Novice Linux user questions.

[MerlinGamer]

Hiya

I have the original open pandora and have found that when using mini menu it has worked flawlessly.

However, when switching the GUI I have nothing but problems, and I think it may be my own stupidity rather than the device itself but I need to put my mind at rest.

I would love to do some very basic word processing and web browsing from time to time on my pandora, but I have issues with both. Mousepad is extremely unreliable for me, and will work for a few minutes before locking up the entire system. Links just doesn't work at all, all it does is brings up a big grey window that doesn't do anything, and doesn't seem to have any commands other than close.

I tried taking it to my local LUG and got gasps of envious wonderment and comments of "I've only seen these in pictures!" but sadly they couldn't help me. One of the more technically minded members took it to one side and tried to run some basic commands on the terminal.

This is in no way an exhausted list of all the commands he tried, but I remember some of them, (I'm sure you've seen how some people can use the terminal at a lightning speed!) all of these come up with Bash: App: command not found:

man

s

ifconfig

info

ipconfig

finger

gcc

make (however ld is working :/)

however, top, ping, sudo and ls  all seem to work. Vi works too, but it can't find the help file. He also did some commands to ask the terminal what was running it, the first time he did it it just reported back as "Linux", the second time "Unknown".

At first I thought a lot of apps might have been stripped out to make the operating system a lot more light weight, but it was pointed out to me that it was very weird how ping would be available but not ifconfig. Is this all normal or have I had a bad install? If it is a bad install is it possible to reformat it? Or should I try and update it as I think it's still running the version it came with and I've probably had it for the best part of 2 years now.

Many thanks

 

[TrashyMG]

There is only 500MBs on storage for the OS, the OS take all but ~100MBs of it...

man and help files, are all stripped to save space.  
- s ?? not sure what that is..
- ifconfig , should be there and work, ipconfig is a windows command. 

- finger is a throwback to UNIX if I believe. it wouldn't be on any modern Linux distribution.
-gcc and make not on the os, but there are a few developer PNDs that give you all the compiling tools. 

     - http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=codeblocks6022
     - http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=cdevtools.freamon.40n8e

I'd suggest updating, not only does it seem your system have a few issues, but many of the new PNDs will have trouble working on the older OS.  http://pandorawiki.org/Firmware#To_SD_card_.28external.29 

edit: added more links.

Edit: while a little sluggish on the original Pandora, the newer firefox ported to the Pandora isn't too bad. http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=firefox.hdonk.500

 

[mindlord]

Re: Links
The grey screen is normal. Pressing "g" for go will bring up a place to enter a URL.

 

[FBnil]

Well, the man pages are stripped out indeed.... h34r:   nevermind...

I like links in graphical mode, start it with "links -g"  and press escape to get the menu.

I havent used mousepad for such extensive amount of time, but it has never crashed that I can remember. Use stuff like leafpad or the more heavy Abiword. (libreoffice works too, but it eats too much ram). However, get geany if you want to program. Great stuff.

And yes, flash your Pandora to the newest release. Be careful though, if you have data in your home directory, it will be lost. Make sure you copy your files from /home/$USER/ (even the hidden files) if you have something there.

For the gcc, once you get codeblocks, run the menu, development, "Dev. Command Line Interface" option to have a bash shell with gcc working. It is neat.

 

[levi]

Indeed, for Abiword, Codeblocks for the GNU tools or Firefox/Chromium (if the classic Pandora can run those in 256MB RAM, dunno) the system's intended to use the PND system so that those apps can live on a (removable) SD card. Create a 'pandora' folder in the root of an SD card, create the appropriate folder inside that (I suggest 'apps' and it'll appear basically everywhere - on the desktop, in the start menu, and IIRC inside minimenu too), then download the PNDs from repo.openpandora.org and put them in there. The system should then scan that folder and pick up your PNDs and make them available. That's how almost all Pandora software is distributed.

 

[ptitSeb]

Well, the man pages are stripped out indeed.... h34r:   nevermind...

I like links in graphical mode, start it with "links -g"  and press escape to get the menu.

I havent used mousepad for such extensive amount of time, but it has never crashed that I can remember. Use stuff like leafpad or the more heavy Abiword. (libreoffice works too, but it eats too much ram). However, get geany if you want to program. Great stuff.

And yes, flash your Pandora to the newest release. Be careful though, if you have data in your home directory, it will be lost. Make sure you copy your files from /home/$USER/ (even the hidden files) if you have something there.

For the gcc, once you get codeblocks, run the menu, development, "Dev. Command Line Interface" option to have a bash shell with gcc working. It is neat.

Next codeblocks PND (v2 !!) will have "man" along with gcc (and newer binutils)

 

[MerlinGamer]

Thank you all for your replies. I will look into updating it when I get back from work, sorry if this is answered in the main upgrading text, but does upgrading do a full wipe of the old operating system or does it work more like a patch? If the original system has issues I think it would be wise of me to start by putting a stable version of 1.5 on before applying updates unless of course the update does wipe the unit.

Thanks again

 

[TrashyMG]

Not sure what you mean 1.5, the current version is 1.60. I suggest installing the full 1.60 release of Super Zaxxon and it's a full wipe. Since your system is having issues, I think doing a full wipe may be best to clear up the problem.. The good news is once you're up to date, there is a new update OS feature that will allow users to make incremental OS updates over the internet and it doesn't wipe anything.

 

[Linux-SWAT]

ifconfig may not be in the user path.

Try /sbin/ifconfig

And sudo ifconfig to actually set things.