Any reason to keep going? (for me, not in general)


Some problems, for example no sleep mode on OMAP5, only will be solved with next CPU board, because OMPA5 on Pyra, being designed for cars, doesn't support it (they don't need it). For me it is a big disappointment as I own a lot of old pocket computers and all of them have a very big autonomy on sleep mode from which they can resume instantly
That is the biggest disapointment for me. I always imagined the Pyra as an pocket computer, as alternative to an smartphone for me. Boot it up in the beginning of the day and wake it up from standby whenever you need it. The actual situation completely prevents my use case. I already thought about selling my unit. Hopefully the upcoming CPU-board will solve the issue and won't take to long.
 
The Pyra wasnt meant as a Smartphone Replacement for me anyway, its still lacks the Camera and the Abillity to play Apple Music
But the non existing Standbye Feature is a bit anoying: Expecly if you look on the Switch or the XBOX, ..

Its prevent me a bit from playing much more as everytime waiting a half minute just for a bit Tetris?

But i solved the Batterie Compartment Issue which made it much more playable, and i allready finished the first 2 Metal Slug Games whitout Issues..
 
The Pyra has some kind of sleep mode, but draws relative big amount of power. The deep sleep mode of the CPU seems to have a bug if i remember corectly.
 
How long does it take for the Pyra to boot?
About 7 Seconds? And that is with a delay in bootup as there is prompt to select a different Linux Kernel if you don't want to use the current version on the USB Serial Console .
 
maybe I can live without sleep. we didn't have it in the good old days. might solve my too many xterms problem.
 
That is the biggest disapointment for me. I always imagined the Pyra as an pocket computer, as alternative to an smartphone for me. Boot it up in the beginning of the day and wake it up from standby whenever you need it. The actual situation completely prevents my use case. I already thought about selling my unit. Hopefully the upcoming CPU-board will solve the issue and won't take to long.

For me it is worse: I own a lot of pocket computers since eighties and all of them had sleep mode. On some of them sleep mode last for years, on others months. For example in HP 48 series (they were marketed as advanced programmable calculator but they were real pocket computers¹) batteries can last more than a year with use (of course low power CPU and small static RAM helps. In modern hard with dynamic RAM it don't help same way). In HP 100/200LX batteries last for months.

I don't expect Pyra or other power hungry "modern" hard would last for years or months, but in a modern smartphone if you put it in sleep with all wireless off, it last for example a week or even something more. Pyra with a very big battery (much bigger than normal smartphones), and without spyware/etc, if had a proper sleep mode, should last more than on a smartphone.

¹: The difference between programmable calculator and personal computer is that in a calculator, although being a computer, user is restrained, he can not do all that hardware would let to do and he can't (or there is no planned way to) escape from calculator environment restriction. In a real personal computer user can do all he wants and limitation is only hardware, for example user can create and/or run machine language programs and access all memory.
 
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7 seconds... good band.

And pretty damn fast boot time.

It is too optimistic.

If you look for example at Video 'A live hack, Homebrew Roms and a new Racing Game' you will there see Pyra takes from 3:48 to to 4:22 when login asking password appears on screen, i.e. 30 seconds. Then he enters password and wait for 10 seconds more to be ready to play with Pyra.

Of course, it will be solved someday with next CPU board.
 
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maybe I can live without sleep. we didn't have it in the good old days. might solve my too many xterms problem.

I have had all pocket computers since eighties with seep mode and "instant-on" (from sleep mode), and battery lasting a lot of time (#54). In fact on some very old pocket computers batteries can last for more than a year in sleep mode and with instant-on (I think for example on some Sharp/Casio/HP/Psion pocket computers); on others (for example HP 200LX MS-DOS pocket/palmtop computer battery life go for months on sleep mode.

It may be you were thinking on good old days when Linux was beginning on PC-x86 desktops?
 
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And my Pyra only needs to Load One SD Card, the other one is just a Dummy (also a Live Hack)
Ithink this can get still optimized : the whole 4G Modem, Wifi, Bluetooth USB System gets startet when boot up, but not anything is needed.. and I have to connect my Bluetooth Stuff Manually anyway..

And it would be good if the Bluetooth Stuff where a bit more userfriendly:
It’s allready better than Pandora where I endet up having a Bluetooth Transmitter on the Headphone Out
You can even connect Apple AirPods Max ..

But first you have to connect through the Bluetooth Icon, then you need the Audio Icon to route the Audio Out trough your Bluetooth Device..
 
In a real personal computer user can do all he wants and limitation is only hardware, for example user can create and/or run machine language programs and access all memory.
By that definition they don't make those any more. All modern OSes protect to some extent against processes poking into others memory and certainly stop your process reading or writing kernel memory. I'm not sure when we switched from 8- and 16-bit machines where the only thing protecting you from a horrible crash was trust, maybe it was when we switched from real to protected mode on 386s and on or when we switched from win ME (final in the 9x line) to the Win NT line.
 
maybe I can live without sleep. we didn't have it in the good old days.

That's how I look at it. It's also oddly nice that using the Pyra is an intentional act. Unlike, say, a modern mobile phone.
 
It is too optimistic.

If you look for example at Video 'A live hack, Homebrew Roms and a new Racing Game' you will there see Pyra takes from 3:48 to to 4:22 when login asking password appears on screen, i.e. 30 seconds. Then he enters password and wait for 10 seconds more to be ready to play with Pyra.

Of course, it will be solved someday with next CPU board.
Yeah timed it from the time it hits the boot loader on the serial console to the log in screen is around 18 seconds, just felt like 7-10 seconds in my mind. That said, timed my modern smart phone it took 3.5 minutes to boot to a usable state, so what does boot up time really tell us?

What bugs me about all this Pyra issues like sleep mode are minor software bugs that if someone with the expertise spent a little time on the issue could figure it out, but finding interested people to get this work done is tough. That said I wonder if the sleep mode may be resolved in the near future as hns discovered some oddities with shutting down in newer Linux kernels due to how the SD MMC devices get assigned with some old code that was intended to mux the microsd port and the internal eMMC storage that never got fully working.
 
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