Am I Misguided, Or Is It Just Lack Of Updaters?

[willrandship]

So, I was looking at the wiki, and I saw the games page was empty. I thought this rather strange, as in the In-development page has many that say "Completed Build" or something like. Do these belong on the games page as well, or do they still need to be packaged or something? I ask because I have approximately one hour in computer class that I could be posting the completed ones.

 

[kloplop321]

The center of all the information is pretty much in the forums. It is more along the lines of: quite a few things just are not finished yet, are not fully tested, and may not even be tested on the real hardware at all yet. Therefore no one sees the need to update or create such a list yet. You can bother people more about it when it comes to 3 months after the pandora has been out.

 

[willrandship]

Well, then I think I may as well update it in my spare time. My computer repair class is incredibly dull, and I'd like to help out in whatever way I can. Newcomers may go to the wiki first and say "Hey, there's nothing here! Screw this! I'm buying a PSP!" We wouldn't want that to happen. :lol:

 

[kloplop321]

Well, then I think I may as well update it in my spare time. My computer repair class is incredibly dull, and I'd like to help out in whatever way I can. Newcomers may go to the wiki first and say "Hey, there's nothing here! Screw this! I'm buying a PSP!" We wouldn't want that to happen. :lol:

What I am ticked off about is that there is no true and in-depth guide on setting up a dev environment on the wiki(as far as I have observed; Please correct me if you found one!). When I did PSP Deving, I depended on the PSP Toolchain people made, and it worked.

I think the Wiki could use a lot more info. I'm sure it will be updated constantly once people have their hands on the hardware.

 

[darien]

What I am ticked off about is that there is no true and in-depth guide on setting up a dev environment on the wiki(as far as I have observed; Please correct me if you found one!). When I did PSP Deving, I depended on the PSP Toolchain people made, and it worked.

I think the Wiki could use a lot more info. I'm sure it will be updated constantly once people have their hands on the hardware.

We're still waiting on the OP team to release the Pandora toolchain, which their official sites says will be released along with other things. Yeah I'm basically waiting on this too. Would like to just code in Xcode and just compile easy, or have template etc... Don't like the idea of everything not being integrated.

 

[WizardStan]

What I am ticked off about is that there is no true and in-depth guide on setting up a dev environment on the wiki(as far as I have observed; Please correct me if you found one!). When I did PSP Deving, I depended on the PSP Toolchain people made, and it worked.

With the PSP, there was only a finite (small) number of ways of doing something. You want to do X, you can use this command or that command and that's about it.
With the Pandora, you want to do X, WELL, you've got a handful of libraries to choose from, and different ways of putting them together with pros and cons to each. Setting up a tool chain effectively means using a single set of libraries, unless you as a user are clever enough to change them to what you want. But if you're clever enough to change them, you should be enough to set them up yourself.
Anywho, the other problem is that a lot of the libraries aren't in any sort of repository yet; I've got the irrlicht source, I can build an ARM library that should work on Pandora (probably, but I can't get the OGLEs library to on my Beagleboard, so I can't test it), but how does a normal person that just wants the library get it? Once the repository and appstore are up, I'm sure this will quickly be rectified.
Finally, very few people have it, only devs who have the experience to set things up the way they like it. They haven't a need for a downloadable tool chain.
All this means is that, once a larger number of developers have them, I'm fairly confident that tool chains will appear; clever ones with selectable libraries and things. Everything you could possibly need. I don't see why you would be ticked off about not being able to develop easily for something that you don't have yet and can't even test your code for anyway.

 

[kingoddball]

I would be quite happy to update the Wiki as well.
If someone would be kind enough to tell me the best way to do it and I will be more than happy.
I'm usually lurking around here for a few hours a day (I spend my 8 hour work days online doing nothing).

I have a Wiki account - kingoddball

 

[juniorm33]

Probably the only thing needed is a referral from completed page to the in progress one saying that the completed page will be updated on release of the Pandora.

Could be wrong but things that where finished may need tweaking due to firmware changes, etc....
Not good if someone comes and it's just blank, but point them to development page and you see just what's in the works, which is impressive.

 

[kingoddball]

Probably the only thing needed is a referral from completed page to the in progress one saying that the completed page will be updated on release of the Pandora.

Could be wrong but things that where finished may need tweaking due to firmware changes, etc....
Not good if someone comes and it's just blank, but point them to development page and you see just what's in the works, which is impressive.

Thats exactly what I've been thinking. As I was looking at the pandorawiki and in the emulator pages, there are no links for some, and others are pretty much a blank page. Just says creator.

I was thinking of editing it, to add (whilst still leaving it in tact) a link to the development page, and adding a video link to see how its running.

If you would like an example, please see the PSX link on the pandorawiki emulators page.

I'm just waiting to see if it is alright if I modify some of the pages (in the best way I can think of).
I don't want to step on anyone's toes or be seemingly rude.

 

[juniorm33]

Sorry I misunderstood you

 

[kingoddball]

Forget the misunderstanding:
I have edited one of the pages.

Please take a quick look and see if that is any better??

Edited PSX Pandora Wiki

 

[kloplop321]

With the PSP, there was only a finite (small) number of ways of doing something. You want to do X, you can use this command or that command and that's about it.
With the Pandora, you want to do X, WELL, you've got a handful of libraries to choose from, and different ways of putting them together with pros and cons to each. Setting up a tool chain effectively means using a single set of libraries, unless you as a user are clever enough to change them to what you want.

Sorry if I was not clear, but what I meant was that I would like pre-defined functions like changing some things like screen brightness or what ever, but I mainly meant as in a way to compile things in the ARM architecture that would be guaranteed to run in a real pandora.

 

[WizardStan]

Sorry if I was not clear, but what I meant was that I would like pre-defined functions like changing some things like screen brightness or what ever, but I mainly meant as in a way to compile things in the ARM architecture that would be guaranteed to run in a real pandora.

Yeah, that's what I was talking about too. There isn't just one way of doing a lot of things (how many 3D libraries do we have now?) so you need to find a tool chain that does what you want.
But more to the point is that such a thing doesn't exist yet because it doesn't need to exist yet. The developers that currently have boards are probably well versed in cross compilation and setting up their own tool chain was easy peasy. Creating something generic so that you can just install and it works is less easy, and since no such "generic developer" has a Pandora yet to work with, they don't need the compiler yet.
If you want to try cross compiling now, even though you can't test, you can download CodeSourcery on Linux (to compile an ARM application, just replace all calls to gcc with the CodeSourcery binary, and libraries pointed to their ARM equivalent), or Cygwin and GCC in Windows.

 

[skeezix]

A dev chain?

uh, use pretty much any Linux distrubution or Cygwin for Windows, and you're good (ie: Since you don't have a Panda now, building for your local x86 or whatever is usually fine for most things, and especially if you stick with a smaller window or fullscreen similar resolution, or opengl/es limited calls, etc.)

If you want to make an ARM binary, you can use codesourcery's gcc build, or build your own gcc for ARM a per normal gcc building. If you want to run the ARM binary, you could get a netbook, beaglebord, or use qemu or other emulators for now.

We or someone could prepare steps, but it is really not that difficult to set up, and easier than for PSP; the main diff though of course is usually you had a PSP when you wanted the PSP toolchain, and you couldn't really build a game for PSP and run it on your desktop during development, without taking lots of care. In this case however, you can .. so most people will dev games/apps in x86 Linux or Windows or OSX, and then build in port code for Pandora I'd imagine.

For more then a decade, I've always built my games and apps to be cross platform ground up, and build them for my local platform, with hooks and design assumptions based on the target platforms ..

Perhaps people need more a description of _that_ metaprocess, sinc the tools thsemselves are ont so hard, but the concept of building for another platform maybe scary?

jeff

 

[skeezix]

I should note, for "pandora specific" things, please feel free to ask questions.. probably quite some information is missing fromthe public eye.

I have tried to capture a bunch of useful stuff in the libpnd headers and whatnot; ie: the device names to lok at for things, say. But a lot of stuff you won't want to look at in a device-specific manner since its unnecessary and makes porting harder, etc. For common machine specific operations, I've tried to wrap them in libpnd (such as setting backlight level or CPU clock rate, etc.) Thtats not comprehensive, but it has some handy bits..anything missing hopefully can be added (by me or anyone), so that theres a central easy place.

So in addition to codesourcery on any linux distor, you might want to pull various things from the puclic Pandora GIT.

Pretty much everything software wise for Pandora is up in public; we didn't develop any of it in secret

Perhaps we need more pointer sto things, as I think a lot of people aren't aware they can look at all our tools and code right now, since day one

jeff

 

[hobbyman II]

slightly off topic, but since we are on about matters "geek", I was thinking of updating and porting some old code I have been working on for a while to the Pandora, as an exclusive game, the trouble with that (afaik) is that using open source GPL libs and tools means I would have to put the source code into the public domain, then someone could just hack/recompile the code for PSP or (shudder) Windows, I would like to keep the game exclusive to Pandora, even if nobody thinks it's any good, I would like to think the Pandora has at least one exclusive game nobody else can have , any ideas?.

 

[urjaman]

the trouble with that (afaik) is that using open source GPL libs and tools means I would have to put the source code into the public domain

If your application only dynamically links to GPLLGPL libraries and/or is compiled using a GPL'd (gcc+binutils) toolchain, you dont need to release the source of the application. You can make a binary-only .pnd release if you really so want.

EDIT: /me fails:

If a library is released under the GPL (not the LGPL), does that mean that any program which uses it has to be under the GPL or a GPL-compatible license?

Yes, because the program as it is actually run includes the library.

, BUT for an example the SDL and the gnu C library are under the LGPL

 

[hobbyman II]

ah!, I didn't realise I could do that, the GPL is confusing, the more I read it, the more it seems to be totally inclusive, no exceptions <_< , if anyone was interested then I would release the source after a year or so, once everyone has seen/tried it and it's become old, but first I need to get it ported, time to break out my programming guides I guess.

 

[skeezix]

GPL is not that bad It was confusing years ago but a lot of suffering went over it, so some resources should abound.

(Myself, I'm rather fond of the BSD license, keeps it clear

Using GPL _tools_ isn't relevent; using Windows based compilers doesn't make your app commercial, neither does using BSD or Linux tools make your app open source required.

Linking to code -- check each piece of codes license; LGPL means you need only publish changes to the library itself, but linking against it doesn't imply anything to your code. ie: If you update SDL, you need to publish the changes; if you link to SDL, you're in the clear.. SDL is compatible with closed releases, or it'd never be useful.

Linking to GPL means GPL is inside your compiled object, and thus to empower the user with the same power, they need source.

I made libpnd LGPL very specifically -- sure it'd sort of annoy me if someone made lots of $$ off my work, but it'd also be more or less useless if they couldn't So libpnd has to be LGPL if I want it to be universally used. Making someone rewrite it for a commercial app would just make for platform incompatibilities. So you can link against libpnd and not make your code open if you want.

I wonder if you can just provide .o files along with the source to the GPL module used (say) to satisfy it -- the user would have the same empowerment, but I'd have to read the GPL over in that case, and in any case would be rude (ie: you've leveraged someone elses code directly in yours, do the same favour back.. or rewrite it yourself

You can also do tricks like run a sub-job that has the GPLed code in it, and thus only release that as open source while keeping the wrapping parent closed. And so on through many ways.. you can 'work around' the GPL quite easily for those thorny situations. (ie: Shoudl you wish to make a closed source or commercial app, or if you have contracts not permitting some information to be published or the like.) ie: you could make a game that runs another program and poaches output via pipe or shared memory or whatever, if you had to.

(For the reader, commercial and closed source does not make something bad or evil; some people seem to think so, but they're deluded and never had to make a living

jeff

 

[skeezix]

Oh, and whats wrong with someone porting it to PSP? ie: If you want to just keep your own control, or keep your own code, thats cool But I mean, if you opened it up, but just didn't want it on PSP .. why worry? jf you're going to give it life and freedom, why not be proud for any platform it goes to and thus be exposed to that many more people, even if you don't own or dislike the platform?

jeff