pandian - MARK2


Thanks Trashy.  If I want to uninstall pandebian, all I have to do is remove the loopback file?
That essentially gets rid of the bulk of it, you can also remove pandebian appdata folder.
 
Loopback makes an image file that the OS installs and runs within.. direct I believe installs the files to an SD card.. I chose loopback just for convenience


After it installs It should just be a matter of running the icon again.. When launched it puts a little icon on on the desktop in the upper left hand side that gives you access to Debian related programs (.It's basically the start menu for debian..)  From there you should be able to open up a terminal and apt-get anything you desire from the debian repository. 


Last time I installed I had an issue installing directly to wheezy, I had to install squeeze and then upgrade to wheezy. which is fairly painless: http://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-upgrade-debian-squeeze-to-wheezy
This is the way to go. First install Squeeze, then upgrade to Wheezy. Upgrading to Jessie caused some issues for me, but nothing show-stopping. I haven't tried to fix them yet since all the apps I need work well enough.

For my install, I chose direct and populated a whole SD card strictly for Pandebian. Pandebian created a PND that shows up on the destop in XFCE or shows up in the Pandora Menu in OpenBox. Running this PND after installation activates the icon for the Pandebian menu with all my apps.
 
Just tried it a little bit, and I think  this Pandebian is pretty cool and an ingenious idea from Gregor.  Full Debian repo on my little Pandora alongside with SZ!  Yeah! :)

Man, I found new use for my Pandoras everyday! :D
 
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Sorry if I missed a post where you brought this up, but have you tried pandebian yet?
Which of the various Debian on the Pandora versions is pandebian? I'd like to try it. Can you point me to the appropriate thread please as searching didn't help me much.

Thanks.
 
I agree. LS has done a great job. I gave it several tries. I assume my SD(s) are not compatible and I am not willing to buy another one just to try it. If it worked with my existing SDs, I would be using it.
Sorry if I missed a post where you brought this up, but have you tried pandebian yet? I just got it running a few months ago and it has filled the gaps of apps that are either not ported or boken. The major advantage is running the debian apps within SZ, keeping PND compatibility within my everyday OS.
I am working over in the Pandebian thread trying to get that working. I agree with edge that it may be the best of both worlds. Unfortunately, it is deader than this project and the developer has been MIA for over a year.
 
Yeah, but pandabian uses the Pandora Kernel, so it's supported there and once it's working it's literally updated from the official debian repository. There really isn't much support needed that can't be found on google.
 
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Not dead yet

Hello out there. I know, i was long time not checking this thread. I'am sorry for that. In the last few months i was under heavy work ( i was not even at home the whole time ) and didn even had the time to maintain pandian ( jeah, my job is eating me up )

But i promise to keep more focus on this project. The good news: My job now getting more relaxed, so i have time to update pandian and for bug-fixing :D

Some thinks about the next planned stuff:

  • I was planned to rewrite the scripts in c ( i'am an fan of C ) to get a faster response of the systems behavior
  • couple out the dependencies of evilnet-fluxbox specialy for pandora ( rework of scripts etc. )
  • Clean up the code and push it to github ( i thinks thats better for discussion and bug-fixing )
  • Of course, switch to debian jessie, to get an more up to date and stable system
stay tuned for updates, this weekend i will look through the code and clean it up.
 
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Oh!  Sure you're not coming back because it's close to Halloween? :D

Jokes aside, welcome back after a long time and thank you for keeping this alive :)
 
Oh!  Sure you're not coming back because it's close to Halloween? :D

Jokes aside, welcome back after a long time and thank you for keeping this alive :)
Hehe ;)


I'am also a fan of debian and ,of course, of the pandora ;) so lets rock this thing
Hey SS, welcome back!

When you populate a git repo for your work, can you be sure to include your kernel stuff?  Most of the (Wheezy) Pandian is just vanilla Debian stuff, but I'm pretty sure you did some custom work on the kernel side?  My USB Wifi module worked extremely well with SZ, but it's kinda flaky with the Pandian kernel.  I'll see about comparing kernel changes to see if anything jumps out.  In general, the kernel is excellent, this is the first actual issue.

Thanks again... Andy
 
My USB Wifi module worked extremely well with SZ, but it's kinda flaky with the Pandian kernel.  I'll see about comparing kernel changes to see if anything jumps out.  In general, the kernel is excellent, this is the first actual issue.

Well yes i did. But i suspect also problems coming with the armhf-abi.

So i have some questions according to the next release. I would like to hear what everybody thinks about that:

  • Preconfigured Image:
The pandian MARK2 comes with an preconfigured image, this increase the size of the image, but is faster when you first start up pandian. In the other hand, it create a little work for the first-start-wizzard. ( like setting up your language, keyboard, create ssh-keys and so on ) For me it was i nice way to do so, because testing was very easy and i have the possibility to build an graphical first-start-wizzard.

So What do you think: preconfigured image with an graphical wizzard or an image which getting configured when you start up your pandora ?

  • PND-Support:
As the most people knows, pandian is armhf. So its not compatible with the most pnd's out there which are compiled with armsf. Did you have an nice pnd which is maybe script-only ? Or did somebody have the time to compile an armhf pnd ? An github link of a pnd source can also help :)
 
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(Install/startup options)

My opinion: complex install/first-boot designs are very fragile.  When they work they seem like magic, but when they don't, nobody can ever figure out why not--because it's all magic.

So... preconfigured kernel.  Preconfigured filesystem.  I'd like the starting point of an install to be the most generic Debian environment, and it boots right into it all the way to a fully operational system.  No hooks, no tricky filesystem upheavals, just trivial boot to a Debian machine.

Then put icons on the desktop--align touchscreen, customize kernel, choose language, resize filesystem to fully use SD card.  Whatever.

As far as packaging, also absolute minimalism.  apt source list is Debian.  *Maybe* source the kernel from some other repo (on openpandora.org?).  Maybe not even that--have some other procedure for the rare times we want to swap out kernels or update our touchscreen alignment app.  Mostly it's stuff for /usr/local, entirely out of the way of the wonderful--but terribly complex--world of Debian packaging.
 
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- Preconfigured image:

I'd keep the basic minimum, similar as openpandora has on default distro, so that you can run it, run X, connect to net, and download anything else you will need by yourself. Over the top user friendliness will only make life harder for you to maintain the distro and for advanced users to use it. I'm not sure if there are a lot of beginners that will change to Debian on openpandora right away.

Also, your packages were taking over a lot of system files, which wasn't very nice when I tried to remove them (I had to remove them on jessie to update the rest of the system, and then everything broke). It's ok to reconfigure the system files with all of "do you want to keep/change...." etc, but please don't make them part of your packages if some default Debian package already owns it. Own only the files unique for your packages, and make sure removal of your packages won't leave the system unusable.

- PND support:

Makes sense for stuff Debian doesn't have in their repositories (for armhf/armmp in this case). For everything else, if there is already Debian package...
 
So i have some questions according to the next release. I would like to hear what everybody thinks about that:
 

* Preconfigured Image:

 

I would like a basic small image, which optionally get configured when you start up. Not really interested in any graphical wizard at all. Just need nubs, wifi, keyboard, suspend, sound, brightness etc to work, and then I can install and customize what I need.

 

* PND-Support:

 

Nice to have, but otherwise not something I would miss.
 
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