Eds Status On The Pandora Os - Disheartening

[TaG]

meh. just a bit surprised the os isn't done

I know what you mean but it's not as much that it isn't done, just that it's evolving. Wifi and other things have evolved in such a way that Wifi needs more work. If they upgraded the kernel it may work or be simpler to fix, but something else may not. With so few dev boards available - even Craig doesn't have one anymore, it's not too surprising.

edit: typos

 

[Unfathomable Depths]

@Unfathomable Depths: I wasn't talking about the design of the site. What I meant was by just reading through the information available there I wouldn't buy the pandora.

I was only pulling your leg I understood what you meant. I'm rubbish at trolling

I bought into the Pandora because I have the GP2X and loved writing for it but mainly love it for mame, SqDef and Super Mario World and wanted more.

 

[lintendo]

Was the inclusion of the keyboard not a community idea? i was under the impression that it was included to keep all the classic computer emulator fans happy, so they didnt have to take there hands away to touch the screen or be emulated with a dpad, maybe it was decided by the team i have no evidance to prove ether way but i did think keyboard idea came way before the idea of using the pandora as a "mini netbook" which seems to be the main use for it now?

The "mini laptop" (this was before the "netbook" term was even mainstream) idea was in mind before the device was announced here, so yes, keyboard was not a community decision.

Oh right, i thought it may have been reqeusted in the big thread (Ive forgoten the name) where people where adding there sugestions, i also kind of assumed that the thread was created before the cortex became a option to use thus maybe not the "mini laptop" idea would have been being considered , but you know what they say assumptions are the mother of all yada yada.

Damn i should have really stuck around after the GP32 days, for some reason i never got round to buying a GP2X, and only started lurking agin when preorders went live, damn ive missed alot .
Idea for the blog maybe? the story of how the pandora came to be, might be a nice article, before we all get our pandoras when ever that may be.

 

[shadow.8]

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.

I remember the closed source driver vaguely...  Any chance end-users could make use of this until the open-source one is available or would the SDIO problem still be an issue there?

 

[VRAndy]

The DeLorean DMC-12 - After producing only 3 model years, the DeLorean Motor Company went under.

Hey, but they're back! You can get a brand new DMC-12 for $57,500! (Perhaps they should rename it the DMC-58!)

Another good example of this sort of thing is the Makerbot. Very small company makes an awesome machine that just barely does anything, and by the time most customers get them there's a huge base of software and content for it.
(Granted, Makerbot was preceded by the RepRap, but it's not like Pandora is the first Linux Device ever.)

 

[emil10001]

<snip>

WiFi isn't slow/unreliable because it's using bad SDIO code but because it's using some other interface altogether. There hasn't been any explanation as to what this backup interface it is but clearly it's too slow to be useful. SDIO was probably working at some point and will inevitably return.

Interesting, thanks for the clarification. That still does mean that if SDIO gets fixed, then wifi is fixed along with it, correct?

 

[Exophase]

Interesting, thanks for the clarification. That still does mean that if SDIO gets fixed, then wifi is fixed along with it, correct?

Maybe. Hopefully!

 

[megabyte]

The speed is about 50KB/s (400kb/s) which is slow but 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.

OK, then in other words, WiFi doesn't currently work, correct? Why is there a need to soft-peddle this lack of functionality? I wonder how many pre-orders are aware of this.

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

I'm pretty sick of responses like this. Where are they saying this? Comments in some forum? I don't see this mentioned in the "official" website. I don't see this mentioned in any of the press that's linked from the official website. Has anyone from the OP team made sure that any of the good press - press that's surely helped them sell out the first batch, and underwrite the project - was corrected so that potential buyers would be aware of this possibility?

I'm amazed that anyone here thinks it OK to bitch about customer expectations, especially those damned "newcomers", when it was these people that essentially helped to fund this project.

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.

Sorry, but that's no solution at all, and a total cop-out. Are you going to throw one in every box? They're cheap, right?

Put it this way: would it be acceptable if there were no video drivers - there was only text mode? No sound? Or what if the highly touted analog nubs didn't work, again due to some kernel issue?

WiFi is just as important. SDHC functionality is just as important. All the hardware should be functional upon release. The Open Pandora team picked and approved all of the components. Make sure it works.

How are people going to even determine if they've gotten faulty hardware? Will warranties be extended until *ALL* hardware is fully supported?

I can't believe that anyone feels that this is acceptable. I don't want to hear the "open source" explanation. It doesn't carry water - the OSS aspect was supposed to be userland stuff, not kernel drivers. If the OP team wants this out, then open source the hardware. Otherwise, do what any other OSS supporting hardware vendor does - ensure working drivers upon hardware release.

Chairman, I hear all and every single point you made. I would really like some kind of objective responses, people putting aside the fact that they follow this cult, and answer really from a reality perspective. Unfortunately you are not going to make any progress on these forums, they are infested with Fanboys that are going to defend the system no-matter-what, the lack of objective people is what makes this a cult, not a community. At least your thread is still here, they deleted one I made pointing out some Linux flaws, just because again, the Fanboys just start screaming "troll, troll, troll" because I didn't agree with their ideas.

 

[rabidpoobear]

Chairman, I hear all and every single point you made. I would really like some kind of objective responses, people putting aside the fact that they follow this cult, and answer really from a reality perspective. Unfortunately you are not going to make any progress on these forums, they are infested with Fanboys that are going to defend the system no-matter-what, the lack of objective people is what makes this a cult, not a community. At least your thread is still here, they deleted one I made pointing out some Linux flaws, just because again, the Fanboys just start screaming "troll, troll, troll" because I didn't agree with their ideas.

So I went on some Apple forums back in the day, and I said "hey, you guys don't have copy+paste, huh? My [insert cheap phone here] had copy+paste like 5 years ago."
And they would go "WAAAAH BUT COPY AND PASTE IS NOT A NECESSARY FEATURE AND YOU REALLY DON'T HAVE TO USE IT THAT OFTEN!"
and now that they have copy+paste they gloat about it. But I remember....

Now I just go troll them about the fact that their device can't run 2 applications at once (even though my [insert cheap phone here] has been able to do that for like 5 years.)
They say "WAAAAH BUT IF MULTITASKING WERE ALLOWED THEN PEOPLE WOULD SLOW THE DEVICE DOWN BECAUSE THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING!"

Well I, for one, like the ability to be able to slow my device down with too many apps. Because sometimes I want to be able to be signed into AIM and have a website open at the same time, and, god forbid, post a link to my friend. And I KNOW that running 2 apps that are not resource hogs at the same time is okay. And I'm smart enough to exit OpenOffice when I want to play Quake III.

No one loves that WiFi is not working. We just don't think it's a showstopper and we're willing to deal with it because there are SO MANY things that are working REALLY WELL already.

 

[gruso]

Yes, sometimes people with negative views are labelled as trolls unfairly. By the same token, there are a whole lot of people with positive views who are quickly labelled as fanboys. (Often by the very people accused of being trolls...) God forbid there be some middle ground. Let's not even consider the possibility that some of that "fanboyism" might actually be realism.

Oh, pardon me for a moment. I've just found a lima bean that looks like craigix. I'll put it with the others.

 

[tristan.clark]

Yes, sometimes people with negative views are labelled as trolls unfairly. By the same token, there are a whole lot of people with positive views who are quickly labelled as fanboys. (Often by the very people accused of being trolls...) God forbid there be some middle ground. Let's not even consider the possibility that some of that "fanboyism" might actually be realism.

Oh, pardon me for a moment. I've just found a lima bean that looks like craigix. I'll put it with the others.

^^lol


Just because some people stick by the Pandora does not mean that they agree with everything that has gone on. Some people have seen other devices and left, some have said that new device is not for me and stick with the Pandora. I'm sure that some people have just needed their money back and had to cancel. People are making choices not just on whether they believe the 'hype' but also whether the Pandora Project is what they want.

 

[Dunny]

Chairman, I hear all and every single point you made. I would really like some kind of objective responses, people putting aside the fact that they follow this cult, and answer really from a reality perspective. Unfortunately you are not going to make any progress on these forums, they are infested with Fanboys that are going to defend the system no-matter-what, the lack of objective people is what makes this a cult, not a community. At least your thread is still here, they deleted one I made pointing out some Linux flaws, just because again, the Fanboys just start screaming "troll, troll, troll" because I didn't agree with their ideas.

People would be less likely to mark you with the "troll" label if you weren't such a dickhead about it. Believe me, I know trolls, and you're definitely one of them. Welcome to my world! You've been labelled as a troll now, and nobody will take your posts seriously at all from now on. You might as well be discussing the weather or the hairiness of the devs of something.

D.

 

[mali]

hairiness

 

[megabyte]

Chairman, I hear all and every single point you made. I would really like some kind of objective responses, people putting aside the fact that they follow this cult, and answer really from a reality perspective. Unfortunately you are not going to make any progress on these forums, they are infested with Fanboys that are going to defend the system no-matter-what, the lack of objective people is what makes this a cult, not a community. At least your thread is still here, they deleted one I made pointing out some Linux flaws, just because again, the Fanboys just start screaming "troll, troll, troll" because I didn't agree with their ideas.

People would be less likely to mark you with the "troll" label if you weren't such a dickhead about it. Believe me, I know trolls, and you're definitely one of them. Welcome to my world! You've been labelled as a troll now, and nobody will take your posts seriously at all from now on. You might as well be discussing the weather or the hairiness of the devs of something.

D.

I'm not complaining about the labels, I couldn't care less. I just find funny how people act when you show facts of something and they give replies like "Oh yeah...oh yeah.. well at least I'm not a troll" reminds me of 1st graders arguing over lunch break

Believe me, I'm not here to help or get help from "the cult" (I refuse calling it a community). I will never share the vision of open source (any serious programmer wouldn't either), I will be just a customer when the pandora hit the stores, and it will be part of my gadgets collection.

 

[EvilDragon]

Chairman, I hear all and every single point you made. I would really like some kind of objective responses, people putting aside the fact that they follow this cult, and answer really from a reality perspective. Unfortunately you are not going to make any progress on these forums, they are infested with Fanboys that are going to defend the system no-matter-what, the lack of objective people is what makes this a cult, not a community. At least your thread is still here, they deleted one I made pointing out some Linux flaws, just because again, the Fanboys just start screaming "troll, troll, troll" because I didn't agree with their ideas.

Well, if you want objective views, you should try to post objective things.

The thread about Linux flaws clearly wasn't objective. You basically posted "Linux is crap, use Windows instead". Not with these words, but it sounded like it.
You know what? Posts like these WILL lure all the fanboys out and nobody will start an objective discussion.

I'm a Windows AND Linux user. I switched to Linux a few years ago. At first, it was a bit hard to fix all problems I had. Find out the differences between Linux and Windows. If you're used to Windows, of course you need to be ready to adopt to Linux, since Linux is not a Windows clone but a different OS and therefore handles things differently.

Yes, Linux has quite a few flaws. Most of them actually come from features: You have various GUIs and graphical toolkits. That's nice, as you can decide what you want. However, if some apps only use ONE toolkit, they don't fit in your desktop.
Things have become way better already, since QT for example can theme itself as GTK, etc. It's a feature but also a flaw.
Also, as no commercial developers support it, it always takes longer to adopt new hardware and it might be hard using some Windows apps.

On the other hand, Windows is really bugging me since I switched to Linux mostly.
Want to update all apps on Linux? Simply do an upgrade. Finished.
On my Windows box, I have about 50 apps installed. Updating them means: Visiting every single website, downloading and running setup. Takes about a day to upgrade all those apps. A big Windows flaw, if you ask me.

There are also a lot of simple things that do annoy me on Windows:
As said, I have a lot of programs and therefore also have a lot of quickstart icons. They need about half the size of the taskbar. Of course, on the right, there's the tray - so in the middle there's very little space for the currently running tasks.
On Linux, this is easy: I simply put that to the top and keep my menu, quickstart items and trays on the bottom. On Windows? Not possible.
Partition an SD Card on Windows? Naaah. Doesn't work.
Removing an app without having a cluttered registry after a while? Take your time and clean it up yourself.

On old computers, Linux is also way better. The latest Linux still runs on old PIII machines. I have an optimized Arch Linux running. It only starts what I really need. I use a minimal GUI. The system runs snappier than another old P4 Windows machine.
Because you can't really optimize Windows. You can't really remove what you need. Yes, you can switch off services and things like that, but the plain GUI still needs a lot more CPU and RAM than an optimized Linux needs.

On the other hand, XP was a really nice and stable OS. Linux has a lot of weird behaviour sometimes which isn't the case for Windows. Windows simply runs.

So, from an objective view:
Both Windows and Linux have flaws and both have their uses.
If you like flexibility and are not afraid of learning new things, Linux by far surpasses Windows.
If you like a standard system which everyone knows and that gets commercial support with drivers for the latest hardware, Windows surpasses Linux.

It's up to you

 

[fettouhi]

Chairman, I hear all and every single point you made. I would really like some kind of objective responses, people putting aside the fact that they follow this cult, and answer really from a reality perspective. Unfortunately you are not going to make any progress on these forums, they are infested with Fanboys that are going to defend the system no-matter-what, the lack of objective people is what makes this a cult, not a community. At least your thread is still here, they deleted one I made pointing out some Linux flaws, just because again, the Fanboys just start screaming "troll, troll, troll" because I didn't agree with their ideas.

People would be less likely to mark you with the "troll" label if you weren't such a dickhead about it. Believe me, I know trolls, and you're definitely one of them. Welcome to my world! You've been labelled as a troll now, and nobody will take your posts seriously at all from now on. You might as well be discussing the weather or the hairiness of the devs of something.

D.

I'm not complaining about the labels, I couldn't care less. I just find funny how people act when you show facts of something and they give replies like "Oh yeah...oh yeah.. well at least I'm not a troll" reminds me of 1st graders arguing over lunch break

Believe me, I'm not here to help or get help from "the cult" (I refuse calling it a community). I will never share the vision of open source (any serious programmer wouldn't either), I will be just a customer when the pandora hit the stores, and it will be part of my gadgets collection.

Then I don't understand why you are getting one all? Because this is the main point of this device, that it is open source and it is community driven. Saying that any serious programmer doesn't share the vision of open source is simply retarted. Nokia just went open source with Symbian... :roll:

 

[megabyte]

Chairman, I hear all and every single point you made. I would really like some kind of objective responses, people putting aside the fact that they follow this cult, and answer really from a reality perspective. Unfortunately you are not going to make any progress on these forums, they are infested with Fanboys that are going to defend the system no-matter-what, the lack of objective people is what makes this a cult, not a community. At least your thread is still here, they deleted one I made pointing out some Linux flaws, just because again, the Fanboys just start screaming "troll, troll, troll" because I didn't agree with their ideas.

Well, if you want objective views, you should try to post objective things.

The thread about Linux flaws clearly wasn't objective. You basically posted "Linux is crap, use Windows instead". Not with these words, but it sounded like it.
You know what? Posts like these WILL lure all the fanboys out and nobody will start an objective discussion.

I'm a Windows AND Linux user. I switched to Linux a few years ago. At first, it was a bit hard to fix all problems I had. Find out the differences between Linux and Windows. If you're used to Windows, of course you need to be ready to adopt to Linux, since Linux is not a Windows clone but a different OS and therefore handles things differently.

Yes, Linux has quite a few flaws. Most of them actually come from features: You have various GUIs and graphical toolkits. That's nice, as you can decide what you want. However, if some apps only use ONE toolkit, they don't fit in your desktop.
Things have become way better already, since QT for example can theme itself as GTK, etc. It's a feature but also a flaw.
Also, as no commercial developers support it, it always takes longer to adopt new hardware and it might be hard using some Windows apps.

On the other hand, Windows is really bugging me since I switched to Linux mostly.
Want to update all apps on Linux? Simply do an upgrade. Finished.
On my Windows box, I have about 50 apps installed. Updating them means: Visiting every single website, downloading and running setup. Takes about a day to upgrade all those apps. A big Windows flaw, if you ask me.

There are also a lot of simple things that do annoy me on Windows:
As said, I have a lot of programs and therefore also have a lot of quickstart icons. They need about half the size of the taskbar. Of course, on the right, there's the tray - so in the middle there's very little space for the currently running tasks.
On Linux, this is easy: I simply put that to the top and keep my menu, quickstart items and trays on the bottom. On Windows? Not possible.
Partition an SD Card on Windows? Naaah. Doesn't work.
Removing an app without having a cluttered registry after a while? Take your time and clean it up yourself.

On old computers, Linux is also way better. The latest Linux still runs on old PIII machines. I have an optimized Arch Linux running. It only starts what I really need. I use a minimal GUI. The system runs snappier than another old P4 Windows machine.
Because you can't really optimize Windows. You can't really remove what you need. Yes, you can switch off services and things like that, but the plain GUI still needs a lot more CPU and RAM than an optimized Linux needs.

On the other hand, XP was a really nice and stable OS. Linux has a lot of weird behaviour sometimes which isn't the case for Windows. Windows simply runs.

So, from an objective view:
Both Windows and Linux have flaws and both have their uses.
If you like flexibility and are not afraid of learning new things, Linux by far surpasses Windows.
If you like a standard system which everyone knows and that gets commercial support with drivers for the latest hardware, Windows surpasses Linux.

It's up to you

I see your points, very valid as well, however I am not going to reply anything, since every time I express myself one of the admins just delete my posts. Also they are changing my signature, I think that kind of behavior is not professional in any way.

good luck

 

[Pleng]

Sorry don't want to get in on the Windows vs Linux debate but felt I needed (nah I guess I didn't need, perhaps I wanted...) to point out a couple of things...

On the other hand, Windows is really bugging me since I switched to Linux mostly.
Want to update all apps on Linux? Simply do an upgrade. Finished.
On my Windows box, I have about 50 apps installed. Updating them means: Visiting every single website, downloading and running setup. Takes about a day to upgrade all those apps. A big Windows flaw, if you ask me.

Pretty much all Windows apps have an auto-update feature. And most can do updates without having to visit websites or download executables

There are also a lot of simple things that do annoy me on Windows:
As said, I have a lot of programs and therefore also have a lot of quickstart icons. They need about half the size of the taskbar. Of course, on the right, there's the tray - so in the middle there's very little space for the currently running tasks.
On Linux, this is easy: I simply put that to the top and keep my menu, quickstart items and trays on the bottom. On Windows? Not possible.

This is fixed on Windows 7. You can set icons to show themselves on the quickstart bat or not. There's a little button next to the quickstart which will display the hidden icons.

On old computers, Linux is also way better. The latest Linux still runs on old PIII machines. I have an optimized Arch Linux running. It only starts what I really need. I use a minimal GUI. The system runs snappier than another old P4 Windows machine.
Because you can't really optimize Windows. You can't really remove what you need. Yes, you can switch off services and things like that, but the plain GUI still needs a lot more CPU and RAM than an optimized Linux needs.

I tried using Ubuntu on my 5 year old Laptop (for uni work) and the display simply did not function correctly. The graphics driver didn't feature my screen's native resolution. Selecting a smaller resolution would make the display skewed, covered in red lines, doubled up and unusable, and selecting a mode bigger than the screen could handle meant I couldn't access the taskbar. The display didn't scroll when the mouse went off screen as I had come to expect from Linux distros.

Windows XP and 7 worked fine.

I had other issues trying to use KUbuntu on my mums PII 600 laptop. I couldn't find any way to downgrade the desktop environment, which was far to resource heavy for the laptop. Windows 2000 worked out of the box.

Maybe they're isolated incidents, who knows. But on the two recent occasions that I've tried to use Linux, I've had to resort back to Windows.

So, from an objective view:
Both Windows and Linux have flaws and both have their uses.
If you like flexibility and are not afraid of learning new things, Linux by far surpasses Windows.
If you like a standard system which everyone knows and that gets commercial support with drivers for the latest hardware, Windows surpasses Linux.

It's up to you

Now this is an opinion I can get along with. It's not often you hear Linux guys admit that Windows can be useful. And in fact, it's not often you hear Windows guys admit that Linux can be useful.

Anyway. There's no doubt in my mind that Linux was the best decision for the Pandora's OS

 

[LineOf7s]

Pretty much all Windows apps have an auto-update feature.

Clearly I'm using the wrong apps.

</offtopic>

 

[droneb]

Chairman, I hear all and every single point you made. I would really like some kind of objective responses, people putting aside the fact that they follow this cult, and answer really from a reality perspective. Unfortunately you are not going to make any progress on these forums, they are infested with Fanboys that are going to defend the system no-matter-what, the lack of objective people is what makes this a cult, not a community. At least your thread is still here, they deleted one I made pointing out some Linux flaws, just because again, the Fanboys just start screaming "troll, troll, troll" because I didn't agree with their ideas.

Well, if you want objective views, you should try to post objective things.

The thread about Linux flaws clearly wasn't objective. You basically posted "Linux is crap, use Windows instead". Not with these words, but it sounded like it.
You know what? Posts like these WILL lure all the fanboys out and nobody will start an objective discussion.

I'm a Windows AND Linux user. I switched to Linux a few years ago. At first, it was a bit hard to fix all problems I had. Find out the differences between Linux and Windows. If you're used to Windows, of course you need to be ready to adopt to Linux, since Linux is not a Windows clone but a different OS and therefore handles things differently.

Yes, Linux has quite a few flaws. Most of them actually come from features: You have various GUIs and graphical toolkits. That's nice, as you can decide what you want. However, if some apps only use ONE toolkit, they don't fit in your desktop.
Things have become way better already, since QT for example can theme itself as GTK, etc. It's a feature but also a flaw.
Also, as no commercial developers support it, it always takes longer to adopt new hardware and it might be hard using some Windows apps.

On the other hand, Windows is really bugging me since I switched to Linux mostly.
Want to update all apps on Linux? Simply do an upgrade. Finished.
On my Windows box, I have about 50 apps installed. Updating them means: Visiting every single website, downloading and running setup. Takes about a day to upgrade all those apps. A big Windows flaw, if you ask me.

There are also a lot of simple things that do annoy me on Windows:
As said, I have a lot of programs and therefore also have a lot of quickstart icons. They need about half the size of the taskbar. Of course, on the right, there's the tray - so in the middle there's very little space for the currently running tasks.
On Linux, this is easy: I simply put that to the top and keep my menu, quickstart items and trays on the bottom. On Windows? Not possible.
Partition an SD Card on Windows? Naaah. Doesn't work.
Removing an app without having a cluttered registry after a while? Take your time and clean it up yourself.

On old computers, Linux is also way better. The latest Linux still runs on old PIII machines. I have an optimized Arch Linux running. It only starts what I really need. I use a minimal GUI. The system runs snappier than another old P4 Windows machine.
Because you can't really optimize Windows. You can't really remove what you need. Yes, you can switch off services and things like that, but the plain GUI still needs a lot more CPU and RAM than an optimized Linux needs.

On the other hand, XP was a really nice and stable OS. Linux has a lot of weird behaviour sometimes which isn't the case for Windows. Windows simply runs.

So, from an objective view:
Both Windows and Linux have flaws and both have their uses.
If you like flexibility and are not afraid of learning new things, Linux by far surpasses Windows.
If you like a standard system which everyone knows and that gets commercial support with drivers for the latest hardware, Windows surpasses Linux.

It's up to you

I see your points, very valid as well, however I am not going to reply anything, since every time I express myself one of the admins just delete my posts. Also they are changing my signature, I think that kind of behavior is not professional in any way.

good luck

isnt that a reply? XD. i didnt know your posts and signature were deleted/modified.

im mostly sure that it was because of improper behaviour of yours anyway.

at this rate you will be hated more than gerald.

ahh btw its not the very first time you get named as a troll, there are several boards all over the network saying the same,
so a small comunity might be wrong, but odds that all the people in the world is wrong, well its up to you to change your behaviour.
this kind of behaviour(in spanish) will get you no where, hope you've grown up since that time.