Pandora Are you an active developer on Pandora?


I'm not really an active developer, as I have very few software written by me (I do have a game in writting, planned for Pandora, but I haven't touched it for a few months now, all free time spent in porting), but I guess I'm an active Porter.

Here a ew screenshots of some (I have more on the works, but many just don't compile or just segfault or simply not finished)  Ports I'm trying to complete, with current status:

130420-152147.png : (guess the name, this one is really easy). I successfully compiled it, but it doesn't run correctly. There are many graphical fault even on menu screen, and it's worse ingame (I'll try to ake some screen grab this weekend to show the problems). this one won't shows-up on the repo soon :(

130421-124146.png : (guess the name, a bit harder, but not too much). It's quite difficult to compile. Well, not game itself, it's Python based, but the underlying engine, FIFE, is huge beast, with a Generated C source file (containting all Python binding) of more the 5 Mo in a single file. The games runs, but a bit slow (using SDL, and I have segfault when trying to use Notaz's SDL). My main issu for now is Packaging. It's a bit of a nightmare, so it may shows on the repo or not soon, depending on haw the packaging goes...  *EDIT*, This one is on the repo, but a bit slow.

130503-091851.png : (this one is much more harder to guess, not a well know game). It's based on Irrlicht, and it's running very well on my Gigahertz Pandora. I have yet to package and test it on CC and Rebirth, but if all goes well, it should appears on the Repo this weekend. Note that there is an editor also, but it is commandline driven (I can setup some zenity script here) and use the Wheelmouse, so not sure if I package that in first build... *EDIT*, This one is on the repo, but no Level editor for build 01.

130503-113650.png : This one is called FLAT, and it's little Arena FPS (single player) coded for a competition in 7days. Game plays well on my Gigaherts Pandora (don't know yet how it scale on other models), but I have to alter a bit more the gamplay, games is too difficult for now, I have to make the number of enemies apparing (and may be agressivness of them) more slowly... Not sure when I'll pubish this one in the repo. *EDIT* This one is on the repo.

I also have X11Basic interpreter compiled and working. Not sure of what to do with it (just add it to codeblocks or package a PND). It's command line only, and based on GFABasic. If I do a standalone PND, I have to add some minimal GCC componant so the compiler works (interpreter is a bit slow to my taste).

That's all for now...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
^ THE most active developer!  heheh.  Porting certainly counts as development.
 
I'm currently working on a new little game. Still early phase, but I think it has some potential. It's 2D, vertical scrolling, mostly about skills, no puzzles or strategy, vaguely like "snake", and involves both nubs as the main controls. Haven't found a name for it yet. Maybe I'll wait for the next compo to release something, or maybe I'll release something earlier.
 
I mainly interested in starting to expand the 'educational' side of OP.

Current major works in progress and status:

R - compiled, needs testing  (no compile errors reported so looking good for release soon)

Maxima/WxMaxima - Stalled. Major problems with clisp compilation. Grr! This was an easy compile on the Zaurus dammit!

Mathomatic with Gnuplot support - compiled & tested - ready for upoad (with no discrete function support via m4 macros ATM, that will come in a later release).

YACAS - compiled and in testing. Should be ready shortly.

XEphem - compiled and in daily use. Need to think carefully about the pnd - 'custom' fonts and motif libraries required. Also, I want to provide a facility whereby the commercial catalogues and libraries can be just dropped in to the appdata directory. Overall, I just need to sit down and write a slightly whizzy first use shell script. First version probably won't be optimised for the OP screen. My current version is a little butchered but works very well.

LyX. application compiled, in the process of building TeX/LaTeX support. Will release a separate pnd as a TeX/LaTeX chain for developers to use to integrate with other applications. Both of these pnds are likely to be big due to TeX stuff

Octave - Well, this is a biggy and requires some serious reading and head scratching! I've started reading, but this will be a slow build project. It may be beyond me as some libraries should be optimised at compile-time. No reason why it shouldn't work, but who knows!!!

SciLab. Exploring the possibility of compiling an older version (4.1 ran well on my Zaurus). Will consider the current release, providing the pre-requisites are not too onerous.

vista - looks interesting. Not sure if it adds anything beyond R though. Not had any experience of it, but it may be worth investigating further.

I have several more pnds in production, generally useful stuff - some java applications that don't require too much effort beyond packaging up and a quick test and some other general utilities. Next one should go up shortly - not telling what it is though!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I mainly interested in starting to expand the 'educational' side of OP.

Current major works in progress and status:

R - compiled, needs testing  (no compile errors reported so looking good for release soon)

Maxima/WxMaxima - Stalled. Major problems with clisp compilation. Grr! This was an easy compile on the Zaurus dammit!

Mathomatic with Gnuplot support - compiled & tested - ready for upoad (with no discrete function support via m4 macros ATM, that will come in a later release).

YACAS - compiled and in testing. Should be ready shortly.

XEphem - compiled and in daily use. Need to think carefully about the pnd - 'custom' fonts and motif libraries required. Also, I want to provide a facility whereby the commercial catalogues and libraries can be just dropped in to the appdata directory. Overall, I just need to sit down and write a slightly whizzy first use shell script. First version probably won't be optimised for the OP screen. My current version is a little butchered but works very well.

LyX. application compiled, in the process of building TeX/LaTeX support. Will release a separate pnd as a TeX/LaTeX chain for developers to use to integrate with other applications. Both of these pnds are likely to be big due to TeX stuff

Octave - Well, this is a biggy and requires some serious reading and head scratching! I've started reading, but this will be a slow build project. It may be beyond me as some libraries should be optimised at compile-time. No reason why it shouldn't work, but who knows!!!

SciLab. Exploring the possibility of compiling an older version (4.1 ran well on my Zaurus). Will consider the current release, providing the pre-requisites are not too onerous.

vista - looks interesting. Not sure if it adds anything beyond R though. Not had any experience of it, but it may be worth investigating further.

I have several more pnds in production, generally useful stuff - some java applications that don't require too much effort beyond packaging up and a quick test and some other general utilities. Next one should go up shortly - not telling what it is though!
Let me just say WOW !!

There's a lot of software in there that I seriously wanted ! R , Gnuplot, LyX, Octave (if it works)... that is really impressive :)  

I can't wait for your PNDs !
 
how big is gnuplot? maybe bundle it with some other small mathsy / graphy tools.

graphviz is a good one. Meanwhile, good to know there's a build in sysinfo.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
After seeing the post from _wb_ just above, I think we really need a way to know what libraries have already been compiled for Pandora. 

There's a lot of unncessary rework going on because people don't know that libraries are available in one PND already distributed and all...

If you have a good idea on how to address this issue, let's do something about it. 
 
If you have a good idea on how to address this issue, let's do something about it.
I'm not commenting if this is good or not, but what happened for PS2 Linux, was there was a CFYC (compiled for your convenience) page, where community members could upload prebuilt libraries. I certainly make extensive use of it, grabbing libraries other users had kindly compiled to avoid my nightmare of using the *nix build tools.

EDIT: Seems to still exist http://ps2linux.no-ip.info/playstation2-linux.com/projects/cfyc.html
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I think the idea has merit - sort of. However, Gnuplot is a general purpose graphing application - not really a library. _wb_ simply used Gnuplot in the way it has been designed to be used, and bundled it with his app. It is not available to anything else but his app'. I will include it my my pnds (where appropriate) for exactly the same reasons - although I will also provide it as a separate application simply because it makes sense to provide a graphing facility in a mathematics type pnd.

The pnd system almost guarantees duplication of binaries (and shared libraries for that matter). The beauty and simplicity of just dropping in a pnd (with the exception of java applications) and off you go comes at that price. However, having a repository where libraries can be picked up and dropped into a port project could be useful. My only concern is documentation. Libraries may be compiled in a very specific way for certain things, and I think have supporting documentation to demonstrate what compile/link flags were in operation could save considerable frustration.

In some ways, is this not the sort of thing the Angstrom repo provides?
 
how big is gnuplot? maybe bundle it with some other small mathsy / graphy tools.


graphviz is a good one. Meanwhile, good to know there's a build in sysinfo.
Gnuplot is a minnow really. However, I'm seriously thinking of just rolling a load of CAS/graphing stuff into a single 'maths/algebra' pnd... Sort of a one stop shop for graphing and general maths/algebra collection containing all the stuff people tend to expect in any linux environment - and then doing the real heavyweight stuff as a series of individual pnds. If I take this approach, there will be an incremental series of pnds, with each version including more options, functionality and packages. At least this way, duplication of libraries and binaries would be kept to a minimum.

Not looked at graphviz before though.....hmm....so much software, so many options - so little time. It looks like there are a bunch of potentially awkward pre-requisites, but I think it could be worth the effort....
 
I mainly interested in starting to expand the 'educational' side of OP.

Current major works in progress and status:

R - compiled, needs testing  (no compile errors reported so looking good for release soon)

Maxima/WxMaxima - Stalled. Major problems with clisp compilation. Grr! This was an easy compile on the Zaurus dammit!

Mathomatic with Gnuplot support - compiled & tested - ready for upoad (with no discrete function support via m4 macros ATM, that will come in a later release).

YACAS - compiled and in testing. Should be ready shortly.

XEphem - compiled and in daily use. Need to think carefully about the pnd - 'custom' fonts and motif libraries required. Also, I want to provide a facility whereby the commercial catalogues and libraries can be just dropped in to the appdata directory. Overall, I just need to sit down and write a slightly whizzy first use shell script. First version probably won't be optimised for the OP screen. My current version is a little butchered but works very well.

LyX. application compiled, in the process of building TeX/LaTeX support. Will release a separate pnd as a TeX/LaTeX chain for developers to use to integrate with other applications. Both of these pnds are likely to be big due to TeX stuff

Octave - Well, this is a biggy and requires some serious reading and head scratching! I've started reading, but this will be a slow build project. It may be beyond me as some libraries should be optimised at compile-time. No reason why it shouldn't work, but who knows!!!

SciLab. Exploring the possibility of compiling an older version (4.1 ran well on my Zaurus). Will consider the current release, providing the pre-requisites are not too onerous.

vista - looks interesting. Not sure if it adds anything beyond R though. Not had any experience of it, but it may be worth investigating further.

I have several more pnds in production, generally useful stuff - some java applications that don't require too much effort beyond packaging up and a quick test and some other general utilities. Next one should go up shortly - not telling what it is though!
Let me just say WOW !!

There's a lot of software in there that I seriously wanted ! R , Gnuplot, LyX, Octave (if it works)... that is really impressive :)

I can't wait for your PNDs !

I've binned work on compiling the current release of clisp - it continues to cause compilation problems that appear to be common on ARM platforms.  I'm now looking at compiling v2.47 - which I know runs on the Zaurus. I can hit things with hammers (of various shapes & sizes), but I'm hopeless at finessing compilers! Hopefully I'll find something compatible that compiles without too many problems - and I can finally put the fourth tool into CASPack and move on a to Lyx, R etc etc 
 
A little update.

R - compiled - tested and packaged. Need to write a small readme file and then upload to repo. Probably wrap this up tomorrow (bad weather forecast = time to meddle with OP stuff). Will come back to R in the near future and look at adding RCmdr. I don't like it myself, but I can understand those who feel this tool needs a GUI in front of yet another blinking cursor.

LyX/TeX/LaTeX. My plan is to package up LyX as a separate pnd. TeX/LaTeX support will then be provided through a separate pnd. The idea is that you will 'launch' the TeX pnd, and then run LyX from a separate pnd, which will pick up TeX support through /mnt/utmp/tex. Another (probably better) approach is to have the LyX run shell script try to launch the TeX pnd automatically. Either way, there will only be one TeX pnd that can be used for other things as well as LyX. LyX compiled and tested. TeX compiling as I type this (been going for several hours now). Once the TeX build is finished, I'll have to bolt LaTeX on and test it out. So, this continues to move forward at a reasonable pace.

XEphem. Having seen how things work when pnds are mounted, I'm happy to attack the initial run shell script after I wrap up LyX etc. Sometimes, its better to see how things work in practice rather than read miles of documentation! Still have a few concerns, but nothing ventured.....

Maxima/WxMaxima. I need this to complete the CASPack pnd. However, despite my best efforts, I'm back at square 1. I now believe my problem lies with my compilation of libsigsegv rather than clisp. The initial compile/link of clisp finishes (for three different versions), but then things get meessy - at the same stage. Need to re-read the libsegsigv doco' and start again...

I've also completed a compile of Reduce. It runs well. However, building a pnd for it will be a little messy. Whilst a capable CAS, the author has really built the install routine on the assumption that Reduce will run from a network (the build scripts were built that way as well, and took a little fooling). Unpicking what is not required for operation is a manual process - with a considerable amount of guesswork involved. I also need to re-compile it to force the the use of specific library and set some optimisation flags. Other than that, it could provide a useful 'pretty' CAS whilst I continue to try and nail Maxima.

Octave, Scilab, vista(?) and graphviz(?) will have to wait 'till I'm through with the above.

Oooh, TeX just finished compiling - 348 executables!!!!!
 
Working on a Legend of Zelda clone called Legend of Pandora.

Slowly... since I'm learning everything as I go. 

Programming in C and using SDL. Doing my own pixel art. Pretty basic stuff. :)

No sound or music yet. 
 
Thanks for posting the link PokeParadox. 

@Ekianjo and community: here's the latest showing a few tiles from my rock/water/grass sets. Also Ed swinging his sword.

LoP_3.jpg
 
I'm not really active anymore on Pandora development... But just earlier this week I found out about an app for DSi/3DS to write games in Basic, It's quite cool. It made me more interested in learning/using Basic and that's when I remembered GLBasic. So I downloaded it and I was surprised at how easy it is to build for Pandora (Though I still need to buy the full version to make Pandora games without a watermark)!

I'll definitely experiment with it some more and see if I can make something fun with it :)
 
Back
Top