Logistics Of Using Two Sd Cards

[ashdjones]

How exactly is this going to work? Just thinking about it gives me a headache.

The main issue that bothers me is running programs, emulators, applications from SD - are we going to have to install all of them onto one card? I don't know about anyone else, but i'm likely to forget which card the programs are running from and pull out the wrong one!

Are libraries and whatnot installed in the onboard flash? If they're installed on a card, and the application that rely on them are in another then they'll have to both be present right?

If I want to put in two SD cards to switch files around will I lose access to all my applications? I'm guessing that a file manager is installed in the firmware, is that right?

If I put a card-reader into the USB port I'd imagine this would resolve any problems?

:wacko:

 

[jakshep2]

I guess it's the same as GP2X.

 

[craigix]

How exactly is this going to work? Just thinking about it gives me a headache.

The main issue that bothers me is running programs, emulators, applications from SD - are we going to have to install all of them onto one card? I don't know about anyone else, but i'm likely to forget which card the programs are running from and pull out the wrong one!

Are libraries and whatnot installed in the onboard flash? If they're installed on a card, and the application that rely on them are in another then they'll have to both be present right?

:wacko:

No, the libs will be with the program, not installed anywhere else (that would lead to a similar situation as DLL hell). So it will be quite a lot like the GP2X really, if it's on the card it will work.

 

[ashdjones]

Thanks for clarifying this. How come then, when i'm using Ubuntu it does all sorts of activity involving checking and downloading libraries when downloading a program? I have the phrase 'checking dependencies' stuck in my mind.

 

[Karel Jansens]

Right now I'm thinking about a totally different logistics problem with having multiple cards: I have a collection of 4 and 8 GB cards lying around that I would like to use in my Pandora. The problem is that, unlike floppies of old, it's not that practical to scribble information about the contents on the cards themselves, because of -- well, size mainly, but also because that content might change rather frequently. Also, with the larger cards (32 and 64 GB), opening a file manager to get a directory listing might take some thumb twiddling time.

For Windows there exists a little program, called "DriveZ", which basically creates a text copy of a directory content and copies that to the clipboard. Wouldn't it be nice to have a program for the Pandora that scans the directory of a card and stores it in an easily accessible file on the Pandora? You could have buttons for all of your cards, with your own labels of course, and clicking on one of them would give the last stored directory content of that card. It would save a lot of card swapping and searching for that elusive yet freakishly alluring Heavy Metal accordeon concert.

Ideally, the utility would require as little user interaction as possible: Just a click on the right card label and a "scan" or "refresh" click; the result would ideally be in the form of a list. Obviously, storing this utility on a card that gets removed frequently would not be the cleverest thing to do...

 

[Babrios]

I am going to keep apps of all kind on the first card slot and data disks (with mp3, roms etc.) on the second.
That way I will only have to switch the second card and the other stays put.
Just like partitions on a hard disk, the internal rom: system, cardslot 1:apps and alternate systems,cardslot2:data of all kind.
As for the data disks, I wont have that many. One for roms, one for mp3, 16gb each. should be enough for carrying around, the main data storage is an external hd anyway.

 

[Squidge]

How come then, when i'm using Ubuntu it does all sorts of activity involving checking and downloading libraries when downloading a program? I have the phrase 'checking dependencies' stuck in my mind.

Because thats what UBuntu does. Pandora doesn't use Ubuntu.

 

[ashdjones]

How come then, when i'm using Ubuntu it does all sorts of activity involving checking and downloading libraries when downloading a program? I have the phrase 'checking dependencies' stuck in my mind.

Because thats what UBuntu does. Pandora doesn't use Ubuntu.


I remember reading that the Pandora would be using a Debian based system (like Ubuntu), but I learnt today that it's now using Angstrom (at least in part)?

Is the package system in Ubuntu derived from Debian, or an invention all of it's own?

 

[tazg]

For Windows there exists a little program, called "DriveZ", which basically creates a text copy of a directory content and copies that to the clipboard. Wouldn't it be nice to have a program for the Pandora that scans the directory of a card and stores it in an easily accessible file on the Pandora? You could have buttons for all of your cards, with your own labels of course, and clicking on one of them would give the last stored directory content of that card. It would save a lot of card swapping and searching for that elusive yet freakishly alluring Heavy Metal accordeon concert.
couldn't you just use volume labels? It shouldn't be hard to set up something that immediately shows you a label upon inserting a card. Imagine you have 5 cards and you can't remember which one is your music collection... you just put them in one by one until the word "music" appears on the screen, then click something to mount it.

 

[Kyo]

As for your "which is which" problem, this is real easy

left is programs

right is media

problem

solution

 

[Prometheus]

Is the package system in Ubuntu derived from Debian, or an invention all of it's own?

It's pretty much exactly the same.

 

[atiflz]

How come then, when i'm using Ubuntu it does all sorts of activity involving checking and downloading libraries when downloading a program? I have the phrase 'checking dependencies' stuck in my mind.

Because thats what UBuntu does. Pandora doesn't use Ubuntu.

Not yet...

 

[Karel Jansens]

couldn't you just use volume labels? It shouldn't be hard to set up something that immediately shows you a label upon inserting a card. Imagine you have 5 cards and you can't remember which one is your music collection... you just put them in one by one until the word "music" appears on the screen, then click something to mount it.

Like I said, it's not about a simple label; after all, I could scribble that on the card itself and be done with it. The problem is that searching for particular content on a library of cards (which I'm lucky enough to have) will be time consuming and annoying. This proposed utility would take away the need to put cards in the slot, wait for the file manager to come up, realize this is not the right one, put in next card and repeat.

My cards aren't big enough to hold my entire music collection and I'm pretty certain there won't be a card big enough to hold my entire video collection for a very, very long time, so I have to split things up. Also, I don't think I'll be able to take more than a selection of my material with me at any given time, so the actual contents of my cards will vary over time.

Mind you, it's not a life saving thing I'm thinking about, just something that might make the portable experience a little nicer...

 

[Yannick]

How come then, when i'm using Ubuntu it does all sorts of activity involving checking and downloading libraries when downloading a program? I have the phrase 'checking dependencies' stuck in my mind.

Because thats what UBuntu does. Pandora doesn't use Ubuntu.


I remember reading that the Pandora would be using a Debian based system (like Ubuntu), but I learnt today that it's now using Angstrom (at least in part)?

Is the package system in Ubuntu derived from Debian, or an invention all of it's own?


As far as I understand it:

yes, the build in linux will use apt-get (like ubuntu)
but no, all games and applications will have their dependencies built-in (takes op more space, but avoids the problems you are thinking about)

for custom Linux installs, all options are on the table

 

[tazg]

I thought the issue was cards being physically too small to write labels on, whereas volume labels can be quite long, as far as I know.

Your idea could probably be done fairly easily by modifying a file indexer to to index removable media and associate labels... maybe it's already been done even.

 

[Squidge]

Because thats what UBuntu does. Pandora doesn't use Ubuntu.

Not yet...


Well, you can of course install your own dist, if thats what you want to do. But the same could be said for WindowsCE and every other OS.

 

[praxis]

Correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't the applications and their associated libraries be installed/stored on the 256mb of flash that the OS is on rather than an SD-card?

 

[sdedalus83]

Not if you want to run Ubuntu, they won't.

I don't think any decision has been made as to how the default OS will be installed.

 

[Pleng]

Correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't the applications and their associated libraries be installed/stored on the 256mb of flash that the OS is on rather than an SD-card?

No.

Apps will be stored on SD cards. Associated libraries will be stored in the application directory (or a sub directory, more likely).

The 256 will pretty much only hold the base OS.

 

[javaJake]

For Windows there exists a little program, called "DriveZ", which basically creates a text copy of a directory content and copies that to the clipboard.

I know this isn't GUI or anything, but it's a start: http://mama.indstate.edu/users/ice/tree/
It'll print a recursive, indented listing of any directory you choose. Writing a GUI for that (w|c)ould be a cinch, if you want one.