Android gingerbread in a pnd?

[EvilDragon]

It depends on what you do, it's still just a fancy app framework+launcher for me.

Same for me.


Neat for playing games and browsing the web, unusable for anything else.


AND Android doesn't work with Android


Last week we tried to send a file from an Android phone to an Android Tablet.


First we tried with NFC, didn't work... the phone found the tablet and tried to send, but the tablet did not react.


No message, nothing.


Wouldn't have helped though, as it seems that it only allowed to send pictures via NFC.


Then we tried Bluetooth. Coupled the devices which worked fine. Tried to send the file... again, no reaction from the tablet.


We found out we need to install an app to receive files. We did that. Still didn't work. No error message, just nothing happened.


Then we connected both devices with an USB Cable and set one into mass storage mode.


The other device didn't recognize it. No error message, nothing.


We tried for about 1,5 hours without any success. Both were Android devices with the stock OS (4.0 and 4.1, so up-to-date).


In the end, we connected the smartphone to the Pandora via mass storage mode (that worked), copied the file there, scp'ed it to my server and I downloaded it with the tablet.


That was the only way we could get that to work...


So yeah... it's a nice launcher, but even sending files to another device can be impossible it seems

 

[TrashyMG]

For me Packaging software for Android and dealing with it's oddities is a pain compared to just compiling and packaging a PND. Android alienates part time software porters like me that don't have time to really dig into learning everything needed to make software work well with Android.


It's why I say it's great we have Android, but for games that play well on the Pandora we still need native Linux as the primary OS.

 

[Askarus]

It depends on what you do, it's still just a fancy app framework+launcher for me.

Same for me.


Neat for playing games and browsing the web, unusable for anything else.


AND Android doesn't work with Android


Last week we tried to send a file from an Android phone to an Android Tablet.


First we tried with NFC, didn't work... the phone found the tablet and tried to send, but the tablet did not react.


No message, nothing.


Wouldn't have helped though, as it seems that it only allowed to send pictures via NFC.


Then we tried Bluetooth. Coupled the devices which worked fine. Tried to send the file... again, no reaction from the tablet.


We found out we need to install an app to receive files. We did that. Still didn't work. No error message, just nothing happened.


Then we connected both devices with an USB Cable and set one into mass storage mode.


The other device didn't recognize it. No error message, nothing.


We tried for about 1,5 hours without any success. Both were Android devices with the stock OS (4.0 and 4.1, so up-to-date).


In the end, we connected the smartphone to the Pandora via mass storage mode (that worked), copied the file there, scp'ed it to my server and I downloaded it with the tablet.


That was the only way we could get that to work...


So yeah... it's a nice launcher, but even sending files to another device can be impossible it seems

Didn't want to tell this long storry, but it's exactly hat happened.


We had so much fun with Android. It's amazing to see what doesn't work :lol: .

 

[infinity]

Jep, that was fun....


Now i'm looking for a real Linux Phone

 

[Eight Bit]

I'm just a user, not a dev. Android is perfect (atleast a lot better than xfce) for the daily tasks I need a computer for. I'm not saying it should be the default OS or anything, Pandora should remain Pandora and not just another android device like so many others. But I just can't help being bloody happy about being able to tinker with the desktops and having access to software that just works, looks nice and is fast enough too


I mean.. have you tried serious webbrowsing, downloading torrents and listening to spotify in the default OS? Let's be honest... It's dramatic. Especially for linux noobs like myself.


Before I got everything to work properly (if at all) I used to be busy trying to get it to work for 30 minutes if not more...


No... I'll stick to the homebrew games and the emulators in angstrom and will use android for the rest from now on.


Btw, pandora as usb host and my android phone work like a charm to copy files back and forth.


Can't say it enough... Love being able to boot into android on my pandora. It just got a 2nd life.

 

[WizardStan]

^ You're not the only one to think that, very slowly and in secret I think many people who had a default of ': Hate Android', are being converted, it's a great OS which keeps getting better.

There are people that hate Android?

 

[thatgui]

^ You're not the only one to think that, very slowly and in secret I think many people who had a default of ': Hate Android', are being converted, it's a great OS which keeps getting better.

There are people that hate Android?

I would say yes - for reasons unbeknownst to me people tend to hate things instead of just disliking them

 

[ekianjo]

I mean.. have you tried serious webbrowsing, downloading torrents and listening to spotify in the default OS? Let's be honest... It's dramatic. Especially for linux noobs like myself.

Yes, tried it all, never had a problem to do serious browsing. You have firefox, chromium, and they run pretty fast on angstrom. I like Opera Mobile for Android but having to scroll the pages with the touch screen is a pain of Pandora.


I don't understand the comment "Especially for linux noobs like myself" - what is hard to use with the Pandora browsers ? It works just like on the desktop versions. And you even have PNDManager to install software for you without the need to use any command line. Seriously, what are you talking about ?

 

[Eight Bit]

Dunno... Firefox doesn't start at all, midori just stops downloads after a few Kb, babypanda browser doesn't save at all and is a bit too bare for me anyway.. I haven't tried chromium yet, still have to give that a try. Then... file associations? I have no clue. You can tell me I need to edit some text file somewhere, add file paths or do stuff with a command prompt which I could do with step by step instructions but I have no clue about what does what and goes where in regards to the linux file system.


I recently installed that LX shell and I like that better than Xfce though, it feels less sluggish.


For instance, opening the menu in xfce and clicking a catagory.. I sometimes need to click it once, sometimes twice to open it, then it opens and closes again because I clicked it too much, the file manager sometimes just doesn't respond and needs to be re-opened... all small things that annoy me and slow me down in what I want to do...


Maybe if I would be more at home in Linux it would be easier for me after some customization but the customization part is something that's not very easily accomplished imo.


Sent from my Pandora using Tapatalk 2

 

[pmprog]

Did you try the MiniMenu? You can also enable a file browser within that (though I think it's limited to the SD cards, I can't remember)


You can't really multitask using it (ie web browse and mousepad), but if you're doing one task at a time, it's really handy

 

[TrashyMG]

@the comment about hating Androd..


I hate porting software to Android... it's a lot of extra work. Using it is a different story.

 

[ekianjo]

Dunno... Firefox doesn't start at all, midori just stops downloads after a few Kb,

Sounds like you have serious problems either with your pandora or with your installed PNDs.


Did you flash to the latest firmware?


Did you install the latest repo versions using PNDManager for example ?

@the comment about hating Androd..


I hate porting software to Android... it's a lot of extra work. Using it is a different story.

Yeah, and you have to like coding in Java. I personally hate the java syntax. At least on Pandora you can code in a number of different languages.

 

[BaDToaD]

Android is a great touch screen OS and I love it on my phone but to me the essence of the Pandora is a full featured desktop in my pocket. As for browsing, apart from flash heavy sites, Firefox on the Pandora blows my phone out of the water. I have tried a dozen or more browsers on Android and have to keep 4 on my phone all the time just to cope with the variety of sites I use. Firefox on the Pandora on the other hand just works for 99.9% of the sites I visit and Midori is pretty good too.


I would like to be able to play Order and Chaos on the Pandora though

 

[EvilDragon]

I don't hate Android.... it's just not something I'd personally use.... The Nexus7 is my first tablet, I wanted to use it for some stuff like webbrowsing, etc.


I'm only using it for playing Pinball Arcade and reading Mangas now... yes, websites load a few seconds faster than on my Pandora... however: I spend most of the time reading a page or replying to threads... that's where I switched back to the Pandora. Typing a post with that onscreen keyboard needs a lot more time.


So while Nexus loads a page faster, in the end it takes longer due to the keyboard.


Opera.Mobile is nice, but l also prefer the browsers on Pandora OS, as I love scrolling using the Dpad and buttons.

 

[Eight Bit]

That's why android on my pandora is excellent... A keyboard


Try tapatalk for forum stuff in android on the pandora, it works like a charm

 

[ekianjo]

Opera.Mobile is nice, but l also prefer the browsers on Pandora OS, as I love scrolling using the Dpad and buttons.

AMEN.

 

[John D.]

Had a chance to extensively try out notaz's Android on Pandora last night. Just amazing!!


Just about exactly what I was hoping it would be like. The WiFi works very well, and Youtube videos had very mild stuttering, and frequently none at all. I have a 256MB model, but I'm lucky enough that mine operates at 1GHz in OPP5 with no problem at all. No problems with first run and partioning the SD card.


Although updating is not a priority for notaz, if somebody picks up or adds, I have the following observations:


1) Could not get Bluetooth to work at all


2) Could not figure out the key/shortcut (if it exists) for the menu/options button (don't know for sure what it is called - on most Android phones, it is the button next to the "Home" button. The Pandora button works great as the "Home" button.


3) Still can't get Apps to install... I've read several posts dealing with this, but can't seem to get it to work. I am no Android wiz, so maybe it's just me...


That's it! Everything else is awesome. Once I figure out how to get Apps working (hopefully through Google Market), between Angstrom & Android life is sweet!

 

[TrashyMG]

1) Known issue.. not looking like there will be a fix anytime soon.


2) I forgot the details of which ones do what.. but most of these buttons are bound to function keys.. F2 comes to mind.. so that would be FN+2


3) sometimes to install apps with this issue, you will need to unmount the right SD card in Android.. ( Settings->Storage->Unmount SD card )

 

[Eight Bit]

You need to download google apps for cm7 and unzip that in your appdata folder. After that you can create a google account and use google market (which auto updates to google play) the link is somewhere in this thread.


Oh, and the menu button is right analog stick down. Back button is right stick to the right. I got used to that so fast that I every so often accidentally try it in the pandora OS too

 

[Eight Bit]

Oh, and use the ES Taskmanager widget often to kill all apps that are still running in the background to keep android running spiffy