Eds Status On The Pandora Os - Disheartening

[puppydee]

Cool, thanks for the update Ed, sounds like things are coming together fine. The wifi will be sorted soon enough with DJWillis on the case, till then folks just use your laptop, netbook, desktop, iphone etc etc IF it's not fixed in time. A lot can be done in 3+ weeks, sheesh

 

[CCmachined]

I agree completely with the original poster. WiFi is crucial functionality. I appreciate the nature of this project, but £230 is very considerable. There is little point in the Pandora if you're going to say "the potential (hardware) is there, we'll get to it (the software to use it)". Imagine if the Pandora had been out all these months as promised, and WiFi still kinda sucked. Nobody would be happy.

 

[atomicthumbs]

I'm pretty sure that they've been saying for quite a while that the software probably won't be entirely finished on the Pandora's release date. You should have been listening better

 

[Dead1nside]

The only real thing that I can see as a problem is the Wifi, and only then the dropping packets. I think it'll all mature nicely.

 

[moxie]

I agree completely with the original poster. WiFi is crucial functionality. I appreciate the nature of this project, but £230 is very considerable. There is little point in the Pandora if you're going to say "the potential (hardware) is there, we'll get to it (the software to use it)". Imagine if the Pandora had been out all these months as promised, and WiFi still kinda sucked. Nobody would be happy.

Well, you (and the original poster) are missing the point. The point is, had the pandora been out 10 months ago, we would have had working wifi 9 months ago. Why? Well, that is the thing with open source stuff - Once hardware gets out amongst the hackers, there will be a large number of people looking at any particular problem, and someone will solve it. That is how these things work. The reason that there are still unresolved issues with the OS is that the hardware isn't out yet.

 

[WizardStan]

The BRF6300 chip allows up to 4Mbps transfers but OMAP3 unfortunately only goes to 3Mbps so that is the rate.

OK, so tell me if I'm way off base here. If the OMAP3 can clock the UART to 3Mbps, could we take two of the UARTs from the EXT port and jury rig up a pseudo I2C port? Set them to 400kbps speed, send a steady string of 0xFF on one to act as a clock, and a couple of diodes along the other to turn the I/O lines into a single bidirectional data line?
My original thought was to set two of them to GPIO and use the CPU to pulse a pin as a clock, and the other as data, but attaching it via UART could be a lot easier and faster.

 

[LineOf7s]

I'm not usually a 'glass half full' sorta person, but in contrast to the OP focussing on the 'issues' I was reading through the stuff that worked already and getting rather excited. Given this is the sort of machine they're considering shipping without silkscreening, the fact there's so much of the OS working great already is almost better than I expected. And there's nothing cooler than waking up every day to see what lil tidbits of development have come from the efforts of the busy lil beavers overnight.

The only issue of note for me (and others) is the wifi, but everyone knows how important that is so I'm supremely confident that if it's not ready by release day (and I'll put money on it being so) it'll be ready very very shortly thereafter.

No, that blog post wasn't a list of failures for me (H264 video not playing out of the box is an issue for you? Bah - get over yourself), but more a list of achievements that had me repeatedly saying "Oh sweet!".

Bring it on.

 

[Grench]

there will be a large number of people looking at any particular problem

Name two. Send them dev units ASAP. Pay them out of the developer fund.

4,000 pre-orders.
10% of them might be serious coders. The rest are sympathetic people who want cool stuff and to support the community. Call it 400.
10% of the coders might have some hardware driver coding capabilities. Call it 40.
10% of the coders with hardware driver coding capabilities might have experience with WiFi drivers. Call it 4.
10% of the coders with hardware driver coding capabilities with experience with WiFi drivers might know how to deal with one sitting on an SDIO connection.

So, I'd say we have about a 50/50 chance of anyone in the initial release community having this exact skill set. If DJ has the skills, find out how much it would cost to pay him a week's wages from his real job, get him to take a 'vacation' and code it up - pay him out of the developer fund. Reliably coding network drivers isn't something you find in the general emulator & home brew game set.

In my humble opinion, having WiFi (and hardware in general) working is WAY WAY WAY more important than any single game, emulator, interface, package management solution.

I don't expect a completely polished interface. I don't expect standby to be functional. I don't expect the nub calibration to be perfect. I DO expect the wireless portion of my new hand held wireless device to work.

And no, I have no idea what my order number is - or was if the powers that be decide I'm a dissenter from the party line.

 

[VRAndy]

Well, you (and the original poster) are missing the point. The point is, had the pandora been out 10 months ago, we would have had working wifi 9 months ago.

Hopefully. I'm not 100% sure that Pandora has the "critical mass" for this sort of thing to happen.

A lot of opensource projects just sort of stagnate because they don't hit that magic point where the development becomes a self-sustaining reaction.

I know I'm not going to be kernel hacking.

 

[differentSmoke]

Dude, chill. You make some sense there, but honestly, no need to be so much on the defensive. I do think that your math is rather biased to the negative side, and you neglect one of hobbyists biggest assets, IMHO, the ability to teach yourself a new skill. But yes, WiFi should be prioritized and something along the lines you're describing does make some sense.

 

[gruso]

4,000 pre-orders.
10% of them might be serious coders. The rest are sympathetic people who want cool stuff and to support the community. Call it 400.
10% of the coders might have some hardware driver coding capabilities. Call it 40.
10% of the coders with hardware driver coding capabilities might have experience with WiFi drivers. Call it 4.
10% of the coders with hardware driver coding capabilities with experience with WiFi drivers might know how to deal with one sitting on an SDIO connection.

Made up numbers don't make for a very compelling argument. I don't have real numbers either, but I know Moxie is speaking from real experience. The GP32, GP2X and Dingoo are living proof that a good device becomes a great one in the hands of the community.

 

[Trey]

It looks like there's at least some hope: http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-omap/msg25910.html

 

[WizardStan]

So, I'd say we have about a 50/50 chance of anyone in the initial release community having this exact skill set.

Perhaps there's only a 50/50 of someone with the necessary skills right now, but out of the 4000, how many lack the skill but have the interest to learn? A little motivation (the hero that gave us fast WiFi perhaps?) can go a long way to making someone who would otherwise not have been interested code something up. Altruism only goes so far, for everything else, there's bragging rights

 

[VRAndy]

Made up numbers don't make for a very compelling argument. I don't have real numbers either, but I know Moxie is speaking from real experience. The GP32, GP2X and Dingoo are living proof that a good device becomes a great one in the hands of the community.

Fair enough.

 

[XxionxX]

I want to help but I am only a noob when it comes to the programming and I have no idea how program the kernel. Is there a thread anyone can point me to where I can learn more about what the problems are and how I can help? I only have a basic very knowledge of programming, but I learn fast if someone points me in a particular direction.

 

[Grench]

Made up numbers don't make for a very compelling argument. I don't have real numbers either, but I know Moxie is speaking from real experience. The GP32, GP2X and Dingoo are living proof that a good device becomes a great one in the hands of the community.

Fair enough.

Agreed. However the real numbers work, we -are- dealing with a task requiring a specialized skill set that is not easy/quick to learn. It is a primary device function and needs to get done sooner rather than later. I still think that this is the -perfect- task to throw development fund $$$$ at - whether it's hiring someone directly or throwing a bounty on it.

 

[EvilDragon]

Well, if you're REALLY desperate using WiFi and can't wait until we have SDIO properly working, you could always use a cheap WiFi stick

Not the best solution, but working.

 

[fusion_power]

SDIO doesn't work on latest OMAP kernels too. There are some patches being posted for that but there are reports of basic SD card functionality breaking because of them. It's all still under heavy development..

But then, how do the other OMAP powered Devices out there manage flawless WLAN Access?

I agree completely with the original poster. WiFi is crucial functionality. I appreciate the nature of this project, but £230 is very considerable. There is little point in the Pandora if you're going to say "the potential (hardware) is there, we'll get to it (the software to use it)". Imagine if the Pandora had been out all these months as promised, and WiFi still kinda sucked. Nobody would be happy.

Well, you (and the original poster) are missing the point. The point is, had the pandora been out 10 months ago, we would have had working wifi 9 months ago. Why? Well, that is the thing with open source stuff - Once hardware gets out amongst the hackers, there will be a large number of people looking at any particular problem, and someone will solve it. That is how these things work. The reason that there are still unresolved issues with the OS is that the hardware isn't out yet.

Yupp, thats true. If the Pandora once is out to the Masses, the input and bug-tracking/Fixing will rapidly increase.
Many people with coding-skills don't have their Pandoras yet so I think the Software will get much faster much better then. OP-Team does the "rough" Works, the Comunity does the "fine tuning" ^_^

Well, if you're REALLY desperate using WiFi and can't wait until we have SDIO properly working, you could always use a cheap WiFi stick

Not the best solution, but working.

Cool.
I have the Linksys TP-Link TL-WN821N Wlan Stick (up to 300MBit/sec) how can I check if its working onto the Pandora?

 

[spikeyxx]

can we have a facepalm in here?

 

[craigix]

And some armchairs.