256MB and 512MB differences?

[Revenged]

The newer model has double the ram than the older model. I'm just wondering what are the actual differences in daily use? Of course this doesn't have that much impact on gaming, but what about desktop work/browsing/movies etc? I mean, now that you have ZRAM and you could also enable a swap file. What about battery use, does the extra ram affect that?


How big is the difference?

 

[commander-beef]

- Pleasure of reading PDFs/DJVUs will grow on 512Mb OP


- FireFox should be less sluggish [who use overebloated FF on OP anyway..]


- You can start 10 apps instead of 5 [just example] on 512 OP


and thats it. Theres no real reason to invest in 512 OPs. IMO, its worht investing only if you dont like crashing here and there when reading very huge PDFs [80-150mb].


512 may help if somebody ports games like OpenArena / NEXUIZ or something similar, but i dont think it will happen in near future..

 

[Revenged]

- Pleasure of reading PDFs/DJVUs will grow on 512Mb OP


- FireFox should be less sluggish [who use overebloated FF on OP anyway..]


- You can start 10 apps instead of 5 [just example] on 512 OP


and thats it. Theres no real reason to invest in 512 OPs. IMO, its worht investing only if you dont like crashing here and there when reading very huge PDFs [80-150mb].


512 may help if somebody ports games like OpenArena / NEXUIZ or something similar, but i dont think it will happen in near future..

Thanks for your quick reply. I understand that Google Chrome is the browser of choice on the Pandora, correct? Does enabling a swap file help with the PDFs? There is no difference in speed with desktop use if you keep the number of open applications low?

 

[commander-beef]

Thanks for your quick reply. I understand that Google Chrome is the browser of choice on the Pandora, correct? Does enabling a swap file help with the PDFs? There is no difference in speed with desktop use if you keep the number of open applications low?

1. A little bit. It works for small pdf;s 1-50mb. For bigger it might not be enough [constant freezing due to loading into swapfile]


2. Mainly yes, but It depends . If yu start Firefox + CHromium + Liferea.. your openpandora is in general toasted [and ready to reset], and its only 3 apps running, but if you start for example ALSAPlayer + CLILove + Qupzilla + LXTask + Pan + FBReader your panda should handle it with no problems [no hiccups]

 

[mcobit]

Also zram helps a bit with memory hungry applications in my opinion. Had less freezes since it is activated.

 

[Revenged]

Thanks again. I'm planning to develop a game (non-3D) on Pandora while keeping a browser open. So this would work?


mcobit mentioned ZRAM...can you use both ZRAM and a swap file? Something like using a 2GB SD card for handling the swap, maybe? Also, how much "extra" RAM does ZRAM provide with?

 

[EvilDragon]

The 512MB Edition also had some other small tweaks, like adding diodes to the USB port so that you won't get little electrical shocks, the SoC is also of a newer revision with a slightly upgraded SGX (3.0 instead of 2.1), etc

 

[notaz]

newer revision with a slightly upgraded SGX (3.0 instead of 2.1), etc

1.2.1 instead of 1.0.3 SGX revisions (3.1 (not 3.0) and 2.1 are OMAP revisions).

 

[Revenged]

Right, SGX is updated too on that board, thanks EvilDragon and notaz. Is there a changelog between the revisions somewhere?

 

[EvilDragon]

newer revision with a slightly upgraded SGX (3.0 instead of 2.1), etc

1.2.1 instead of 1.0.3 SGX revisions (3.1 (not 3.0) and 2.1 are OMAP revisions).

Ah, okay, thanks for the correction

 

[diligentcircle]

- FireFox should be less sluggish [who use overebloated FF on OP anyway..]

Firefox is hardly over-bloated at this point.

I understand that Google Chrome is the browser of choice on the Pandora, correct?

Definitely not. Google Chrome is a proprietary version of Chromium that basically just adds tracking and built-in Flash. Some people do use Chromium here, though, and if you're a fan of Google Chrome, I can't encourage you enough to use Chromium instead on your PC, because it's the same thing functionally as Chrome, but doesn't track you (noting that Flash can be added to Chromium).


However, I don't think Chromium is the browser of choice for most either; that award has in the past gone to Midori, but now it seems to be on Firefox due to recent massive efficiency improvements it's had relatively recently. Another popular browser is Jumanji, and Links is the browser included in the Pandora OS.

 

[porg]

Can you use both ZRAM and a swap file?


Something like using a 2GB SD card for handling the swap, maybe?

I successfully use zRam (as configured by default from SuperZaxxon) and a swap partition (manually enabled).


swapon -s lists both the zRam and swap partition:

Filename Type Size Used Priority

/dev/mmcblk0p3                          partition 596796 0 -1

/dev/zram0                              partition 60096 0 5

Also, how much "extra" RAM does ZRAM provide with?

It's size is listed as 60 MB, but I do not know, whether this is, the RAM it consumes, or the RAM it effectively provides.

 

[mcobit]

Its the ram it consumes, as you can't know how good the ram you are using compresses.

 

[Link]

A few cosmetic changes include:


The LED for WIFI on the 512MB units is more of an orange color than the one used on the 256MB Units. The 256MB units seemed closer to red than orange until both are illuminated in which a difference can be seen, unless you're colorblind.


Another difference is the microphone on the 512MB units has been moved more onto the PCB than the 256MB PCB, which kind off hung of the edge, making repairs a little more risky to breaking off the microphone.

 

[tony.pigram]

The LED for WIFI on the 512MB units is more of an orange color than the one used on the 256MB Units. The 256MB units seemed closer to red than orange until both are illuminated in which a difference can be seen, unless you're colorblind.

I just checked and I can confirm this is indeed very true! The 256Mb version is very red and the 512Mb version is more orange. I haven't as of yet actually noticed much difference to compare the differences. But then again, I haven't loaded multiple apps up to stress out the devices. Both play the PS1 emulator more than good enough for me!

 

[dimag0g]

Could someone check how much space do 256 and 512 MB units have in /tmp/ folder? Is there a difference?

 

[Mr_Loon]

Could someone check how much space do 256 and 512 MB units have in /tmp/ folder? Is there a difference?

Think you might have the wrong end of the stick, this is Ram that is being talked about, not the size of the Nand.

 

[Binky]

The following lines from df on my 512MB / 600MHz pandora might help:

Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
ubi0:rootfs             466452    455876     10576  98% /
devtmpfs                256880       212    256668   0% /dev
none                    256880       212    256668   0% /dev
tmpfs                   256880     13124    243756   5% /var/volatile
tmpfs                   256880         4    256876   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs                   256880         0    256880   0% /media/ram
ubi1:boot                 6992      4796      1808  73% /boot

 

[dimag0g]

Thanks Binky, I got the same. Hope someone will post data from 256 MB unit soon.

 

[WizardStan]

Think you might have the wrong end of the stick, this is Ram that is being talked about, not the size of the Nand.

/tmp is a ram disk.

Hope someone will post data from 256 MB unit soon

If no one else does it first I'll fire up my old 256MB tonight, but if it's like my BeagleBoard (which is also running Angstrom) it'll be 118MB.