Our New Machine, Pandora

[javaJake]

Move along, nothing to see here...

The competition is already going to be rough, and the thing hasn't even come out yet!

• Asus EeePC 701 - Ultra Portable Linux laptop with 512 MB RAM, Intel chip, Wifi, and up to 16 GB storage.
• Madison Celebrity - $150 laptop with 256 MB RAM, 40 GB storage, Wifi, Intel Celeron M 370 1.5 GHz

The last one could be "too good to be true", and apparently pre-orders have yet to be fulfilled. They are both supposed to be coming out this holiday season.

What's everyone's opinion on these? I'm still leaning towards Craigix's new device, since it's much more portable than either of these, has more "wow" factor, will have much more support IMO, and will probably be plain easier to get videos, games, and other stuff onto it.

Edit: Source for information: http://reviews.cnet.com/fall-tech-preview/laptops/

 

[Alex.]

You said it yourself, those are laptops while this will be a handheld. For all we know, this will probably have a better battery life than them too, and hopefully a community just as nice as the GP2X's.

However I do think the cheaper laptop phenomenon is likely to catch on, as it should. The technology to meet the needs of the average consumer got much cheaper than what major manufacturers want to admit... You don't need more than a Pentium II/III to check your e-mail and type up documents and spreadsheets.

 

[A_SN]

hopefully something much better than Gmenu2x (sorry Ryo but I just can't get used to it, and I'd find it awful if the new console shipped with such a menu)

This program is really community driven. A lot of comments and good ideas of the community are implemented by Ryo so I think you belong to a minority. Gmenu2x is imo the best thing happened to the GP2X. What is there not to like? Really.
The program should of course be rebuild and maybe from scratch for the touchscreen, and made usefull for the new machine. I think the best person to make the "perfect" menu for the new machine (and the F200) is Ryo.


I find it awfully unergonomic, not simply by its design decisions but by some awful ergonomy mistakes which made it extremely confusing when I first used it. Also, I find not being able to browse the FS (or at least no easy way to do it) to be a major mistake.

To me, the ideal menu would take most concepts from computer OS GUIs. You would have a desktop, with shortcuts to your favourite stuff on it, for quick access to what you like best, and folders and mounted folders, so you could browse the filesystem. Files would be recognized based on their extension, just like in any OS GUI, for instance a .jpg would be opened with the built-in image viewer, a program would be executed, etc. Also, when a program would crash, the menu would report it with a dialog box and the return value (instead of leaving you with nothing running like the default gp2x menu) and when a program would quit/crash, you would naturally find the menu as you left it, with windows opened as they were, etc, etc.

So yeah, to me, the ideal menu takes the concepts that made the success of the OS GUIs, instead of doing some awkward stuff like gmenu2x does. And I'm actually planning on making such a menu, which would be pretty much based on Mac OS 8, since I'm a fan of that system, but I won't start it any time soon tho, I have lots of projects I'm working on and I've had zero time to code lately.

 

[Alex.]

A_SN, GMenu2x was tailored for the GP2X. Why would it need to have a FS browser when the GP2X firmware has one that works so well? Why should it have windows that would be so awkward to browse through on a small (so far touch-less) screen? Navigation couldn't be more intuitive: shoulders cycle the different sections, joystick selects the shortcuts.

I agree that an error dialog would be quite cool to have in a menu though

 

[PokeParadox]

To an extent I agree with some of the points, A_SN... This is why I wish Exnefi was merged with GMenu2X... but as a launcher itself I think GMenu2X is the closest thin we have to maximum usability.

 

[realyst]

I have a problem with the VGA idea:

If you know of a device that can convert VGA to some form of analogue TV output for 15 pounds(or 30CAD), I wanna see it. There are cables that claim to do so but there is no scan conversion causing the TV signal to be very horrid and flickery. Most of the devices I've seen that do the conversion are the size of a half-brick and cost over $120CAD(60 pounds) and are fairly difficult to find as it's not a common conversion to make(many PC cards have a TVOut anyways so it's not a very demanded tech), so they have to be shipped as well.

S-Video+DVI wouldn't be bad, so you'd at least have a pre-scan-converted analogue output alongside the DVI digital option which does have many cheaply available DVI-VGA converters for those with analogue monitors.

 

[Squidge]

DVI (which can be very cheaply converted to VGA)

How exactly?

 

[jmetal88]

DVI (which can be very cheaply converted to VGA)

How exactly?


A lot of graphics cards only come with DVI-out these days so they make these cheap little adapter things that have a DVI port on one end and a VGA port on the other end.

Other than that they exist, I know nothing about them.

 

[Vimacs]

dvi/vga would be awesome, got quite a few currently-not-used monitors here.

 

[PeterM]

DVI (which can be very cheaply converted to VGA)

How exactly?

I'm pretty sure my graphics card only does DVI out, but there's a little box connected to it which converts to VGA (which is all my monitor accepts).

Maybe the DVI out is really a VGA + DVI out. I have no idea, I'm not really into these sorts of things.

Edit: Woops, I really shouldn't let the window sit open a while before replying.

 

[Vimacs]

yeah, it is, usualy graphics cards have dvi-i out, which means that it carrys both a analogue (vga) and a digital (dvi-d) signal.

 

[DaveC]

To me, the ideal menu would take most concepts from computer OS GUIs. You would have a desktop, with shortcuts to your favourite stuff on it, for quick access to what you like best, and folders and mounted folders, so you could browse the filesystem. Files would be recognized based on their extension, just like in any OS GUI, for instance a .jpg would be opened with the built-in image viewer, a program would be executed, etc. Also, when a program would crash, the menu would report it with a dialog box and the return value (instead of leaving you with nothing running like the default gp2x menu) and when a program would quit/crash, you would naturally find the menu as you left it, with windows opened as they were, etc, etc.

Well that sounds like a complete OS. Gmenu2X is only a menu shell or frontend that basically just launches apps with some script running abilities, it doesn't replace the OS at all. What you describe would be pretty awkward to use navigating with a d-pad/stick as well. Computers use mice for navigation, that makes a big difference. Gmenu is pretty fast to use just to launch apps on what we have now.

 

[Hyperpc]

Will it run X11 as default or direct access to framebuffer like the GP2X?

My educated guess : It'll run X11, but most likely not as default (a dedicated menu would rather come by default), but no matter what you'll be able to access the framebuffer(s) directly, and most likely few apps developed for that console (emulators and games) will run in a window in X11


Let's have two options. My ideas:

Gmenu2x (Cmenu2x) for the menu option,

and for the X11 option:

KDE/kwin (that would be awesome considering how powerful this is. KDE is my favorite desktop environment)

The ion3 window manager (google it, it's a "tiling" manager without overlapping windows that works well without a mouse. One of my favorites for minimal use)

XFCE (Maybe as good as KDE, and perhaps better due to memory limitations. I do know that KDE worked fine without translucency on my 64MB SDRAM laptop)

Fluxbox/blackbox (Simple and efficient)

IceWM (Neat little window manager)

Enlightenment (neat)

Except for Enlightenment, XFCE, and KDE, I've tested all of these on Debian ARM before (although that was much less powerful, 206MHZ SA1101). I know that pretty much all Debian/Ubuntu packages also have ARM versions (and Z90 versions if for some reason you'd like to run KDE on your supercomputer).



Forget kde long live gnome (used in ubuntu) Kde Ubuntu (rocks)

 

[Vimacs]

forget kde and gnome, both are way to slow
ywm/fluxbox would probably the most logical choice.

@Hyperpc ffs enable aa/af, you make poor beryl look ugly

 

[realyst]

DVI can be converted to VGA cheaply enough but you're right. The DVI connector used must be DVI-I or DVI-D so that the analogue signal is transmitted as well so no real conversion as so much as adaptation.

 

[Vimacs]

DVI can be converted to VGA cheaply enough but you're right. The DVI connector used must be DVI-I or DVI-D so that the analogue signal is transmitted as well so no real conversion as so much as adaptation.

dvi-d does NOT carry an analogue signal.

 

[Squidge]

A lot of graphics cards only come with DVI-out these days so they make these cheap little adapter things that have a DVI port on one end and a VGA port on the other end.

You'll find that they are exactly that. Just a DVI port on one end and VGA on the other. No internal electronics. The graphics card supplies both DVI and VGA - the box just picks the appropriate connections to pass through.

Remember, DVI is a digital data stream, whilst VGA is analogue r/g/b. Converting between the two isn't going to be easy due to the bandwidth required by DVI @ 800x480 60fps. You'll need something like this to do the job for you.

 

[Julius]

Forget kde long live gnome (used in ubuntu) Kde Ubuntu (rocks)



You realize that Berly/CompizFusion e.g. the 3D desktop can be used with KDE just as well as with Gnome, right?

@Squidge: Sure, but couldn't such a dual connector be used too?

 

[javaJake]

Forget kde long live gnome (used in ubuntu) Kde Ubuntu (rocks)



You realize that Berly/CompizFusion e.g. the 3D desktop can be used with KDE just as well as with Gnome, right?


...and that KDE can look a lot better than what was presented. I'm considering switching myself.

 

[Exophase]

The competition is already going to be rough, and the thing hasn't even come out yet!

• http://fullygeek.com/2007/06/asus-eeepc-701/ (Asus EeePC 701 - Ultra Portable Linux laptop with 512 MB RAM, Intel chip, Wifi, and up to 16 GB storage.)
• http://www.slashgear.com/madison-celebrity...ptop-256410.php ($150 laptop with 256 MB RAM, 40 GB storage, Wifi, Intel Celeron M 370 1.5 GHz)

The last one could be "too good to be true", and apparently pre-orders have yet to be fulfilled. They are both supposed to be coming out this holiday season.

What's everyone's opinion on these? I'm still leaning towards Craigix's new device, since it's much more portable than either of these, has more "wow" factor, will have much more support IMO, and will probably be plain easier to get videos, games, and other stuff onto it.

Edit: Source for information: http://reviews.cnet.com/fall-tech-preview/laptops/



If I hear about the Eee one more time on this board, no, on this THREAD I think I'm going to strangle someone. It's been mentioned a million times, everyone already knows about it. And it's really not comparable to what craigix is working on. Why:

- Significantly less portable
- Battery life is probably going to be markedly worse (let's hope so anyway, when a laptop claims 3 hours battery life that tends to mean 3 hours while doing something unintensive)
- Graphics capabilities are probably going to be a (lot) worse
- No touchscreen

Yeah, you get some extras, but they're bottom of the barrel on the lowest end:

- 2GB flash storage.. you can get a 2GB SD card for super cheap now. Going down to 2GB doesn't sound very good when their Linux distro is said to take 3GB...
- ultra crappy camera
- 56k modem OMG

The only nice thing is the ethernet.

That second link, the "Celebrity", was pretty much proven to be a scam months ago.