If Given The Choice, Would You Want Pandora With Beta Or Release Os?

[PoisonedV]

if it has any resemblance of functionality , then I would like it. As long as it isn't a brick waiting to happen like the gp2x, i'm willing to experiment.

 

[darkowl]

I would agree with gruso, the people who frequent these forums are likely to be willing to re-flash the pandora but others might be expecting the OS to be in a more complete state. Having said that I opted for ship ASAP .

 

[bzar]

why do people always put 'I didn't preorder' in these polls? People who didn't preorder shouldn't even be here, so there's no reason for it. Please don't encourage them.

Because some of us might actually be interested in the results? I didn't preorder (wanted to, but couldn't due to unforseen consequences), but I read the forums (a lot) because I want to know more about the community around the pandora as much as about the device itself.

 

[RajTakhar]

Most of us would be okay with regular re-flashing of Pandora's, both of Angstrom and other Distros such as Ubuntu, Gentoo, etc.

The only ones who may not be okay would we Noobs - yep with the GP2X I was one :blink:

I guess a how to guide needs to be created and posted in the correct place in this forum

====
gp32_console + :gp2x and Hopefully Pretty Soon ... andora1:

http://gp2xwizandpandora.blogspot.com/

 

[Polossatik]

I just want to multiboot (= boot from SD or so) and have a "stable" (aka more or less working) and a test env. In that case the test may be pre-alpha .. whatever... and i'll flash the test then every day 15 times if needed.

 

[Izolo]

edit: why do people always put 'I didn't preorder' in these polls? People who didn't preorder shouldn't even be here, so there's no reason for it. Please don't encourage them.

I smell anti-newb elitism.

 

[fusion_power]

I think most people are assumed to know this is a new piece of technology and are ready for 'adventure' .. but I thought I'd like to ask and really get a better idea here.

Do most pandora pre-buyers expect to have a well oiled experience? or are ready to tinker day to day for awhile? what do you want/expect?

jeff

(Aside from us peeps, there are considerations for reviewers and blogs/magazines and so forth .. they expect to see pretty stable. Some people love to get in early, while sometimes that backlashes on the seller. Interesting stuff!)

Because there were many hardware-delays during the Pandora Production but not so many software delays, I expect a well backed OS. We are so late with the release that I think there was more than enough Time to create a solid piece of OS for the Pandora. Not all functions maybe and of course not all Programms finished but the basics like wifi, USB, Hardware-Driveres etc... should be ready. For Example, Squidge has a OMAP Dev Board since over a year, so I hope he had done more than some quick SNES EMU-Port in all that time.
AFAIK, the beagle Board guys did the main job to run Angstrom onto the OMAP system, so I imagine that the Pandora Team just have to tweak the OS to work with all the Pandora releated stuff.

Again, I expect a "well oiled experience" because of the looooong Development of the systm nad the even more long delays, preorder problems and everything. I mean, if there has been a positive Pandora release in August 08 or so, the OS also had to work in August (more or less) and we are 6 Months later, pretty much time to optimize an basic OS up and down and back...maybe... ^_^

 

[kloplop321]

I want at least FF and WiFi working and I will be happy for the first week

 

[scottm]

edit: why do people always put 'I didn't preorder' in these polls? People who didn't preorder shouldn't even be here, so there's no reason for it. Please don't encourage them.

:blink: :angry:

mmm don't think so. I didn't pre-order cause I didn't have the cash at the time. I now do, and so I've registered my interest for one of the 200-300 extra that will be available from the 1st batch

 

[renegadechic]

I chose the complete and stable option. I am aware that it would be better for others to have it earlier though. I cant admit to having the greatest confidence in myself to not mess up what i was doing. Mostly though because i have never done it before and am pretty n00bish. With a complete OS i could spend a good deal of time getting used to linux before trying anything more complicated. I would be the person who bricked something unbrickable, and i would probably cry!

 

[sterling976]

Naturally I went with "Ship ASAP", and I'd love it if that happened. I am wondering though, whether decisions will be made based on this poll, or if it's just an exercise in curiosity.

The news section at openpandora.org has been updated, so I don't think they're planning on delaying the release for the OS. It looks like 6 weeks from Jan 15th is the latest date they'll start shipping. Then again, 'late November' was presented as a pretty firm date, too.

I guess a how to guide needs to be created and posted in the correct place in this forum

Or on the wiki. Ideally, the user guide(s) would be posted there and linked from openpandora.org. And then, if someone likes, they can announce it in the forums. I nominate RajTakhar for writing the how-to on flashing your NAND.



As for my vote, I'd say release it yesterday.

 

[mechanizeddeath]

I realize the impact that bad software could have on some reviews, but even so I would love to watch the entire thing grow. I got into the GP2X at the start of the mk II era, so I missed out on a lot of the early development, but there was still a lot of great improvement to look forward to. It was cool to have something that was playable but slow, and upon checking the file archive a week later, find the speed had been increased substantially.

 

[emil10001]

Just wanted to chime in and say "release it!" =)

I picked up a BeagleBoard this summer and bricked it almost immediately. Luckily, as has been mentioned, it is basically unbrickable, and as long as you can read and type, you can fix it. Here are the instructions for a BeagleBoard recovery:

http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardRecovery

I am not suggesting that the process will be identical for the Pandora, but I can imagine it would be at least similar. The whole recovery process took all of 5 minutes to do.

From what we've seen, the Pandora is looking very usable right now for most people. My vote would be to get the hardware out to all the pre-orderers with the unpolished software, with a note or an e-mail explaining the state of the software that is being shipped, and a couple of helpful links to the wiki, with pages on installing apps, updating the OS, and unbricking. Also, perhaps an rss feed for OS releases would be good, or if you could get a feed for any new apps added to the archive, that might be nice too.

However, it might be a good idea to hold off on sending units to reviewer until we have a more polished experience. There is really no reason to send them units immediately, because there won't be any units to buy anyways. So, they will get the hardware, create hype, and traffic, and then people will come and need to wait around for the second batch. IMHO, it would be better to wait a bit, work out the kinks, polish a bit, then send to reviewers, and have a much better chance at getting a really great review. This would tactic might also help to build support for the second batch at the proper time, as opposed to building hype, then having new interested people waiting around for a while while things get sorted out. Just my thoughts on the matter, I have no idea what the team plans on doing about this, and it might be interesting to hear from them about it.

Either way, great work so far on developing the OS and drivers!

 

[Phawx]

I don't know about you guys, but I am totally going to be doing the, "Cartman's 'I have a themepark and YOU can't come in technique.'"

I am going to review the Pandora like crazy and end every sentence with, "WHOA! Isn't that totally awesome. And the Best part, YOU CAN'T HAVE ONE, there are only 3800 in existence and this is one of the few!"

Probably have some shots of me dancing in the distance.

It's the "You can't have one" Marketing technique. Hell it worked for Nintendo for THREE YEARS!

 

[OrR]

I've been reflashing my Neo 1973 at least once a month for a year and a half now and it stil isn't working completely. h34r: I love it, though. Even though I had to drive to the next town once to get it unbricked...
I would appreciate an SD bootable OS, though, because that is usually more comfortable to reflash and it's easier to have multiple versions around. (Angstrom, Ubuntu, Android, all im my pocket, yay! )

 

[Mithrildor]

ASAP! I don't care if the OS isnt barely useful. If it will be installed with the OS of the last vid i'm happy. Updating each day (or each several days) won't be a big problem. I'd like to get it as soon as possible as logn the hardware is completed and you can't easily brick the Pandora with the current OS.

 

[Trip]

They should learn from the mistakes of GPH; who had bad reviews because the firmware and standard programs weren't quite as good as they could have been. Most of the reviewers didn't take the time needed to check out all the extra software for download (like the better music players, file manager etc.) and just reviewed the 2X as it arrived in the box.

Hold some units back and send them off to the press about 2 weeks before shipping the second batch. This will give people time to polish the software base and lead to much more fair and balanced reviews.

EDIT: I wouldn't mind having to update it everyday personally, as long as all the hardware is good

EDIT2: Don't forget to update the units with the latest updates before sending them off, because chances are that most of the reviewers won't bother to update them.

 

[fiveseven]

As long as it looks vaguely like it's working, I'll take it! I actually think it would be kind of fun trying to hack various things into working, would be good linux experience (which I really need right now).

From what I can see from the videos, the OS is looking pretty decent already.

 

[Svartalf]

As long as it looks vaguely like it's working, I'll take it! I actually think it would be kind of fun trying to hack various things into working, would be good linux experience (which I really need right now).

Heh... You'll get some of that even if the OS was armor-plated, rock solid. It's a hell of a lot better than other players, from what I understand (From reliable sources, mind...) but we can do even better than that and we're working towards it.

QUOTE

From what I can see from the videos, the OS is looking pretty decent already.



It is, it is. But we can do better. And while we're working on "better" there's hopefully going to be at least a few more "cool" things to demo before ship. Beagleboard's already demoing the still somewhat restricted access SGX drivers on the latest builds. The SGX does quite a bit better than the Futuremark scores would imply on things and better than many would have envisioned it to do.

 

[Tobriand]

I think for me it boils down to two lists of features - those essential prior to release, and those I'd be happy to wait a little for...

Essentials and highly desirables:
- Run programs 'n stuff, preferably not only from a command line.
- Ability to transfer files to and fro via USB or Samba
- Sound
- All controls to work

Things I'm happy to wait for:
- Multitasking
- Suspend/Hibernate/etc.
- WiFi
- Prettification and polish (though it looks like I may not have to, looking at the current state of play of Matchbox Pandora themes)
- Easy-to-use settings menu, particularly for altering startup preferences, LCD brightness, internal volume, CPU speed limits (max and min speeds), Themes, user data, any firewalling Pandora might eventually have and probably quite a number of other things.
- Samba (unless USB doesn't work out of the box, in which case this is a must-have)
- Accelerated OpenGL ES
- Bluetooth (we may already have this too, by the looks of things)
- Auto-clockspeed adjustment or similar
- Media playback, preferably hardware accelerated and with a gui
- PDA functionality - remembering the time, word-processing, and suchlike.

Which probably, all in all, puts me somewhere between the first and second categories. I want to be able to *use* the hardware; but it just so happens that the things I consider the OS to require for the hardware to be usable are already there. Otherwise re-flashing once every couple of weeks would be all part of the fun!

Provided (and I stress this part) that the rest of the functionality does become available soonish.