Release Beta Test: Upcoming (HF5) Firmware Image BETA 4

[EvilDragon]

Another new image for you to test!


It's getting pretty stable now, it seems we're nearing a final HF5 release.


It's still not in PND-form, so flashing this puts your Pandora back to the state you got it. Be sure to backup anything you put on the internal storage if you need it.


Here are the changes that happened from Beta 3vto Beta 4:

* CPU-Settings: Fixed that it sets a wrong CPU speed when pressing cancel
* MiniMenu: Now using only 3-4% CPU when idling
* MiniMenu: Suppress child cats now doesn't make folders in parent cat, for cat-as-folder option; render fix for 'X going up' button
* MiniMenu: When caching icons, can pull them from pndnotifyd /tmp/iconcache as well, but not much faster :/
* Kernel: Various fixed, especially the errors when copying from one SD Card to the other one should be fixed (thanks to urjaman and notaz).

In case you haven't checked the changes of HF5 Beta 1, 2 or 3 yet, here is the link to the the Beta 1 thread, here to the Beta 2 thread and here to the Beta 3 thread.


Download the latest version here.


How to flash the image?


Easy: Download the zipped image and extract the full contents onto the root of your SD Card.


Put the SD Card into slot 1 (the left one), switch on the Pandora while holding the R-Shoulder button and select "boot from SD1:1"


The flashing process should start. After it's finished, reboot the unit.


The first boot will take a while (up to 10 minutes). Patiently wait and you'll be greeted with the First Boot Wizard.

[/CODE]

 

[Blue Protoman]

When will that PND memory leak be fixed?

 

[EvilDragon]

When will that PND memory leak be fixed?

As soon as somebody has the time to debug it and find out why it happens.


Any volunteers until the core devs find the time?

 

[lordbobjones]

Wow fast and furious updates. Downloading now. Will flash and report. Thanks!

 

[Korlithiel]

Downloading too, though doubt I will report as I'm not familiar enough with my Pandora or Linux to be certain most issues aren't simply a result of user error.

 

[NoeleyC]

downloading as well, but I won't get a chance to do anything more until I get back from work! Will check out any issues I've spotted then

 

[samedi]

Does ths fix the issue where for some, (like me) pressing the Pandora button does nothing?

 

[EvilDragon]

Does ths fix the issue where for some, (like me) pressing the Pandora button does nothing?

Well, that's something we cannot fix without having someone who could help us debug who has such a unit.


It works on the units of the devs, so it's hard to find out what's wrong there...

 

[moxie]

If I understand things correctly, I will need to re-install the community codec pack, but I can skip the wifi beta driver thingie?

 

[fanoush]

Hi. Is there some subforum that discusses operating system development i.e. basically discussion about what happens to code located at http://git.openpandora.org, what are you plans regarding kernel (version, features), openembedded, current issues/bugs etc?


The development section is more for application developers, not 'pandora firmware' developers. Can we make another section for firmware development?


Or is there some mailing list for pandora OS developers or do you hang in some freenode irc channel? I guess there is a lot to improve and there is currently very few people working on kernel or whatever related to firmware. I am afraid that unless there is some discussion place this number will not grow very much.


I am mainly interested in kernel code but I guess other people can discuss the userspace (Angstrom/openembedded). So far it feel to me that the firmware development is not very community oriented


As for specific issues I'd like to get my patch to hardcode mmc slots to /dev/mmcblkX discussed/merged or ask about stuff like power management in kernel (there appears to be none currently), cpufreq, suspend, vsync in video driver etc.

 

[urjaman]

Or is there some mailing list for pandora OS developers or do you hang in some freenode irc channel?

#openpandora ... the OS devs are there (atleast sometimes), but not much OS talk usually...


Anyways, it seems that the kernel stuff is mostly done by notaz + random patches by people in the community. Personally I'd like to see some more people get into the kernel development stuff - I mean firstly discussion about what will be done and by who (splitting the kernel areas that people work on), so that more people could work at the same time without stepping on each others toes, etc...


OTOH, I personally dont have much extra time to spend on this, so I would propably be totally unreliable if I had some responsibility area....

 

[richiz]

Will the codec pack ever feature within the F/W

 

[Eridger]

Will the codec pack ever feature within the F/W

Nope. It can't be. Licenses would be required for that. That's why most linux distros you see don't come packaged with proprietary codecs.

 

[Caine]

Will the codec pack ever feature within the F/W

Unless the team pays a large sum of license fees, no it won't.


<edit>Ninja'd</edit>

 

[richiz]

for legal reasons, i don't think so


edit: triple ninja'd! h34r:

There are some bizarre rules to software!


You can't package it within the firmware but once it's installed you can install if for free.


One step forward two steps back and all that.

 

[mth411]

xbmc seems to be broken in HF5 in general, looks like it died with the new graphics SGX core.


From


http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/57106-xbmc-media-center/page__st__60


http://sebt3.openpandora.org/pnd/xbmc.pnd


Fourth post down for newest xbmc 10.0 pnd (the one on the first page is the older version).

 

[Prometheus]

There are some bizarre rules to software!


You can't package it within the firmware but once it's installed you can install if for free.


One step forward two steps back and all that.

More accurately, it's more that it can't be included for legal reasons, as previously noted, but after that *it's down to the user* to be sure of the legalities/risks/whatever in their region of installing those items.


At least, that is my understanding of it. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[mth411]

Looks like XBMC is a different issue, on the command line it complains about CP850.so not containing a symbol (its part of samba libs).

 

[Yannick]

Everytime I flash my pandora, it thinks it's an hour later then it really is.


Time was showing correct before the flash


I selected Europe -> paris as my timezone after the flash


date was correct


it suggested 22:24 as the time, when in reality it's 21:24


it's been doing this for every flash i did up till now (every beta of HF5)

 

[NearTao]

Anybody else getting an issue with PicoDrive?


[------------------------------]{ App start }[---------------------------------]


./PicoDrive.run: line 3: ./PicoDrive: Input/output error


open /dev/tty: No such device or address


[-------------------------------]{ App end }[----------------------------------]