Eds Status On The Pandora Os - Disheartening

[Tor]

Great to have that confirmed. Thanks! I'm all set for the arriving Pandora then. USB Ethernet dongle, Huawei 3G dongle, hub, Beagleboard, laptop for SDK, etc.

 

[carlberry]

Finally regarding these "facts" i like to address this piece,

but if you want a polished OS, go get an Apple

Well you do realise that if this was Apple at this point there simply wouldn't be any wifi in it and OpenPandora would be telling how much wifi was overrated and that you didn't need it anyway ? Well not until the spanky new Pandora 2 appeared in 6 months time

*cough 3G on the original iPhone *cough

Right back to lurking.

 

[Harakiri23]

People who say

Anyone who expects perfect working software on day one

are completely missing the point and didnt care to read what i wrote.

day one was supposedly end of 2008 - up till today its 1.5 years.

Furthermore, if there are people who are capable of fixing the issues - which i believe would be developers really attached to this device - wouldnt
you have heard it in the forum here already that these devs are asking for a development device to fix the current issues? You just assume that
it works like that - no - you HOPE it works like that.

Im a dev myself with 10+ years of C, C++ experience, also reverse engineering and ASM to a lesser degree - i highly doubt even 5% of the preorder people would fulfill a similar
skill-set and could work right on the open issues. Moreover, how many people would have the passion to use their free-time to fix basic things (i.e. not nice to have but basic functionality) - even if they did - people need to realize developing such things takes a long time, which you just cant do in a small timeframe when you have a job/family.

People who think its fine that these issues are still there after such a long time are delusional, they believe that magically within the first 1-2 weeks all these issues are resolved.
This is the reason i feel like i have been lied to - all the waiting time is fine - but now when i receive the device - it still doesnt work as advertised.

 

[Asiyura]

People who think its fine that these issues are still there after such a long time are delusional, they believe that magically within the first 1-2 weeks all these issues are resolved.
This is the reason i feel like i have been lied to - all the waiting time is fine - but now when i receive the device - it still doesnt work as advertised.

Till now, they pretty much managed to fix a massive amount of things in a short timeframe : 1,5 years only during their free time...
I'm not as experienced as you are, but there are pre-orderers that have similar skills (and some even more experienced).
So maybe it won't be 1-2 weeks after the first batch, but sooner or later, we will have a 100% working wifi.

Moreover a cheapo wifi usb dongle (got one that's only able to do WEP, but hell, it'll do since I'll be using wifi only at home ) will temporarily fix the issue until SDIO drivers are up and running. Or share you connection with a bluetooth dongle on you main computer ...

And remember that day one was supposed to be end of 2008 because they where planning on shipping the pandora with nearly nothing working on it!

 

[craigix]

People who say

Anyone who expects perfect working software on day one

are completely missing the point and didnt care to read what i wrote.

day one was supposedly end of 2008 - up till today its 1.5 years.

You would have got a Pandora which booted to a GP2X like launcher, with the desktop (shown in the videos around that time) as a hackable option.

 

[elwing]

Im a dev myself with 10+ years of C, C++ experience, also reverse engineering and ASM to a lesser degree - i highly doubt even 5% of the preorder people would fulfill a similar
skill-set and could work right on the open issues. Moreover, how many people would have the passion to use their free-time to fix basic things (i.e. not nice to have but basic functionality) - even if they did - people need to realize developing such things takes a long time, which you just cant do in a small timeframe when you have a job/family.

nice, then stop bitching and help the comunity to resolve theses problems, 5% of 3000 means 150dev with the right level? shouldn't pose a problem...

 

[WizardStan]

People who say

Anyone who expects perfect working software on day one

are completely missing the point and didnt care to read what i wrote.

day one was supposedly end of 2008 - up till today its 1.5 years.

And on that day one, there weren't any wifi drivers AT ALL. There was no 3D (or did we get that just before end of 2008? I remember it was missing for the longest time). There was no sound. There was no libPND; all those videos of "insert and play!" wouldn't have been possible. There was only one hacked together launcher. I'm pretty sure there was no user-land way to control the CPU speed. If it had shipped on day one, we would have gotten an incredibly incomplete OS, we were well informed of this fact prior to pre-order, and yet almost 4000 people still stepped up to purchase it.
You act as if no work has been done at all, but look at just how much work really has been done. WiFi is still not 100%, but look at all the stuff that is.

Furthermore, if there are people who are capable of fixing the issues - which i believe would be developers really attached to this device - wouldnt
you have heard it in the forum here already that these devs are asking for a development device to fix the current issues?

Hi. No. Not everyone wants to work on a hacked together and expensive pre-alpha-prototype. Using a screwdriver to contact the keys might work for some, but others would prefer to work on finished hardware, thank you very much.

You just assume that it works like that - no - you HOPE it works like that.

History has shown that that is exactly how it works. The GP32 and GP2X weren't perfect out of the box, and users fixed the software and made them better. Now the Pandora is made by those very people that worked to fix the software in the GP32 and GP2X. I'd say the odds of any problems being fixed by an end user increase.

 

[Asiyura]

Hi. No. Not everyone wants to work on a hacked together and expensive pre-alpha-prototype. Using a screwdriver to contact the keys might work for some, but others would prefer to work on finished hardware, thank you very much.

I was certain nobody was there when I did that :blink:
You ninja! h34r:

More seriously...
Even with a hardcore hacked launcher, no 3D, no bluetooth, no wifi and gaffer tape everywhere to keep it in one piece, I would still buy a pre-alpha prototype of the pandora.
Because of the potential hidden in the device.
If we wanted wifi, 3D games and nothing more out-of-the-box, we would have bought a PSP... it even have an internet browser ... and skype if I remember well.

 

[conso]

you also have to see how often in this timeframe the kernel and the wifi-driver was switched. Iirc, the current wifi-driver is already the 3rd they try to implement.
Maybe the first driver would have long been ready by now, but they chose to adopt an open-source driver, as it promises more control, features and less problems with coming kernel-versions.

 

[WizardStan]

I was certain nobody was there when I did that :blink:
You ninja! h34r:

I have been watching this project closely.
Very, very closely...

 

[emil10001]

you plenty of examples where hardware didn't work correctly out of the box. The people who think that it's acceptable that WiFi doesn't work are the people who haven't cancelled their order.

The only example given in this thread was really lame. The G1? The 1.0 version of the firmware worked. Sure, it had problems, but all hardware was supported. Poor example.

I seriously doubt that the majority of pre-orders realize that significant hardware simply won't be functional when they open the box - due to the (purposeful?) lack of communication that is endemic with OP. Again, this is the equivalent of shipping without video drivers. Would you be OK with that, too?

Most people don't visit these forums very often, and I'd wager that you fully realize that. They won't cancel over an issue that they're unaware of.

Wow, you somehow managed to completely miss my point. (By the way, most of the bluetooth profiles on the G1 were not working when it shipped. I really wanted to use my bluetooth headphones, but needed to wait. Google worked on it, and then as soon as the code was public, the community brought it to my phone.) Oh well.

Yes, I would be ok if this shipped without video drivers. Do you know why I would be ok with that? Because a year ago, around the time of some of the earlier ship dates, the video drivers had not been released yet! But, almost as soon as they were released, they were included in the Pandora's OS.

The point that I was trying to make above is that the most important feature of this device is the fact that the people producing it want it to be hacked up and developed by the community. There will never be any cat and mouse games with the manufacturer, them trying to lock us out and the community constantly trying to break new iterations of the firmware. As a result, once it does ship, development will move much quicker than it would on other devices.

The fact that the Pandora has so much potential is what makes it interesting. It would not be as interesting if every possible thing worked out of the box, and there was nowhere to go from there. No, instead we will get to use it as much as possible initially, and then as time goes on, and the software matures and adds features we will get more and more functionality out of our device. This goes beyond hardware too.

Do you expect that every single application that could possibly be ported to the platform be available for us at launch? Or, do you think it might take some time for some of those things to be brought over? It is the same situation with the hardware drivers. They already have a high priority placed on them, but currently there are only one or two people looking at the issue. And as good as they are, they are limited in resources. Once this thing ships it will have many eyes looking at the problem, many people testing and reporting and even submitting patches. Once that starts happening development will speed up and we will quickly get those few missing core features worked out.

I'm sorry if you've never seen what happens when a device like this gets launched, a hacker device, where the company supports the community. But it is really amazing to see how useful the hardware is even after it is older, and not as fast as everything else out there. Wifi will happen, but I wouldn't bet on it until after it ships and a lot of people start screwing around with it. Maybe there will be a group of people that build a system around the updated kernel that's already available to fix this issue. Maybe the code that fixes it will get backported to the current kernel. Who knows?

Like ED said, if you were looking for something that is flawless out of the box, look elsewhere. I don't think that they have ever been dishonest with us about the state of the OS and the fact that it will take time to polish and get everything working properly.

 

[VRAndy]

I'm actually not disappointed by ED's statements. I would never expect perfection at the start from this which essentially is a community driven project. As time goes by it will mature, but the fun part will be seeing how it evolves, being along for the ride. That's a big reason why I bought into this.

I was disappointed when I realized that "Slow wifi" means "Unusable wifi". In my mind (and perhaps not in yours) WiFi is pretty much core functionality.

But now that I know there's a work-around it doesn't bother me at all. If WiFi isn't fixed by Pandora Day (Which could still easily be two months out) I'll just go buy myself a dongle while I'm picking up an SD card. Easy.[sup]*[/sup]

We were absolutely promised a usable device, but as long as there's a workaround for the major problems then the device is usable.




*Then I can spend the rest of my afternoon reading ifconfig docs! Easy!

 

[mindlord]

*Then I can spend the rest of my afternoon reading ifconfig docs! Easy!

I doubt you need to do that, Network Manager seems to working as advertised. Plug in the stick, Kernel detects it, drivers activate, Click Network Manager - Configure stick. Easy.

 

[emil10001]

*Then I can spend the rest of my afternoon reading ifconfig docs! Easy!

Try this tutorial I just wrote: http://pandorawiki.org/Wireless_from_the_Terminal

 

[Loonie]

This is one of those threads where I wonder if I could somehow throw the keyboard at the monitor hard enough so that it could travel through the internet and fly out the other end into people's faces.

 

[VRAndy]

*Then I can spend the rest of my afternoon reading ifconfig docs! Easy!

I doubt you need to do that, Network Manager seems to working as advertised. Plug in the stick, Kernel detects it, drivers activate, Click Network Manager - Configure stick. Easy.

Awww. That sounds altogether too easy.

 

[rabidpoobear]

Hell, my HP laptop didn't have WiFi support under Linux for a good 2 years after it shipped so I already had to use a dongle in that situation too.

I hope you don't mind me asking, but I'm really curious: Was this a machine with a distro that was pre-installed by Hewlett Packard?

If so, I can identify with that - I purchased a clearance HP Mini-Note 2133 recently, which had SUSE pre-installed, and it didn't even work out-of-the-box with its own wireless card. And this is from HP, who seem to be regarded as decent with their Linux support...

No, the distro wasn't pre-installed. I don't know if HP does this with a lot of their laptops, but at least with mine, they changed all the device ID's to random gibberish, so even on Windows you can't use the default drivers for any of the devices on it. You have to use drivers provided by them. There are ways to hack the .inf files to add their random device ID's if you know what device it is supposed to be, but I'm stupid when it comes to Linux and couldn't figure this out myself. Someone posted a howto eventually that I followed, but before then it was pretty much impossible to get working. And the funny thing is that the WiFi module was one that was compatible - if they had not messed with the device strings to make it "custom".
Stupid HP.

 

[mindlord]

No, the distro wasn't pre-installed. I don't know if HP does this with a lot of their laptops, but at least with mine, they changed all the device ID's to random gibberish, so even on Windows you can't use the default drivers for any of the devices on it. You have to use drivers provided by them. There are ways to hack the .inf files to add their random device ID's if you know what device it is supposed to be, but I'm stupid when it comes to Linux and couldn't figure this out myself. Someone posted a howto eventually that I followed, but before then it was pretty much impossible to get working. And the funny thing is that the WiFi module was one that was compatible - if they had not messed with the device strings to make it "custom".
Stupid HP.

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.

 

[droneb]

OMG, people just go badgering around technical stuff with zero knowledge of the process of development.

im leading a robot soccer team on my university, and guess what, we had to use some 2.4G RF units.
the units work superb when you use them on the sample modules, but guess what, theres nearly no documentation on how to use them.

it took us about 1 and a half year to figure out just how to send/receive 4 bytes.
we had to reverse engineer sample codes on ASM, fully understand them, check clock issues, and for last define a new firmware to use these modules.

its not so easy to deal lower lever computing, and its no use to try to speed it up pushing in as many devs available.

once we all have our pandas, im pretty sure they have already figured out basic stuff so making a full driver wont be that big mess.

 

[juniorm33]

We were absolutely promised a usable device

I'm sure you could find that quote, I know I wouldn't be able to.
Unless usable means hardware that you could write your own drivers for

Anyway. (this part isn't directed to you VRAndy)

Last year I questioned what the actual state of the OS was and if we as a community are making sure new members etc knew the actual state that they'll be getting it in, although it was misinterpreted to be me wanting a fully functional OS, which was not what I was getting at at the time. Even then wifi was a known issue, and was the bugbear of the OS.
I think that the OS is very polished. As mentioned by many, on most devices the initial firmware/software isn't very good, you just don't know it prior to when you get it.
WIFI is pretty core, but hopefully it wont take long to get it fully functional. Is there anything else apart from wifi that is really bothering people? (Sounds argumentitive, not meant to be as it is an actual question)
If it had come out when it was supposed to, as mentioned there wasn't even the 3d drivers available! So yes it's had an extra 1.5 years development, but unlike some peoples views, I believe it has progressed a lot in that time period to what we was going to get back then.

The thing I would've said (and probably did at the time) was it would've been nice to have the list up from the start of what's done, outstanding, etc, so people can see at a glance the progress....