Hello!

[antisol]

Greetings!

I'm new here and thought I'd introduce myself, make some comments, and I might throw in a few questions.

I've had my 1ghz pandora for about 3 weeks and what can I say? I LOVE IT! I've used it for at least an hour or two every day since it arrived. This is a truly amazing little device!

* I had read all the specs and watched videos, but this still didn't prepare me for how tiny it is! wow! I'm amazed that so much can be packed into such a small device!

* The software. OMG, the software! I run debian-based OS's on most of my machines, and I was impressed to see how much of my favourite software has been packaged for the pandora: scite, qmmp, firefox, chromium, scummvm, truecrypt, tor, jack, lmms(wow!), ur-quan masters (awesome!), and many many more. Also, the quality of the software and ports specifically for the pandora is generally excellent - in particular the PNDManager app, which is gorgeous and amazingly useful. A BIG thank you to all the packagers and coders!

* The Flexibility! wow, I can't believe all the things it can do! Maybe I'll browse the web for a while. Then I'll play Day Of The Tentacle. Then some Street Fighter. Then I'll ssh in and update the software on my webserver. And while the update runs I might work on that little pygtk program I'm writing. While listening to music. Awesome.

* The Dual SD slots are a brilliant, brilliant Idea - it naturally lends itself to one slot being a 'system' disk where you install your apps and essential data, and another slot is switchable data - one SD card for video, another for music, etc.

* USB host mode - awesome. I have a 1tb 2.5" Hard disk to use for backups and when 2x128GB SD cards just isn't enough. So far it has about 800GB free - 1tb is a massive amount of space on the pandora! While we're on the subject of USB host mode: Plugging in my gamepad and using my TV out cable to play 2-player Street fighter! yeah! And of course there's the Pandora + TV + keyboard + mouse = full desktop recipie.

* After being an early adopter of the Openmoko Neo Freerunner, I was very impressed by the quality of the pandora, both in terms of the hardware and integration with the software/OS - this feels like a finished product. I was very dissappointed by the Freerunner - I had been told it would be useable as a phone. It never was. The pandora is everything it claimed to be - great job!

I'll be watching the pyra project closely and I expect I'll buy one early on.

Some constructive criticism (or perhaps it's just me nitpicking!) from an end-user's perspective, perhaps worth considering with the pyra?

* I'm not a fan of the placement of the headphone port - I think it should be on the side of the device so that it can more easily fit into your pocket with headphones plugged in. My headphones have a fairly big plug which is not angled, so I have to be careful when I'm walking around with the pandora in my pocket with headphones plugged in. This is a minor annoyance because I'll buy an angle-plug adaptor to make this less of a problem, but I'd still feel more comfortable about not breaking the headphone jack or my (expensive!) headphones if the headphone jack was placed at the side rather than the front of the unit,

* I feel the same way about the volume knob: I love the volume knob - it's much better than digital controls, but I think it would be better placed on the side of the unit (next to where the headphone jack should be) so that you can adjust the volume more easily without taking the pandora out of your pocket.

* I wish it had some more external buttons, again for the purpose of using the pandora as a music player in my pocket: Mapping the shoulder buttons to previous and next seems straightforward and the hold button is awesome for preventing accidental pressed, but I with there was an external play/pause button, so that I could reach in to my pocket and hit pause without having to take it out or open it up. Even better would be a set of media keys specifically for this purpose, nicely packed at one end with the headphone jack and volume knob and built specifically for use in-pocket, but I realise that might not be feasible

* I wish the screen had a second locking position so that I could use it in a half-folded position (i.e so that it looks like a tiny laptop). Without a second locking position it becomes difficult to e.g use the touchscreen when you have it half-folded. Also, I find it more easy to use in sunlight in the half-folded position.

Some questions and other comments:

* I've installed openbox and have been using it as my default GUI. Around this time I did a system upgrade using the 'upgrade pandora OS' item in XCFE. The upgrade seems to have changed the behaviour of the pandora button in openbox: previously pressing the pandora button had brought up the openbox menu, but now it did nothing. I think it was the upgrade that did this, but it might have been me being stupid. I found the binding in rc.xml - it had changed to c-pandora for the menu? I changed this back to just using the pandora button for the menu, which works, but now it seems that if I press the pandora button while firefox is running, firefox exits immediately without any prompts regardless of whether it has the focus or not (it closes even when minimized). Has something changed recently with regard to the behaviour of the pandora button in openbox?

* I am in the very early stages of reading about the PND system, OS, etc. What's the best/recommended way for me to install the normal *nix tools I use every day? I miss things like htop, nethogs, iftop, lsof, and screen. I want tools I install to be in the path so that they can be used easily from a normal console session. I want to install these tools on an SD card (which will be inserted most of the time) so that they don't take up space on nand. I checked out the "Streaks CLI love" PND, but it seems deprecated for some reason? The wiki page on it has been deleted. Also it doesn't provide the tools in the standard environment (i.e in the path), so I can't use them in a normal terminal.

* You'll hear from me again: I've been working on a project for a while now which I think is a natural fit for the pandora. For now, I'm going to stay tight-lipped and not say any more, but I do intend to release software for the pandora. One quick question on this front: what is the best/easiest way to determine programatically whether my software is running on a pandora or not? maybe something in /proc? I want to have my app use a different interface / control scheme on the pandora, and the first step in implementing that will be detecting if it's running on a pandora.

To finish my long rambling introduction: hello! And thanks! I love my pandora!

 

[ekianjo]

I want tools I install to be in the path so that they can be used easily from a normal console session. I want to install these tools on an SD card (which will be inserted most of the time) so that they don't take up space on nand

Install a full OS on a SD card, like slackware or Pandian.

what is the best/easiest way to determine programatically whether my software is running on a pandora or not?

In etc/ if you find a pandora folder, you are on a Pandora

 

[Askarus]

* I'm not a fan of the placement of the headphone port - I think it should be on the side of the device so that it can more easily fit into your pocket with headphones plugged in. My headphones have a fairly big plug which is not angled, so I have to be careful when I'm walking around with the pandora in my pocket with headphones plugged in. This is a minor annoyance because I'll buy an angle-plug adaptor to make this less of a problem, but I'd still feel more comfortable about not breaking the headphone jack or my (expensive!) headphones if the headphone jack was placed at the side rather than the front of the unit,

So you never use headphone while playing?

I wouldn't want to make a hole in my hand to do so .

 

[ekianjo]

I wouldn't want to make a hole in my hand to do so .

good point

 

[_jr_]

I'd be happy with either placement of the headphone jack when ED carries an angled adapter in his shop. This is superior with any placement of the port because it's easier to reduce the stress on the cable.

 

[antisol]

So you never use headphone while playing?


I wouldn't want to make a hole in my hand to do so .

Aah! excellent point! I hereby retract that criticism)

 

[antisol]

Install a full OS on a SD card, like slackware or Pandian.

I was thinking about pandian - I like debian. Bu is there any penalty for doing so? i.e does it have all the nice pandora tools and scripts installed? is running from SD as fast/power-efficient as the builtin OS?

In etc/ if you find a pandora folder, you are on a Pandora

Thanks!

 

[ekianjo]

I was thinking about pandian - I like debian. Bu is there any penalty for doing so? i.e does it have all the nice pandora tools and scripts installed? is running from SD as fast/power-efficient as the builtin OS?

No, only advantages I think, except that the PND support may not be complete. I don't know on Pandian, but on Slackware a few PNDs will not launch, but not the most important ones.

So, it's actually a good option for everyday use.

 

[antisol]

Thanks again! I guess I'll have to give pandian a try. I imagine most anything I want to install will just be an apt-get away, so pnd support might not be a big deal. or maybe it'll be something I can help with

 

[fusion_power]

The headphone jack placement is an interesting point. For gaming it should be onto the font but for pocket "Walkman mode" it should be on top, along with the placement near the volume wheel. The current Pandora has the volume wheel at the opposite of the headphone jack which is bad if you have the Pandora in your pocket and want to adjust the volume. YOu can turn the Pandora with the wheel upon but then the headphone jack ont othe other side down in your pocket can make trouble if you don't use an angled phone plug.

For the upcoming Pyra, the design could at least place the volume wheel and the headphone jack onto the same side so both can stick out of the pocket sideways. even better would be a second headphone jack onto the sides of the pandora so you ccan use this if you have the Device in your pocket and use the other one at the front when you play games. Volume wheel of course stays at ther front side.

I'm sure a 2. headphone jack would be possible without much additional costs but I guess it is just not enough space onto the PCB for such experiments.

 

[antisol]

agreed, but I think you'll find that adding a second headphone jack will be harder than you think - I'd expect that there will be many considerations, e.g: space, shielding to prevent interference with/from other components, etc. Space is a big and obvious one - would you rather have 2 headphone jacks, one redundant, or one headphone jack and something else like a camera or gps reciever using that space?

having the volume knob and headphone port placed together would be an improvement.

 

[ptitSeb]

About tools, you can also use the Code::blocks Command Line as your default Terminal. It includes many tools, I add more at every releases.