Eds Status On The Pandora Os - Disheartening

[WizardStan]

Sounds like something Packard Bell would've done back in the day. Good riddance to them. Looks like Hewlett Packard inherited some of those bad behaviors.

Excuse me while I play devil's advocate here, but there are actually very good reasons for them to do this. Remember, their target isn't generally tech savvy people that can maintain their own computer. Their target is people that need a computer that works. One of the best ways to ensure that it works in a way they can predict is to control the drivers. If the video manufacturer released an updated driver that conflicts (for some reason) with the audio driver, they don't want that to interfere with the end users experience until it is fixed. If they used the regular IDs, the user would be able to upgrade to the latest from the video manufacturer directly. Since they don't, they can hold back the end user from updating until they know everything is functioning correctly.

 

[rabidpoobear]

Sounds like something Packard Bell would've done back in the day. Good riddance to them. Looks like Hewlett Packard inherited some of those bad behaviors.

Excuse me while I play devil's advocate here, but there are actually very good reasons for them to do this. Remember, their target isn't generally tech savvy people that can maintain their own computer. Their target is people that need a computer that works. One of the best ways to ensure that it works in a way they can predict is to control the drivers. If the video manufacturer released an updated driver that conflicts (for some reason) with the audio driver, they don't want that to interfere with the end users experience until it is fixed. If they used the regular IDs, the user would be able to upgrade to the latest from the video manufacturer directly. Since they don't, they can hold back the end user from updating until they know everything is functioning correctly.

Sure, that's a good point... if they maintain drivers through the usable life of their product. However, they stopped updating drivers back in 2006. And the newer NVIDIA drivers run much better than the old ones. So I really have no choice but to hack around their 'protection', and I'd much rather I didn't have to in the first place. If HP just kept updating the drivers for, say, 5 years after the device was released, that'd probably be reasonable. (The laptop's from 2005 - got it as a graduation present and have been too cheap to buy a new one. Upgraded to 1.25 gb of ram, it runs well enough for me.) Also I basically can't have hardware acceleration under Vista or Win 7 without hacking the drivers, because HP didn't feel the need to bundle up some drivers for me so I can actually use my f---ing computer.

 

[Chairman_Now]

The WiFi is supported, it is just buggy and not working fully. It will most likely get better before shipping.

I don't consider a network device functional if it is dropping so many packets that it cannot load a web page. This likely means that it cannot be used for any practical purpose. Again, this should be simply communicated - "Wifi doesn't work right now". Again, I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of pre-orders are unaware of this. Why might that be?

There have been other examples. What about ED's example of the OpenMoko, it's a phone that couldn't even make phone calls for months after it shipped. This kind of stuff happens with open-source / community projects.

Unlike OP, OpenMoko is OPEN. The schematics and CAD files are available for download. This is a poor comparison.

Or how about the fact that the DS can't do WPA? I had to downgrade my network to WEP to use the DS. And that's something that still isn't fixed and probably never will be. If that happened on Pandora, someone with a WPA network that knew what they were doing would add in support to the drivers. Think that'll happen with the DS?

And yet, the Wifi works. Nintendo claimed a feature, and they have it functional. OP claims a feature, yet it is non-functional. There is a big difference between non-optimized and non-functional. A totally functional kernel should be available at ship.

Or the PSP shipping with nothing but framebuffer, basically, no real applications (web browser etc.) that you consider standard features of the PSP, until much later.

You are confusing the issue, purposefully, I suspect.

First, Sony didn't promote the Web browser aspect at launch. They added a userland app, the browsers, which was able to better exploit the functional hardware (Wifi).

I'm not talking about userland here - emulators, Xfce, etc. This is most certainly the OSS aspect of this project. If OP shipped with all hardware supported, and the ability to play games using the framebuffer, launched from the command line, day one, I'd say that they would have fulfilled their claims.

Or the iPhone shipping without the appstore. That's considered a main feature of the iPhone but it wasn't there on ship date, in fact it wasn't there for many months afterward. The iPhone STILL can't multitask...

Now you're being silly and revisionist. The iPhone never launched with any promise of "apps" as they're known now. AFAIK, Apple's device did everything promised from day one.

It's not a question of a problem with the hardware, it's a software problem. Drivers are software. Software's never 100% on a device launch.

Without drivers, hardware is useless. They are inextricably bound together. The hardware was picked by the OP team. They could have made other choices such that this would be a non-issue today. They didn't, and now the problem is on them. They need to fix this.

Is the WiFi the only thing you have a fault with? I seriously can't believe that anyone expected a 100% polished feature-complete OS on ship day. that's just ridiculous expectations for this project.

I didn't expect _any_ OS, per se. I did expect a working kernel, working such that all hardware could be described as functional. Slow? OK. Bugs? normal for launch, up to a point. But for _any_ piece of hardware not to be functional is a major problem.

I think that you're missing my overall point, anyway. The point is this: a significant number of orders are coming from outside the traditional GP32/homebrew community. This is not an accident; just look at all of the press links from the official web site. They didn't happen by accident. The OP team is most certainly doing what they can to create buzz for this device, and to ensure that the first batch sells out. The trouble is that these people that are (partially) making the existence of this device possible have a different set of expectations then the fanboys here.

It is inconsistent (and rude) to appeal to this userbase to help fund the project, but to then say - well, if you want something polished, buy an Apple. I haven't seen anyone ask for Apple-level polish. Working drivers doesn't approach Apple-level polish.

If the missing functionality was adequately communicated to the population of the pre-orderers, I'd guess that there would be many more cancellations. Would it be bad enough to threaten the project? I can't say, no one can. But the OP team is clearly ducking the issue for their own benefit.

 

[shadow.8]

The WiFi is supported, it is just buggy and not working fully. It will most likely get better before shipping.

I don't consider a network device functional if it is dropping so many packets that it cannot load a web page. This likely means that it cannot be used for any practical purpose. Again, this should be simply communicated - "Wifi doesn't work right now". Again, I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of pre-orders are unaware of this. Why might that be?

Its written in plan words on the website, under "Current Status." In fact, its the first thing listed under OS.

WiFi does work, but speed is slow due to not finished SDIO implementation yet
You can use WiFi at the moment, but the speed will be low. DJWillis is currently hacking to get proper SDIO working.

http://open-pandora....emid=13&lang=en

 

[mali]

Chairman_Now
There was a working Wifi driver afaik, but it was a closed binary blob, so they changed to an open driver, which is a good thing. The problem right now, as I understood it, is the SDIO funktionality, which is generally broken in the current kernel, which is not Open Pandora's fault.

 

[WizardStan]

Again, I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of pre-orders are unaware of this. Why might that be?

Because a disturbingly large number of people are incapable of doing even the most basic research before fronting money for something.
It's explained in pretty plain English on the Current Status page of the main site. It's not like they've ever claimed that the wifi is working 100%.

edit: h34r:

 

[emil10001]

@Chairman_Now - You do have some valid points, however, I still think that you are failing to grasp the intent of this device, and the relationship it should have with the community. I understand what you're saying, but I don't think that you really 'get it.'

Moving on, I'm wondering if some of the devs who have units in their possession could try to set up a Bluetooth PAN and get the pandora on that? We have been told that bluetooth should be working, and if so, it means that we should have a way to get a network connection without needing wifi. Most computers with bluetooth can act as a server for a personal area network, and it should be enough to get the unit on a local network, and even possibly online.

Any thoughts on this? (the bluetooth PAN idea)

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_area_network
http://bluez.sourceforge.net/contrib/HOWTO-PAN
http://www.hanscees.com/bluezhowto.html
http://wiki.bluez.org/wiki/Network

 

[Dunny]

Again, this should be simply communicated - "Wifi doesn't work right now". Again, I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of pre-orders are unaware of this. Why might that be?

I suspect that the vast majority of pre-orderers couldn't give a flying fuck about Wifi at this point - getting the device out is more important and no matter how much you rant and rave like a demented loony that this is an incomplete system, many (many) people just want this to emulate street fighter. Myself, I'm more refined in my tastes and just want my Amiga on the toilet.

Or the iPhone shipping without the appstore. That's considered a main feature of the iPhone but it wasn't there on ship date, in fact it wasn't there for many months afterward. The iPhone STILL can't multitask...

Now you're being silly and revisionist. The iPhone never launched with any promise of "apps" as they're known now. AFAIK, Apple's device did everything promised from day one.

No, it did not. I was promised by all the ads that I would be a cooler person having bought one - but I had to shell out a fair bit more for some casula khaki trousers and a black turtleneck sweater before I felt any different... And even then, I felt more of a dick than being any more cool.

There seems to be a very small but extremely vocal minority on here that feel that Wifi is the be-all and end-all of the Pandora's functionality. While an important aspect certainly, the vast majority are just looking forward to their N64. You only have to look at the emulation threads to see this. The rest of them are looking forward to homebrew games. The fact that this thing can act as a small PC is just an aside from the real purpose of the device - a handheld gaming device with none of the faults and drawbacks of the previous (and current) GPH offerings. That is what we were promised, and it would seem that on this front at least, they are delivering handsomely.

D.

 

[emil10001]

There seems to be a very small but extremely vocal minority on here that feel that Wifi is the be-all and end-all of the Pandora's functionality. While an important aspect certainly, the vast majority are just looking forward to their N64. You only have to look at the emulation threads to see this. The rest of them are looking forward to homebrew games. The fact that this thing can act as a small PC is just an aside from the real purpose of the device - a handheld gaming device with none of the faults and drawbacks of the previous (and current) GPH offerings. That is what we were promised, and it would seem that on this front at least, they are delivering handsomely.

D.

While I agree with most of what you said, I don't think that the PC aspect can really be overlooked so easily. To me, that functionality easily justifies its price, as comparable devices are selling for quite a bit more (e.g. n900 at $600). I'm mostly looking forward to the gaming, but the computer aspects are what really makes this device a really great deal.

 

[WizardStan]

While I agree with most of what you said, I don't think that the PC aspect can really be overlooked so easily. To me, that functionality easily justifies its price, as comparable devices are selling for quite a bit more (e.g. n900 at $600).

I think that actually emphasizes his point. If it were meant to compete directly in the portable computer market, it would have been priced more competitively. In that case, with the extra $150 or so per console, they could have hired a real professional (not this fake professional they seem to have hired) to fix the wifi.

 

[Chairman_Now]

Its written in plan words on the website, under "Current Status." In fact, its the first thing listed under OS.

WiFi does work, but speed is slow due to not finished SDIO implementation yet
You can use WiFi at the moment, but the speed will be low. DJWillis is currently hacking to get proper SDIO working.

http://open-pandora....emid=13&lang=en

Because a disturbingly large number of people are incapable of doing even the most basic research before fronting money for something.
It's explained in pretty plain English on the Current Status page of the main site. It's not like they've ever claimed that the wifi is working 100%.

Slow would be OK, but that isn't the case. The reality is that the Wifi is dropping so many packets as to be unusable. What's posted is deceptive. It should say that Wifi doesn't currently work.

I suspect that the vast majority of pre-orderers couldn't give a flying fuck about Wifi at this point - getting the device out is more important and no matter how much you rant and rave like a demented loony that this is an incomplete system, many (many) people just want this to emulate street fighter. Myself, I'm more refined in my tastes and just want my Amiga on the toilet.

First, I'm not ranting or raving. I'm being civil and polite in what I'm posting here. Please be respectful.

Go back and look at the front page of the website. Wifi is mentioned as a bulleted-point feature before gaming controls are mentioned. So it is safe to say that Wifi was considered to be at least as important as the gaming controls themselves in terms of the OP concept, by the OP team themselves.

There seems to be a very small but extremely vocal minority on here that feel that Wifi is the be-all and end-all of the Pandora's functionality. While an important aspect certainly, the vast majority are just looking forward to their N64.

It is impossible for you to make a determination regarding what's important to which part of the pre-orderers, considering that most of them have either not been in this forum at all, or might drop by very seldomly. Just because there's a gaming-oriented echo chamber here, it doesn't diminish the importance of other functionality.

Moreover, the "mini-PC" aspect of the Pandora is emphasized by none other than CraigX himself in his interview linked from the OP site - using Firefox was one of Craig's mentioned use cases, as was using it as a portable general purpose computer. That should really be the final word.

 

[mali]

I quote myself, cause this basically explains the current Wifi issue. SDIO in the kernel is broken.

Chairman_Now
There was a working Wifi driver afaik, but it was a closed binary blob, so they changed to an open driver, which is a good thing. The problem right now, as I understood it, is the SDIO funktionality, which is generally broken in the current kernel, which is not Open Pandora's fault.

edit:

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..

 

[mindlord]

Really, what would you have the team do at this point? This whole getting worked up over the state of the Wifi is pointless. They tried their damnest to get Wifi working for OVER A YEAR and it's almost but not quite there. It happens to the best of companies. The difference here is that you know there is a problem because Evil Dragon decided to be nice and tell you. He didn't even have to. A bigger corp would've quietly pushed release back another quarter while it was sorted.Is that what you want? You'd rather have no Pandora at all, than one that is a small software update away from God-hood?

 

[Exophase]

Slow would be OK, but that isn't the case. The reality is that the Wifi is dropping so many packets as to be unusable. What's posted is deceptive. It should say that Wifi doesn't currently work.

They're possibly the same thing. My guess is that the timeouts are being set too low, which is probably a parameter that can be modified. You say "slow" is okay, but I'm sure you don't mean that universally. 1200 bps even with infinite timeout periods is probably too slow for most people under most occasions. If it's not then go with something lower, say 1 bps.

Go back and look at the front page of the website. Wifi is mentioned as a bulleted-point feature before gaming controls are mentioned. So it is safe to say that Wifi was considered to be at least as important as the gaming controls themselves in terms of the OP concept, by the OP team themselves.

Your assertion of order in a bullet list determining importance isn't exactly conclusive...

It is impossible for you to make a determination regarding what's important to which part of the pre-orderers, considering that most of them have either not been in this forum at all, or might drop by very seldomly. Just because there's a gaming-oriented echo chamber here, it doesn't diminish the importance of other functionality.

Moreover, the "mini-PC" aspect of the Pandora is emphasized by none other than CraigX himself in his interview linked from the OP site - using Firefox was one of Craig's mentioned use cases, as was using it as a portable general purpose computer. That should really be the final word.

You say that it can't be determined that gaming (primarily emulation) capabilities is more important to most people, but you also can't determine that WiFi is at least as important as everything else to enough people, which is exactly what you claim. I also don't see why this "echo chamber" would be statistically deviant and unrepresentative. Most of the people posting in this sub-forum joined after Pandora was announced and came to these boards because of it.

Frankly, I don't think how craigix has promoted the device has any bearing (much less "final word") on what the userbase should value.

 

[Dunny]

I suspect that the vast majority of pre-orderers couldn't give a flying fuck about Wifi at this point - getting the device out is more important and no matter how much you rant and rave like a demented loony that this is an incomplete system, many (many) people just want this to emulate street fighter. Myself, I'm more refined in my tastes and just want my Amiga on the toilet.

First, I'm not ranting or raving.

Yes, you are. Look at your posts, you're banging on and on and frankly it's getting boring.

Go back and look at the front page of the website. Wifi is mentioned as a bulleted-point feature before gaming controls are mentioned. So it is safe to say that Wifi was considered to be at least as important as the gaming controls themselves in terms of the OP concept, by the OP team themselves.

Go back and look at the first community posts where our intentions for the device were gathered. Never forget, this is a community driven device, and we here on this forum had a say in what we wanted. An open-source gaming handheld. It matters not what OP put on their page, the people who originally dreamed this device up inhabit these forums, and that was us. And the original question was "what do you want from the ideal gaming handheld" - or words to that effect. The portable-PC side of things was very much an added benefit from the word "Go". I recall vividly the enormous discussions about the gaming controls and form factor. I don't recall much if any discussion about wifi until much later on in the community debate.

OP are the community members that had the resources and balls to get this going, not the people who decided once and for all what went into it. They worked largely to our design.

D.

 

[RobFord]

As far as I am concerned, every article that I have read about the Pandora shows that it is the spiritual successor to the GP2X etc.

Now, if someone is not intelligent enough to do a little back ground digging on an open source project before putting down the cash for the item, then they have only themselves to blame.

If anyone had looked into the Pandora, even 5 minutes worth of digging, they would have known that the OS and some parts of the software would not be completely working on release.

As Craigix said earlier, I was expecting to launch games and apps from a GP2X type of interface, not having a full OS to play around with and have an amazing amount of apps and games available to us.

Carry on with the good work guys, I look forward to receiving my Pandora whenever it is ready.

 

[VRAndy]

Its written in plan words on the website, under "Current Status." In fact, its the first thing listed under OS.

WiFi does work, but speed is slow due to not finished SDIO implementation yet
You can use WiFi at the moment, but the speed will be low. DJWillis is currently hacking to get proper SDIO working.

Oh come on! Read then post.

The real problem is that the driver loses packets constantly which means even loading a simple page like Google can be a chore. I've loaded the GP32X page successfully but then trying to click into a topic would stall forever and I'd just give up.

That's not slow, that's non-functional.


It's not an issue, of course. Because It'll undoubtedly be fixed soon enough, and besides a wifi dongles practically come free in specially marked boxes of cereal. (Amazon has them for $8.)

But if you're going to berate the guy for complaining, at least try to be accurate about it.

 

[Exophase]

Go back and look at the first community posts where our intentions for the device were gathered. Never forget, this is a community driven device, and we here on this forum had a say in what we wanted. An open-source gaming handheld. It matters not what OP put on their page, the people who originally dreamed this device up inhabit these forums, and that was us. And the original question was "what do you want from the ideal gaming handheld" - or words to that effect. The portable-PC side of things was very much an added benefit from the word "Go". I recall vividly the enormous discussions about the gaming controls and form factor. I don't recall much if any discussion about wifi until much later on in the community debate.

OP are the community members that had the resources and balls to get this going, not the people who decided once and for all what went into it. They worked largely to our design.

D.

.. heheh.. hahahaha... yeah, okay. The idea that Pandora was dreamed up or designed by gp32x is a delusion. It's a concept craigix had, implemented by a few talented individuals on these boards. A few design elements and decisions were determined by popular demand, but hardly the whole thing.

Yes, there was a lot of discussion on what Pandora should be. Most of it was summarily ignored. Most of the design was decided long before the discussion even began. I know this because I've talked to craigix several times about Pandora before people even knew there was going to be one, much less what it was going to be called. And craigix had in mind a device with an 800x480 screen, clamshell, keyboard, usual gaming controls, USB, SD, etc. Originally MMSP2+ was going to be used, but it was dropped because OP realized its performance was not very good. The decision to move to an OMAP3 based handheld didn't come from community decision but because TI contacted craigix directly. And although craigix did relate this option back to the boards it wasn't to get their input on the platform but to determine if they'd be willing to buy a $300+ handheld. That's all, not a design decision.

I think the only really big contribution the boards had was the dual analog nubs, something craigix wasn't really intending at first (but warmed up quite a bit to). Some aspects were voted on by users, but more in a manner of "pick from one of these similar options" than actually coming up serious design.

This isn't the community having some well defined vision and a guy coming along and thinking it'd be nice to make someone else's dream come true. This was craigix's dream; that it happens to align well with what this community wants is just a nice coincidence. But actually, if it were designed by this community at large I have a feeling it wouldn't have had a keyboard and it wouldn't have been a clamshell.

 

[rabidpoobear]

There seems to be a very small but extremely vocal minority on here that feel that Wifi is the be-all and end-all of the Pandora's functionality. While an important aspect certainly, the vast majority are just looking forward to their N64.

Um, I never said this, can you fix the quote please?

 

[Dunny]

.. heheh.. hahahaha... yeah, okay. The idea that Pandora was dreamed up or designed by gp32x is a delusion. It's a concept craigix had, implemented by a few talented individuals on these boards. A few design elements and decisions were determined by popular demand, but hardly the whole thing.

ah, you had to go spoil it. Mind you, that's not how I remember it at all!

D.