can the Pandora readily meet my needs?

[Neelix]

I just packaged up BORG and uploaded it to the repo here.
 

Neelix, Thanks again, very useful stuff, its funny I was looking at sshftp just before reading your post. If USB networking doesn't take me too long to setup that sounds like a really clean way to do it, as my network hub is across the room from my PC and I'd need yet another cable floating around to use Ethernet. Good point about the running PND's had not even thought about that being an obvious issue with unmounting a card, noticed there are pnd's that fit into that 'running in the background' category. Before posting this thread I had looked around a bit and found that there was a PND for java, again good information on the how it sets up, gives me a better idea of what I'll be dealing with.

Shouldn't take too long.

When you are running through the first boot wizard you'll see the option to Enable/Disable Services on boot. (which can later be accessed through Settings -> Startup on the main menu in XFCE)
You'll want to enable Start Dropbear (SSH login) on bootup, and Start USB Network on bootup.

To get USB networking going I recommend checking out this post.


One thing to note here is that by default the USB networking module randomises the MAC addresses it assigns to itself and to the host PC. Unless you fix that the the host fails to recognise the pandora next time around and you have to set it up again.
To get around that, note the Mac address for usb0 on each machine, then follow the instructions here to tell the pandora to use the same ones every time.


- Neelix

 

[Binky]

 I'm thinking that in some ways making /home simlink to /media/cardname/home  could be a great way to prevent extra writes to the NAND and prevent fill-up, but the down side is the mess caused if you ever eject that card...​

Very few programs write to your home directory by default, and those that do (like the codec pack installer) normally prompt you first.

Its probably not worth creating a symlink just for that.

Its quite common to devote one SD card to software, and the other to user data, but this is entirely a matter of personal preference

Also note that the speed of the card is limited in the Pandora (to about 14MB/s or something like that), so there's no need to buy superfast cards if you're planning to use them only in your Pandora.

I think the pandora SDIO bus maxes out of 16MB/s.

I'm all in, now to just decide if I'm going to buy it from Link or ED.  Does it help out with clearing the pre-order queues the same either way?   I vaguely remember reading something about ED's profits going completely toward that goal.  Any thoughts on buying SD cards? ​

Link buys them from ED, who pays Global Components to assemble units and populate PCBs

Both are awesome people with excellent customer service; menaing that the most important consideration is location.

Link for North America, ED for Europe and most other places.

The class 16 pretec 16GB and 32GB cards I bought from Dragonbox have been highly satisfactory. Can't speak for higher capacity cards though.

 

[Yoyobuae]

The class 16 pretec 16GB and 32GB cards I bought from Dragonbox have been highly satisfactory. Can't speak for higher capacity cards though.

Class 16 pretec 64GB SDXC cards are working great for me. It comes formatted with exFAT, but that's easy enough to fix.

 

[TrashyMG]

The class 16 pretec 16GB and 32GB cards I bought from Dragonbox have been highly satisfactory. Can't speak for higher capacity cards though.

Class 16 pretec 64GB SDXC cards are working great for me. It comes formatted with exFAT, but that's easy enough to fix.

we have a pnd for that too, but of course you will need a way of running that PND before you can use that exFAT formatted SD Card.

 

[Yoyobuae]

The class 16 pretec 16GB and 32GB cards I bought from Dragonbox have been highly satisfactory. Can't speak for higher capacity cards though.

Class 16 pretec 64GB SDXC cards are working great for me. It comes formatted with exFAT, but that's easy enough to fix.

we have a pnd for that too, but of course you will need a way of running that PND before you can use that exFAT formatted SD Card.

Unluckily I had bought two identical cards so I had to format. Good ol' chicken and egg problem.

 

[NearTao]

FWIW, I use my little Apple USB ethernet adapter and it worked great after plugging it in and enabling the USB Host option....

It does work... But man it is a power hog from what I noticed.

 

[Agent K]

Thanks again to every ones input.  I'll order from Link,   I thought that would still be helping clear the preorders, just wanted to make sure.

What everyone has been saying about cards shows me the way, one thing I am a bit concerned with, I was originally going to buy a 64gb card and reformat it, but I did a bit of quick reading on flash and there might be a reliability / longevity issue if you just do a format (with default settings), I'm thinking the 32GB cards are regular fat and thus don't need to be reformatted for native use?  If so maybe its easier for me to buy 2 of those.  Last night I found a very well written article that explained all the details but I can't find it this morning.  All I could find this morning was this link that talks a bit about it (in the reply to the poster) if anyone is interested in it here it is:

http://superuser.com/questions/379074/how-to-correctly-partition-usb-flash-drive-and-which-filesystem-to-choose-consid  (the first answer to the question asked is what I'm talking about)


Neelix, great info on the usb networking. I don't care if the Pandora can see the network or internet via this connection, I plan to just get an USB ethernet dongle for the times I would need that at home, so what about this approach:

PC /etc/network/interfaces:

just have a usb0 static line, address 172.16.1.3 ,  default gateway of 172.16.1.4 (the Pandora)

on the Pandora just the opposite:
static address 172.16.1.4 with GW 172.16.1.3

my home network uses the 192.x.x.x so this would be separate and only link the 2 of them, seems clean and simple to me, but what am I missing?  Am a also right that by doing this (using the OTG port) I would also have the added benefit of a bit of charging while connected?

I'm also thinking reduce the memory/processor load on the Pandora by not running sshd on it, the PC already always has sshd running, so just do the sync from the Pandora, no difference which direction I initiate the process, right?  Does the Pandora have sshfs, I was testing on the laptop & PC, noted the the computer doing the mount has to have  an extra package installed (in Debian its just called sshfs).  I also noticed that this seems really like a clean way to go (sshfs &  unison).   Oh the Pandora would have to have Unison too...

 

[Agent K]

Last few questions (I hope)

I gather that fdisk ships on the NAND, does cfdisk?  How about mkfs.vfat?
From what I understand dostools are on the NAND, but I read here on the boards something about having to update dostools, and to accomplish this run:
(in  a terminal)

sudo opkg update
sudo opkg install dosfstools

does anyone know if this is still needed on newer pandoras?

using the gpartd PND would require me to get a standard SD card just for that purpose, and my PC SD reader is too old to handle SDHC/XC cards, so if the tools are already there to avoid buying more hardware I would really like to go that route. 

I finally found the article on flash formatting and reliability I was looking for the other night:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_to_Damage_a_FLASH_Storage_Device

 

[ArchiMark]

FWIW, I use my little Apple USB ethernet adapter and it worked great after plugging it in and enabling the USB Host option....

It does work... But man it is a power hog from what I noticed.

Had not noticed that....but then when I'm using ethernet connection, I usually have AC charger plugged in too.... 

 

[klapse]

Last few questions (I hope)


I gather that fdisk ships on the NAND, does cfdisk? How about mkfs.vfat?

All three were included on my pandora.

EDIT: thanks for that link to how to (not) damage your flash cards

 

[moxie]

I finally found the article on flash formatting and reliability I was looking for the other night:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_to_Damage_a_FLASH_Storage_Device

Ooohh! That was a good one!

 

[Agent K]

Klapse - thanks for letting me know.  Sounds like that didn’t change then.

Klapse  &  Moxie  - glad you found that link useful, I hope to be a contribuiter of information as well as a consumer here.

Thanks again to everyone who has patiently answered my questions... I sent off my order to Link, now its the waiting game till the package gets here!

I'm not sure of the etiquette on this, but do we close out threads like this when all is done?  I'm not silly enough to believe  I will not have questions in the future, but as far as the Pandora meeting my needs quickly I think that has been dealt with quite nicely! 

K.

 

[_wb_]

No need to explicitly close the thread, it will sink down automatically