal MicroSD card size? My thoughts are towards 64GB but another part of me is saying bigger. 2) Are you going to isolate the Pyra so it doesn't require a PC for download of applications? 3) Are you going to use the Pyra on your HD television / Monitor as a Desktop device or gaming console? 4) Where is the primary location you will be using your Pyra? Mine is away from home (particularly travelling and commuting to work) 5) Would the Pyra prompt you to sell other devices you might not use?
1) the bigger the better, but speed is important as well.

2) already using the Pandora like that.

3) yes, as desktop most probably.

4) commuting, and hotel, and home as well when I dont feel like using my PC. 

5) No.
 
Remember: you can either use the internal memory OR the MicroSD Card. You can't use them at the same time.
 
Wow, yesterday I was about to start a topic like this :p . What i expect from Pyra is not to have the major fails/bugs from the original Pandora. If ED can avoid it all i think we are going to have a near-perfect-micro-netbook-thing ready to use :D . But I really think that this time we are going to have a "complete" product :D .

1) For me it depends: If we are going to have in a future a good Dreamcast implementation then I'll go for a 256+. If not, 64 is enough for me.

2) For God Sake, no!

3) Yeah, and I hope we are going to have a nice implementation (literally plug and play ;D).

4) Everywhere: At home for email and low-end work, at bed/wc for play and, of course, when i travel back to home (at 3000 km) have a fully functional PC for the vacation days.

5) wat
 
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I would like to know what people's ideal plan is for the Pyra, especially the following:


1) What is the ideal MicroSD card size? My thoughts are towards 64GB but another part of me is saying bigger.


2) Are you going to isolate the Pyra so it doesn't require a PC for download of applications?


3) Are you going to use the Pyra on your HD television / Monitor as a Desktop device or gaming console?


4) Where is the primary location you will be using your Pyra? Mine is away from home (particularly travelling and commuting to work)


5) Would the Pyra prompt you to sell other devices you might not use?
1) I tend to doubt that I would ever actually use the microSD slot in the Pyra

2) I almost always download applications directly to the Pandora, and I've no reason to think I would use the Pyra any differently.  That said I don't in anyway isolate the Pandora from the PC and I see no reason why I would with the Pyra either.

3) Probably not,  though I expect I would use it that way as a media player.

4) I expect I would take it with me pretty much everywhere.  It's portability is one of it's major drawing points.

5) No.

- Neelix
 
I never touched the NAND flash of my Pandora - once there was enough reason to upgrade, I installed the OS to an SD card and now boot off that.  The thought was not so much to avoid wearing out the NAND, but because I thought I may want to install more stuff to the OS that would fit on the NAND.  As it happened we switched to our own small updates server after that, rather than using the Angstrom one, so there wasn't that much worth installing anyway, and all of the big stuff I might want had been packaged up as PNDs by then anyway.

So I think with the Pyra, I'll just get two full-sized SD cards to start, and possibly even reuse the 64GB cards I have in my Pandora currently.  If it turns out I need the flexibility to swap out both cards in the future, but still want some files accessible all the time, I may get a MicroSD card then and install the OS to it as well as a partition for my permanent data.  But probably not until I've maxed out the full-sized SD slots.
 
I would like to know what people's ideal plan is for the Pyra, especially the following:

1) What is the ideal MicroSD card size? My thoughts are towards 64GB but another part of me is saying bigger.

2) Are you going to isolate the Pyra so it doesn't require a PC for download of applications?

3) Are you going to use the Pyra on your HD television / Monitor as a Desktop device or gaming console?

4) Where is the primary location you will be using your Pyra? Mine is away from home (particularly travelling and commuting to work)

5) Would the Pyra prompt you to sell other devices you might not use?
1) I'll probably stick with the eMMC if it is at least 8GB. I would use the eMMC for the OS and for /home, but I would put all the big stuff (i.e. most of the content of my homedir besides the config files) on an SD card, probably a 64 or 128 GB one, by having some symlinks in my homedir to directories on the SD card. The idea is that I can eject the SD card without messing anything up (so I can't put all of /home on there). I plan to keep the other SD slot open; it could be used for media (pictures/movies) or games.

2) By "isolate" you mean using ext2/3/4 or some other filesystem that is not well-supported on non-Linux systems? Well yes, that's also what I do with my Pandoras, but I don't call it "isolate" since I don't use non-Linux PCs. The wifi on my Pandoras is OK-ish (can get ~700KB/s on them), so I always download PNDs etc directly on my Pandoras.

3) Yes, I'll probably do that, at least occasionally. I have a 55" HD-TV, I could use the Pyra as a Desktop PC on it (with wireless keyboard and mouse I guess), as a gaming console (possibly using my two Pandoras as controllers?), and as a media center (because the built-in software on my PC is crap and I haven't managed to hack it yet).

4) Probably the same as my Pandora: on the train, while taking a bath, etc. Away from home mostly, but also at home.

5) I don't tend to sell devices I don't use. Perhaps I should. I usually just give them away to people I know, or let them collect dust somewhere. I'll probably keep my two Pandoras.
 
Remember: you can either use the internal memory OR the MicroSD Card. You can't use them at the same time.
Is there any further clues to what the size of the internal NAND will be yet?
No, they're all pin compatible, so we'll see what'll be available for what price when the mass production starts.


Storage prices change all the time, and last year when I checked 8GB was about 2EUR more expensive than 4GB but 16GB were over 20EUR more expensive, so 8GB would've been the best choice... but it could be the same with 8, 16 and 32GB by the time we're ready :)

Remember: you can either use the internal memory OR the MicroSD Card. You can't use them at the same time.
So you mean the MicroSD card could be used to boot another OS for example ?
Yes, exactly. You can choose when switching the unit on whether to boot from MicroSD or internal NAND - there's only one available.


The big SD card slots will work everytime.
 
Wow, yesterday I was about to start a topic like this :p . What i expect from Pyra is not to have the major fails/bugs from the original Pandora. If ED can avoid it all i think we are going to have a near-perfect-micro-netbook-thing ready to use :D . But I really think that this time we are going to have a "complete" product :D .
Yes and no.


We'll try improving things as good as possible, and the OS will be a lot more mature thanks to standard Debian (so Libreoffice, IceWeasel(FireFox), ClawsMail, etc. don't need to be ported anymore).


However, the hardware support will be similar to how the Pandora was when we released it: No optimized power saving, who knows how well 3D will work, etc.


These improvements will take time (as they did with the Pandora), so don't expect it to be perfect from the beginning in this regards :)
 
Luckily, this time around we have a community experienced with this sort of thing, so I'm not worried.  Besides, watching a system building itself to something amazing is a lot of fun. 

-Glyph Reader
 
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Yes, exactly. You can choose when switching the unit on whether to boot from MicroSD or internal NAND - there's only one available.
The big SD card slots will work everytime.
Ooh, I'd assumed that if you had a micro SD inserted, it overrided the internal NAND and made that unavailable.  If you can choose which to boot from at system boot, that could be really useful for trying out alternative OSes - I might have to invest in one sooner.
 
Wow, yesterday I was about to start a topic like this :p . What i expect from Pyra is not to have the major fails/bugs from the original Pandora. If ED can avoid it all i think we are going to have a near-perfect-micro-netbook-thing ready to use :D . But I really think that this time we are going to have a "complete" product :D .
Yes and no.


We'll try improving things as good as possible, and the OS will be a lot more mature thanks to standard Debian (so Libreoffice, IceWeasel(FireFox), ClawsMail, etc. don't need to be ported anymore).


However, the hardware support will be similar to how the Pandora was when we released it: No optimized power saving, who knows how well 3D will work, etc.


These improvements will take time (as they did with the Pandora), so don't expect it to be perfect from the beginning in this regards :)
Thanks for the answer. I was most concerned about the "physical" things than the software stuff: I have been here since GP2X (almost GP32) and i know that kind of stuff (the software) can't be make in one day. For example (and it is just an example to explain myself) one thing i dislike from Pandora is that you can't charge it at power off; And I know it is going not to be on Pyra. Other example is the plastic used, at least, on the firsts Pandoras: I expect something, at least, so resistant like NDS on the Pyra. The hinges, the rounded edges (already corrected), the keyboard... I don't expect a "perfect" machine but an important update from the original ones on the weak points of Pandora :) . I really want the best for the project
 
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