General questions thread

[Yasu]

I thought it could be a good idea to have such a thread. I have some questions.

1. Will you be able to have a different language setup on your physical keyboard? I would like a Swedish one if possible, even if it costs extra.

2. I've read that there is some x86/x64 emulator that work together with Wine to make non ARM Windows programs workingon the Pyra. Will there be a solution to make Steam work using this?

3. Will you be able to get a bigger SD drive for your OS than the included 32 GB? I think 32 GB is a little small since I plan to use this as my main computer (if possible) and I'm prepared to pay extra for a 128 GB one.

4. Will the OS come with pre-configured emulators (without ROM:s of course)? So that it work out of the box? I have an Amiga past and would like a working Amiga emulator on it without the huzzle.

 

[slaeshjag]

1) keyboard mat is fixed for the forseeable future. That doesn't prevent you from remapping ü to å though.

2) Steam kinda sorta runs. This was before the GL driver was working. There is a decent chance we'll have OpenGL 1.x acceleration in 32-bit x86 emulation working at or shortly after launch. Whenever Trashy gets his EVM from RMA, I guess we'll see some more videos.

3) eMMC is soldered to the CPU board and is not easily upgraded, and to my knowledge there's no immediate plans for options regarding that. However, there is an internal µSD slot that could be used for that purpose. Most larger community supported software is likely to be packaged with dbp, which allows you to install games and programs on removable media.

4) I do not think there's any plans for included emulators. However, software installation itself is usually trivial (if you look at how the pandora works) and the community will probably end up summing up the common configuration steps needed for amiga that you'd then customize for your own needs.

 

[Yasu]

1. Aww

2. Yay!

3. Will the uSD work in paralell with the internal card? 32 GB gets full pretty fast.

4. I thought emulated playing was one of Pandoras/Pyras selling point?

 

[slaeshjag]

1) I'm not personally bothered by it. Apart from the cosmetic bit that å will have a different label, pretty much all other symbols you'd want are there. Except maybe for ¤, but you could <compose> that if you're really desperate.

3) They share the same eMMC bus. There is effort made on multiplexing them transparently (insted of using a software controlled switch to alternate manually), but I do not know the progress of this driver.

4) Sure, it's one of its selling points. But that's not what everyone use them for, and they move quick, especially at launch, so any ones included would get outdated soon anyway. The pandora shipped with very little pre-installed software due to the small internal storage space (512 MB). What the pyra will ship with depends mostly on what our image building guard troll aTc lets through. That software would most likely have to be packaged as native debian packages, time will tell how many maintainers will go that route, regarding emulators.

 

[Yasu]

1. I do want my "å", "ä" and "ö" but I can live with it as long as it works in the OS.

3. That is good enough for me

4. I hope they will be easily installed as Linux tend to be pretty complicated in that manner. Having it working out of the box after installing them from the app center would be ideal.

 

[slaeshjag]

1) It already has the symbols for a german keyboard (ä, ö, ü, ß), so it's only å that's missing

(4 in case you are unaware, the "special" package format used on the pandora, and the simlar one I develop for the pyra will even allow you to download a file, put it on an SD card on any computer, put it into the device, and it's installed.)

 

[Yasu]

1. Ah! I did not know that. But the OS will be able to handle other languages right?

4. No, I just assumed it would work just like any Linux distro. That is a cool solution!

Love the Pyra!
[doublepost=1467925676,1467925314][/doublepost]Another question: I would like to use my Pyra as a desktop as well. Are they any plans to create a docking station?

 

[slaeshjag]

1) Should not be a problem.

The idea has been tossed around as a serious possibility. But any work on that is unlikely to happen before the pyra ships.

 

[Yasu]

I didn't expect any kind of positive answer there. Put me on the list of buyers when the idea comes up again.

 

[tarator]

In my opinion a docking station is not really needed. You only need to plug a USB Hub (With keyboard and mouse plugged in it), a Hdmi cable for the monitor, and micro USB for charging.
Not as comfortable as a real docking station, but for me this setup works for many years now with my laptop. You get used to the procedure and I'm really quick performing the Un/plugging steps, like a ninja ;-)

You could look out for a USB docking station, but I think Linux support is not really good with them.
[doublepost=1467931868,1467931301][/doublepost]

3) They share the same eMMC bus. There is effort made on multiplexing them transparently (insted of using a software controlled switch to alternate manually), but I do not know the progress of this driver.

What does that mean exactly? Will it be possible to insert a microSD card and mount it in the Filesystem?



I stumbled upon a few times over the special packaging format of programs the Pandora is using. How does this work? How complicated is it to build those packages? Is there any Tutorial or Documentation for this?

 

[TrashyMG]

What does that mean exactly? Will it be possible to insert a microSD card and mount it in the Filesystem?

Potentially, but access both at the same time would most likely result in reduced read and write speed.

 

[lukey]

I stumbled upon a few times over the special packaging format of programs the Pandora is using. How does this work? How complicated is it to build those packages? Is there any Tutorial or Documentation for this?

There is opkg for the OS on the (small) NAND (for updating the OS) and PND for all the Apps on Removable Storage (SD Cards). PND's contain an iso or squashfs which gets loop-mounted to some Dir in the OS (usually /mnt/utmp/<appname>) with your App and Config Files and they contain an PXML.xml Config-File which contains Things like Path to Icon, which Menu category, etc. which is Pretty Complex, but copying an PXML.xml from another PND and changing the stuff you want is easy (DBP has .desktop Files as Config which should be much easier).

 

[Yasu]

Is this solution widely accepted in the Linux world? I've never heard of it but it sounds like a good way for "installing" programs in Linux in general.

 

[sulu]

Is this solution widely accepted in the Linux world? I've never heard of it but it sounds like a good way for "installing" programs in Linux in general.

It's how pretty much every Linux package managing (deb, rpm, tgz) works:
You have some sort of archive, that contains a directory with the payload, and some way of storing the meta data (name, description, dependencies, etc.).
The package manager then integrates the payload into the system according to the rules described in the meta data.

The conceptual differences between the different package formats and managers are rather minor. Therefore I don't quite understand why you seem to like what you know about Pandora packages, while you find other package management systems complicated.

 

[Da_GPer]

Is the Linux thats being used 64 bit?

 

[sulu]

It's 32bit. The SoC doesn't support 64bit.

 

[Yasu]

@sulu

I admit I know little of Linux (I just recently started to learn after being fed up with how Microsoft treats its users over Windows 10). I got the impression that packages are all the files need for installation and that the system has a way to extract and install it with no effort. And that the Pandora doesn't install anything but rather do an assign inside the package when you want to use it. Which sounded like a nice way being independent of any app center as you would never need to really install anything. Just download the file from somewhere, double click on it and it runs. Don't want it anymore? Just delete the same file.

Buuut in a typical me fashion I guess I misunderstand how this work somewhere. Wouldn't be the first time

 

[tarator]

@Yasu You get it right! But you're still not dependent to a app store in Linux. You could always download Linux packages manually and install it with your package manager.

As you said, the main difference is, that you can just run a pnd file without installing it before. The system "installs" them in the fly.

The problem here is, that you have to package all dependencies into your pnd, or at least have them installed already on your system.

In my opinion the Linux App repository are great, and I was missing them on Windows machines for a long time. This system existed long before App Stores (e.g. For Apple or Android) popped up!

The good thing is: you could download and compile the source code of the software for yourself anytime. But this can be cumbersome, if you need a lot of dependencies, and can last many hours. Here the Linux repositories come in handy with their precompiled and configured packages.

 

[sulu]

@Yasu:
I see what you mean. You're right, compared to "traditional" package managers the PND system works a little different, in that it transparently mounts an overlay file system, rather than actually extracting files from an archive to a file system. Think of it as similar to CD/DVD images. There is no actual "installation", as in moving files from one place to another.

Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages.
The traditional way is more suited for systems where your storage is fixed, big, but limited, like in PCs. It relies on, and encourages the creation of a centralized core system with sophisticated dependencies, that is maintained by a trusted distributor.
The PND's way is more suited for systems with swappable, individually small, but in principle unlimited storage, where security isn't that important.

What I don't like about the PND format is, that there is no strict structural separation between payload and meta data.

You could always download Linux packages manually and install it with your package manager.

Just a cautionary note:
You should generally avoid this whenever possible. It's a (mild) form of abusing the package manager.
As a rule of thumb: If you don't know, why this would be necessary in a certain situation, don't do it!

 

[Yasu]

Feels good that I didn't get it completely wrong I have nothing against an app center. I actually prefer it as you then know it should just work and it will be free of viruses and malware and whatnot. But when you see something you like and it doesn't exist in the app center (like Brutal Doom) there seems to be little else to do but to give up as I have no idea how to manually install or compile things on Linux. I really don't get why there hasn't been made a bigger effort to autoinstall independent files you find on the internet. The Amiga has an installer that ask you to accept certain parts during the installation or cancel so you know what it's getting installed. You can also chose your level (beginner, mediate and expert). Beginner installs everything for you automatically, mediate lets you chose stuff like where to install a file if you have options and expert forces you to look at everything. You can also pretend to install so you see what would happen if you did. I like that solution.