Firmware Testing

[gruso]

there isn't a need for Pangea now that Pmenu is working well..

Wrong! We need options. Your project has shown heaps of promise, and the only reason it's not in the front of peoples minds is that you're not showing it to us. I try to mention Pangea on the blog & forums whenever I can, but you don't seem to be pushing it yourself.

It seems you've had an attitude of defeat for some time (I've certainly noticed it as far back as when I wrote the big GUI feature on the blog). Well, forget trying to get ED & Craig's attention. Get the community's attention first. If the people like your menu, attention from the Pandora team will follow.

Just show us your stuff man! We really do want to see it.

 

[skeezix]

Panda has a lot of cutting edge, so often poor djwillis and notaz are fixing bugs and sending fixes upstream But more to point, when it comes to sleep/suspend, it is actually an enormous amount of work going on in the kernel and OSthat people are not aware of (and fortuantely most of that infrastructure is already in place in the Linux kernel), but each active driver must be cleanly asked to suspend/hibernate, and awaken later. Applications in the OS must be notified of both events, USB must be re-established, etc and so on. So consider, if your kernel has 50 drivers in it, and any one of them is not perfect for suspend/hibernate, the operation will fail in funky ways. Considering this is not uncommon on desktop machines, it is a large task to address on a cutting edge handheld... triply so when the task involves figuring out other peoples drivers/patchlevels/bugs/etc. I've just not had the time to be able to get into such things, so I am forever impressed with djwillis and notaz taking the load on such things -- they have put _enormous_ time into such things. ie: This is where months get lost.. someone banging on bluetooth -- screw with this or that driver for a few days or weeks, switching versions to ensure some old driver version works with some kernel version, then patchign it up, looking for bugs etc, switchign to another driver, etc. Then wifi. then this, then that .. its a tonne of trial and error and time sink. Ah, if only it were just fixing a bit of well known code

So its not a 'suspend driver' that is a problem per se; it is suspending all the other drivers and waking them. Back a few months ago I was futzing with it and had dozens of issues, big drag Once launch happens and theres more eyeballs, maybe more hands can get in there We're all burnt out wrecks, can only do so many hours each week.. more hands may help (or turn into 'too many cooks in the kitchen'

Anyway, the firmware is in pretty good shape, we're just working on some cleanups and widgets, packaging this or that, themes as you can see, etc. Theres a few gotchas as ED listed (great post!), but a few thigns like suspend/hibernate are real PITAs, so don't underestimate how much pain has been put in there already

jeff

 

[bzar]

there isn't a need for Pangea now that Pmenu is working well..

Wrong! We need options. Your project has shown heaps of promise, and the only reason it's not in the front of peoples minds is that you're not showing it to us. I try to mention Pangea on the blog & forums whenever I can, but you don't seem to be pushing it yourself.

It seems you've had an attitude of defeat for some time (I've certainly noticed it as far back as when I wrote the big GUI feature on the blog). Well, forget trying to get ED & Craig's attention. Get the community's attention first. If the people like your menu, attention from the Pandora team will follow.

Just show us your stuff man! We really do want to see it.

+2, I've been wondering where you've been hiding your progress

 

[notaz]

Optimistic as usual. All drivers will need to have support for that to work, but almost none of them do now.

Shouldnt TI ship such Driver-stuff straight together with their Chips? I always thought, important Drivers are done by the guys who actualy also build the Hardware, not the Software for a Device (for example: I don't think Microsoft writes the Graphic-Drivers for NVidia or ATI or the MAinboard Drivers for Mainboard Companies). ^_^

They do write drivers but Linux is a moving target, those drivers become old and unsuitable. To get around that those drivers need to be submitted to mainline kernel, but then they have to pass certain quality thresholds, so often nobody bothers. TI does submit certain drivers to mainline kernels, but not all of them. Some TI parts come with no Linux drivers at all (like that gauge). Pandora also has non-TI parts like nubs that come without drivers too.

 

[Gary13579]

Does the small "PMenu" boots noticable faster than the big OS? Otherwiese, PMenu would be a little bit useless I think (like first loding complete LINUX OS, then PMenu which is actualy meant to prevent the Pandora to use the Big OS for qucik instant-access to programms).

SLIM (the Login Manager) loads up either PMenu or XFCE4, so it is significally faster (about 10 seconds, I guess).

Of course we want to boot it as fast as possible (we will also try to enhance speed as much as possible), however, with suspend mode, you should be able to have your Pandora lying around for a week (if not more!) without losing too much battery power and instantly continue where you left off .)

Glad to hear you're using SLiM, but this means the majority of the boot up time isn't Xfce related, so PMenu will be about as slow... kinda hard to believe Xfce takes 10 seconds to start up, you sure this is correct? My old 1ghz Pentium M can start it up quicker.

 

[j6cubic]

there isn't a need for Pangea now that Pmenu is working well..

Wrong! We need options. [...]

Just show us your stuff man! We really do want to see it.

+3, an applet-capable application launcher is exactly what I'd like to see.

 

[Trip]

there isn't a need for Pangea now that Pmenu is working well..

Wrong! We need options. [...]

Just show us your stuff man! We really do want to see it.

+3, an applet-capable application launcher is exactly what I'd like to see.

I'll add my wishes to see you carry on with Pangea too.

Don't get down hearted that it hasn't been chosen as a default menu. Gmenu wasn't the default menu for the 2x and look how many users that got. It even became the default in the Open2X firmware.
The more choices we have, the more chance that we have to be happy

Pangea looks great and seems like it will be a fine alternative to Pmenu.

 

[aliking]

umm... am I missing something? Why isn't everyone absolutely shitting bricks that suspend won't work? This is a huge showstopping deal. We've spent 3 years talking about lid sensors and instant on and how this stuff should just work and now it won't? This is really bad news.

Listen, I can appreciate that this is very difficult stuff (even though it's been consistantly said that it wouldn't be) and I'm absolutely not trying to deride the efforts of anyone who has got the firmware this far. I am not complaining about anything that has gone before, all I'm saying is this: having the Pandora unable to suspend is a very big problem and every effort should be made to fix this before release.

Did anyone really imagine a scenario where they would take the Pandora out of their pocket and wait (apparently a long time) for it to boot up? Not a chance. If there is any hope that Pandora would be more than a hobby device like the GP2X, it really needs to be able to things like suspending and reporting battery life. I can't imagine that it would get favourable reviews from the tech press without.

Maybe I can accept it not working right away and maybe there are plenty of die-hards here on the forum who can accept some general teething problems, but I don't think there's any doubt the wider audience would have a problem with this.

 

[Trip]

umm... am I missing something? Why isn't everyone absolutely shitting bricks that suspend won't work?

Who said it won't work?
It might not be implemented on release but it will work later with a software update.

 

[mali]

ARM is not x86. An ARM processor in Idle mode doesn't need much juice, so no suspend in the first weeks/months is not that big deal imo. Blanking the display and disabling Wifi should yield a fairly long battery life without suspending.

 

[WizardStan]

umm... am I missing something? Why isn't everyone absolutely shitting bricks that suspend won't work? This is a huge showstopping deal.

Because all the hardware is there, everything effectively works, it's just a software issue: they need real world tests to see which drivers do what when commanded to go to sleep and wake up, and how they really interact. For that, they need real Pandoras in the real world doing real things. If they were a larger company, they'd have a team which was dedicated to those 105 boards running all these real world tests, but it's 6 guys with day jobs. We ARE the dedicated QA testers. We're not "shitting bricks" because it's not that big of a deal to wait an extra month or two while these tests are done and the software is fixed.

 

[aliking]

Let's look at it this way. If suspend isn't working after 2 months, would you consider that a problem? What about after a year? What about never? Jan latest is an estimate from nothing, surely? It's not based on a clear idea of what needs to be done and how long it will take, is it?

My worry is that if it is not done now, it will never be done. If we were being told that this is planned for the Jan 23rd Firmware Update, then I wouldn't be worried, but we are not. Do remind me to quote you on the 'few weeks/months' timelines that you're throwing around.

Hey, maybe I'm overreacting. I'm bothered because I just knew this was going to happen. I've asked about suspend before and felt like everyone was being overconfident about it, and now what I feared has come to pass.

So sure, I was expecting to be disappointed in this manner, but nonetheless I'm disappointed. I can't believe that noone else is. I mean seriously, we have polls and pages of discussion about the keyboard layout and silk screening and noone cares about power management?

And by the way, WizardStan, we're not really talking about getting the device out into the wide world and seeing how a bunch of mystery drivers work. These are drivers that ship with the device for its built in components.

 

[Aninhumer]

The difference is, after the release there will be 4000 people who would like suspend functionality, and some of them will have the skills to make it happen.

It's not the same as the delays in production at all.

EDIT:
Does anyone know if the N810 etc. actually suspend?
Because it responds to input while locked (to tell you to unlock it) pretty quickly, but it lasts weeks on standby.

 

[Near_Kstor]

ARM is not x86. An ARM processor in Idle mode doesn't need much juice, so no suspend in the first weeks/months is not that big deal imo. Blanking the display and disabling Wifi should yield a fairly long battery life without suspending.

^ Simple as that

 

[davidgro]

ARM is not x86. An ARM processor in Idle mode doesn't need much juice, so no suspend in the first weeks/months is not that big deal imo. Blanking the display and disabling Wifi should yield a fairly long battery life without suspending.

Very much so: My N800 can actually go a week between being charged, with no suspend, with programs running, on a 1500 mAh battery. The CPU governor sets it from 400MHz when active to 165 when idle (I don't know the minimum speed that the Pandora's CPU's goes to)

That said,

...
The only things that need some more work:
...
* Include Suspend (Hibernation doesn't make sense at all, it's not much faster than a normal boot and it needs to save the memory on SD Card)
...

I can think of uses for hibernation, it's the state saving and not the time that makes it useful. For exmaple: Battery is low and no outlets in sight (or charger is at home) and the game/web browser/compiler/etc. doesn't have a savepoint handy... But yeah, I think suspend should certainly have higher priority if they don't just both work as soon as the one does.

EDIT:

...
Does anyone know if the N810 etc. actually suspend?
Because it responds to input while locked (to tell you to unlock it) pretty quickly, but it lasts weeks on standby.

There is a hack to enable actual suspend mode assigned to double-pressing the power button or some such - it doesn't replace the automatic standby. And from what I have heard it does not work well enough to be useful.

 

[Monk]

umm... am I missing something? Why isn't everyone absolutely shitting bricks that suspend won't work? This is a huge showstopping deal. We've spent 3 years talking about lid sensors and instant on and how this stuff should just work and now it won't? This is really bad news.

Perhaps we just want them to ship the darn things. I get the impression that the team took on something MUCH harder than they expected it to be, and that living up to all the "We can do better than GPH" has taken a lot more effort so far, with mroe to go, than they'd ever imagined.

Which shows how well GPH were doing, really - and that OpenPandora have managed to stick with it and keep rolling is amazing. I hope for the best.

 

[Game_over]

Well thats experience over inexperience (which any one that does there homework, would have known this was going to be bumpy from the get go), but at the same time, GPH wouldn't be doing as we'll if these very people on the OP team weren't involved in one way or another. GPH also has/had the muscle of the south Korean government in the end. Plus they they are not exactly in the trenches of getting fussed at by a bunch of English speaking people around the world; let alone had each process done around the world.

 

[Consequence_9]

@ ED or any of the other devs working on customizing angstrom:

Compiz-Fusion is undergoing a re-write (also now just called compiz again). It is being re-written in c++ from the base up and will no longer require 3d acceleration, however it will require the composite extension and possibly render acceleration. Will the composite extension be enabled?

compiz would make desktop mode much more usable imo... Flip cube with L/R, cycle thru windows with d-pad etc...

 

[Kaze0110]

If the case detects suspension by way of a magnet, to we have to worry about strange occurrences such as this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpmMBOiJYhA&feature=player_embedded

 

[Near_Kstor]

@ ED or any of the other devs working on customizing angstrom:

Compiz-Fusion is undergoing a re-write (also now just called compiz again). It is being re-written in c++ from the base up and will no longer require 3d acceleration, however it will require the composite extension and possibly render acceleration. Will the composite extension be enabled?

compiz would make desktop mode much more usable imo... Flip cube with L/R, cycle thru windows with d-pad etc...

That would actually be great! I imagine it would be very natural to use it on, say, Ubuntu ARM...

Actually I didn't know Compiz is going to face such renewal (which is great, since it always show me some kinds of little bugs...)