Release First Gmenu Pandora Preview

[PokeParadox]

GMenu is the main app-launcher, you'll be able to configure a different GUI if you really must. GMenu is really awesome though!

 

[lubidog]

Right ,the new video on the blog showing the Pandora os in action,but whats with the small video clip ???
don't really like the look of it for starters,yes i know theres much to be done but you would think it would be
in a more finished state than it currently is and i didn't realize it would be a Linux os in that it looks very much
like an actual Linux gui envoriment that is running ,i thought something more like psp with much more.

the video clip is seriously short and why even bother ,i mean for the time it takes to do a clip
and get it ready to post on the net you would think we would be seeing a wee bit more than 21 seconds.

not very happy with the complete lack of anything to show for my £200,yes i said it,i know many prolly
want to say it but too scared of the flames and general hate - i pay for a product and i was promised
plenty of vids and updates on whats going on but get 21 secs of crap.

not happy and i don't care what anyone else says.

merged with main topic.

Nernernenerner!

Take back your money and go and buy a PSP!

There, and I don't care what YOU say, Mr/Mrs Poopypants!


(You just haven't got the point of this, have you...?)

 

[paddy]

my old guy pic is better hehe

aye ok i know its open source and its all done by people in their own precious time
but i expected more,isnt there just 6 weeks left till we all get our pandora ? i wasnt
impressed with the overall look of the gui,yes its linux and i love linux but just didnt
expect it to be so open,mouse driven controls with a pointer.

the vid clip is to me a waste of time at 21 secs,is this the best we are going to get
in terms of something to look forward to ? is it really that dificult to keep the camera
rolling and show just a wee bit more of what we will be getting ?

yer its open source,not the latest nintendo handheld under lock and key so whats
the problem with showing as much as possible seeing as for the most of us who
bought a system that we cant actuly see or touch untill its finnished just want to see
more,i cant help but get the feeling this is all way too secretive,when i bought the
pandora i was investing in a great open source project so i do have every idea what
the pandora is all about.

anyway - i hope when i get the pandora i can hack the shit out of it,i want it looking
the way i have always imagined and with it being open source i am sure i should
be able to do this,btw i have a psp and love it,i want a pandora so i can truly do
what ever i want with it and i also very much want linux running on it.

 

[Phawx]

Paddy,

.I just..Well, look re-read what ED wrote. Than observe. Please take it for what it *is*, not as the completed product.

I know I will be using an Xubuntu-modified Pandora OS Build. Gmenu2x is going to be the default OS and you can change it if you wish. Many people are going to have many different builds when we all start tinkering with it.

Lastly, I THANK ED for showing that video. I am seriously craving new info for the Pandora even though there is an avalanche of games on the market right now. SO for ED to take his time out to whip up something small is what I and many people WANTED.

You can't expect the devs to be 20 man teams all by themselves. So, it's either ED showing us this small nugget of goodness that is showing progress or nothing! They have already shown different emulators working, this is just a window manager FFS.

So EvilDragon, I thank you for taking your time to post this. Who is going to be snapping pics of the completed bad boy? I thought ED was the only one with a camera worth a lick?

Edit... I think that secretive vibe you are feeling is the devs carefully choosing what they can show with the time they have to invest. Also, I agree with Poison, what else more do you want them to show? You saw him navigate, we can assume that the touch screen isn't working right now, and him execute a prog. Why would you want to see that drawn out? Anything more and it would be overkill.

 

[bartleby]

aye ok i know its open source and its all done by people in their own precious time
but i expected more,isnt there just 6 weeks left till we all get our pandora ? i wasnt
impressed with the overall look of the gui,

i agree. the icons are tiny & ugly, that wallpapter looks horrid. well, at least that's going to be easy to change

i hope the whole gui will improve significantly before release. and i guess there are going to be some alternatives eventually...

[edit] oh so ed did point out himself that it's still early stage. i hadn't read his blog post, saw the video on youtube first, my mistake. well well, there certainly is lots of room for improvement... [/edit]

 

[PokeParadox]

Ryo is very busy. I'm also very busy, although the thing I can work on don't really influence the Pandora port.

It's worth noting that GMenu is a dashboard. You will have access to the terminal and there will most likely have other applications bundled together with GMenu to form the full OS.

This video is all about showing GMenu (in the earliest of stage) running on the Pandora hardware. Things will progress, deadlines are stressful, but a provacative thing for a dev!

 

[monkeyo2]

I’m expecting the Pandora to be a bit rough around the edges at first, and whilst in some way it would be nice if it’s all really good out of the box, I also think it’s going to be pretty cool seeing it evolve into a really great product.

Like many I’ve watched Pandora grow from a rumour on a website into an actual real thing, and soon the next phase of it’s development will begin.

Apart from myself, I don’t many people who would be interested in a pocket sized Linux computer with gaming controls, but no commercial games, however I don’t think they see the potential. When, in, may be a year or so, people will be able to buy a Pandora, preloaded with an office suite, graphics programs, music software, free games etc., all tied together with a really slick interface, and I think a lot more people will really start to take notice.

The Pandora seems to be reaching the end of it’s childhood, but might still have to go through it teenage years, before it gains full maturity, and reaches it’s full potential, and we get to watch that happen!

 

[PoisonedV]

I’m expecting the Pandora to be a bit rough around the edges at first, and whilst in some way it would be nice if it’s all really good out of the box, I also think it’s going to be pretty cool seeing it evolve into a really great product.

Like many I’ve watched Pandora grow from a rumour on a website into an actual real thing, and soon the next phase of it’s development will begin.

Apart from myself, I don’t many people who would be interested in a pocket sized Linux computer with gaming controls, but no commercial games, however I don’t think they see the potential. When, in, may be a year or so, people will be able to buy a Pandora, preloaded with an office suite, graphics programs, music software, free games etc., all tied together with a really slick interface, and I think a lot more people will really start to take notice.

The Pandora seems to be reaching the end of it’s childhood, but might still have to go through it teenage years, before it gains full maturity, and reaches it’s full potential, and we get to watch that happen!

childhood? more like the gestation period

 

[monkeyo2]

I’m expecting the Pandora to be a bit rough around the edges at first, and whilst in some way it would be nice if it’s all really good out of the box, I also think it’s going to be pretty cool seeing it evolve into a really great product.

Like many I’ve watched Pandora grow from a rumour on a website into an actual real thing, and soon the next phase of it’s development will begin.

Apart from myself, I don’t many people who would be interested in a pocket sized Linux computer with gaming controls, but no commercial games, however I don’t think they see the potential. When, in, may be a year or so, people will be able to buy a Pandora, preloaded with an office suite, graphics programs, music software, free games etc., all tied together with a really slick interface, and I think a lot more people will really start to take notice.

The Pandora seems to be reaching the end of it’s childhood, but might still have to go through it teenage years, before it gains full maturity, and reaches it’s full potential, and we get to watch that happen!

childhood? more like the gestation period

I would concider it to have spoken it's first words, and started to walk. May be just about to start school would have been a better metaphorical life stage, if you want to meet somewhere in the middle.

 

[yosh64]

hey

I hope it ends up something like this (Liquido for gmenu2x 0.9).

Also, that Scale interface looks quite impressive.

It would also be nice if it supports multi-tasking or whatever, seeing as thought it's running through Linux, even just Alt-Tab style.

cyas

 

[Mjlink]

Knowing this is just a start of things to come is bad ass!

The fact we have MAME, Picodrive, SNES, Amiga & a starter OS with a few weeks until I stalk my UPS driver is progress.

Let's keep it rolling!

Edit: word processing, pseudo-ph0t0sh0p, Chat?

WOW, people bitchin?

 

[burito]

You've got to think of it this way. PSP is made by tens of thousands of people. ATM there is about 8 core devs of the pandora including HW folks.

I think there is about 30 ish (huge wild flaying guess) MK0 and MK1 boards floating around. So so far you are seeing the results of about 30 people's work.

This is the initial release to in-house developers, so to speak. We all fronted up the venture capital for this for whatever reasons we have. I suspect at least 60% of the 4000 are C/C++ programmers. At least thats what I've seen so far, even the most flamey debates are still quiet on topic, and very technical. Anyone else who isn't a programmer, guess what, you're a paying beta tester. You're getting the coolest piece of tech bling on the planet for your troubles 4+ months before anyone else.

So all we should expect is just enough OS for devs to use it comfortably. Come time for the 2009 batch, we will have all put our mark on it, and *then* you can start expecting PSP style menu's (ewww, actually we wont stoop that low), and all sorts of prettied up interfaces.

 

[DaveC]

GMenu is the main app-launcher, you'll be able to configure a different GUI if you really must. GMenu is really awesome though!

Yes Gmenu is nice fast and simple. No need for fluff and other nonsense to slow you down. It will also be nice that you can use it one handed without a stylus.

 

[jaycee900]

GMenu is the main app-launcher, you'll be able to configure a different GUI if you really must. GMenu is really awesome though!

Yes Gmenu is nice fast and simple. No need for fluff and other nonsense to slow you down. It will also be nice that you can use it one handed without a stylus.

I know people are busier then they have ever been, but one-handed!? I won't even ask what the other hand is doing then!

 

[Pleng]

i agree. the icons are tiny & ugly, that wallpapter looks horrid. well, at least that's going to be easy to change

i hope the whole gui will improve significantly before release. and i guess there are going to be some alternatives eventually...

[edit] oh so ed did point out himself that it's still early stage. i hadn't read his blog post, saw the video on youtube first, my mistake. well well, there certainly is lots of room for improvement... [/edit]

I have to admit to being slightly baffled. I mean, how much time could it possibly take to adapt gMenu to display icons at double the size? Or to add input from a usb controller (to simulate the built-in joypad) for navigation?

I know that my coding experience is limited to mostly VB and a little bit of hack-and-paste PHP, but seriously, could it have taken that long to add those features so that the 'early stage' video looked at least half impressive?

 

[mazza558]

When the Pandora is released, I can see an explosion of development for it. The second batch will be the "consumer-ready" batch.

 

[mali]

i agree. the icons are tiny & ugly, that wallpapter looks horrid. well, at least that's going to be easy to change

i hope the whole gui will improve significantly before release. and i guess there are going to be some alternatives eventually...

[edit] oh so ed did point out himself that it's still early stage. i hadn't read his blog post, saw the video on youtube first, my mistake. well well, there certainly is lots of room for improvement... [/edit]

I have to admit to being slightly baffled. I mean, how much time could it possibly take to adapt gMenu to display icons at double the size? Or to add input from a usb controller (to simulate the built-in joypad) for navigation?

I know that my coding experience is limited to mostly VB and a little bit of hack-and-paste PHP, but seriously, could it have taken that long to add those features so that the 'early stage' video looked at least half impressive?


As I understand the blog post, ED hasn't got the latest image, yet. The devs are spread over the world and everyone does a different job. The different parts have to be combined, when they are ready. I think ED just wanted to wink and show that there is happening something

 

[surt]

I know that my coding experience is limited to mostly VB and a little bit of hack-and-paste PHP, but seriously, could it have taken that long to add those features so that the 'early stage' video looked at least half impressive?
I would expect it is because it is trivial that it is not high priority. They only have so much time until the P's start shipping. I'd personally rather they spend it on function then decoration.

 

[lubidog]

GMenu is the main app-launcher, you'll be able to configure a different GUI if you really must. GMenu is really awesome though!

Yes Gmenu is nice fast and simple. No need for fluff and other nonsense to slow you down. It will also be nice that you can use it one handed without a stylus.



You know what? For all you geeks out there that want to put this OS on it and that there are all us guys who just want to go to a certain site, download a few things, throw em on the card and just play games!

So a nice Gmenu that does enough and is easy to use is fine by me! And I have faith that it will be fantastic!

So keep going chaps! Can't wait!!!

 

[dinglebery]

i know a good chunk of people are just that, want to DL a few emu's or games toss em on mabey some mp3s and off they go.. i guess for those folks a psp type menu would work, but keep in mind that there are an equal and number of us that are looking at the pandora as the ultimate pocketable mid/pim with a few apps that also happens to play games :> so a desktop enviorment is a pretty high up the list must for us , that said this is the beauty of how thier setting it up everyone can tailor the enviorment/shell to whatever you want .. ya gota love that

honestly it makes alot more sense to have the shipping enviorment look like something the standard joe q public is familiar with, cause if the pandora takes off and isnt a niche product whos more likely to toss down 330$ on this device ? the business class joe with discretionary income who wants the latest tech. that would probably be the bigest implulse buys after the next year as most kids who want one for games either are in the first batch or will buy them in the second before moving on to the PSP mark 2 or whatever the latest n greatest hand held is. and ultimately im sure the pandora team would like to see their baby turn a profit for as long as possible.