Pandian vs Angstrom, and other software questions

[zomg]

Hey, I'm just wondering what are the uses/benefits of each of these OS's (pandian, angstrom), with regards to some programming stuff (mysql,php,c,java,processing plugin for java,some gaming).


Also, what *required* software do I need for a fresh 1gz pandora? I'm thinking drivers, java runtime, libreoffice; essentials more or less.


Thanks!

 

[TrashyMG]

First off Pandian isn't officially supported, it has too large of a footprint to fit on the 512MBs of internal NAND storage, it only can be booted from SD card. Pandian Mark III is the latest and hasn't been updated in a while. It won't have some of fixes in the latest kernel builds, nor driver updates and what not. Secondly 3D accelerated games won't work with Pandian as the GPU driver only has soft-float drivers and pandian is compiled for hard-float. The benefit however is you are connected to official Debian repositories with all the current packages and what not, since you need to run off an SD card your only limit is the size of your SD card. This may not be a bad option if you only care about coding and what not. 

Angstrom's benefits is that it's optimized for the Pandora hardware, the OS fits on the internal NAND storage leaving both SD cards for application use. I can't tell how familiar you are with the Pandora and the PND system which was designed for use with removable media like SD cards and thumb drives, so I'll explain it anyway. A PND is a package that allows you to just copy it to an SD card and it will appear in the start menu, desktop or both depending on which directory you copy the PND file to. Things like settings and user data is stored on the SD card as well in an appdata directory that is automatically generated for each application. You can hot swap SD cards and what not without disruption or breaking dependencies and such. It's up to the community here to generate these PND files, luckily we have a ton of talented people here. The official repository is on this website: http://repo.openpandora.org/  One of the first things I recommend is installing PNDManager and then you won't have to use the webpage to download programs like the Java runtime installer PND, Libreoffice and what not. For programming there is a couple options, I recommend the Code::Blocks PND, it's a pretty large download, I don't use the actual Code:Blocks program itself, but it does have a CLI option that gives you a terminal with all the major programming languages, fairly updated GCC version and updated development libraries and what not.

Angstrom is a bit odd to deal with if you are used to desktop flavors of Linux, but to me it's the best mix for usability... Slackware is another option that you can boot from an SD, it has working 3D acceleration the PND system is enabled and works with most PNDs...  

I'll let others answer and I'm a tad tired right now.

 

[levi]

You can do quite a lot with Angstrom and the Code:Blocks PND, if C/C++ is your bag.  I don't know about Java, and I suspect most Java IDEs are probably a bit too heavyweight for a device like a GHz Pandora anyway, but it can certainly run javac on some source files just fine.


For gaming I'd stick with Angstrom personally.  I'm not sure how good Slack and Debian's PND support is, but Angstrom is the definitive implementation, and guaranteed to work with all well-formed PNDs, of which there are almost a thousand game PNDs on the repo, and over a hundred emulators opening up access to thousands more games.


Full disclosure: I've never tried alternative Pandora OSes, and don't really dev on my Pandora - I mainly use it as a user with a bit of light system admin thrown in.

 

[j0e]

angstrom:

• best hardware support
  
• best PND support (obvs)
  
• outdated packages, unlikely to have what you're looking for if it's not in repo.openpandora.org
  

pandian:

• runs off SD card only
  
• hardware support kinda "meh"
  
• PNDs not supported (PNDs soft-float, pandian hard-float, soft-float is not compatible with hard-float)
  
• based on debian testing, so up-to-date packages available from official debian repositories through apt-get
  

slackware (SL4P):

• runs off SD card only
  
• tricky to get the hang of if you're used to distros such as debian or fedora
  
• supports PNDs but performance isn't as good as angstrom (at least for the ones I tested, your mileage may vary)
  

in conclusion, I'd recommend keeping angstrom on the nand and using it for gaming on the pandora - there really is no substitute. for work and (non-pnd) development however, I'd recommend sticking pandian on an sd card and booting into that.


(information listed above only based on my personal experience and may be inaccurate, please correct me if there's anything wrong with it)

 

[Yoyobuae]

For programming there is a couple options, I recommend the Code::Blocks PND, it's a pretty large download, I don't use the actual Code:Blocks program itself, but it does have a CLI option that gives you a terminal with all the major programming languages, fairly updated GCC version and updated development libraries and what not.

Small tip. To access Code::Blocks PND CLI from an SSH connection to Pandora do:


/usr/pandora/scripts/pnd_run.sh -p /media/PANCARDA/pandora/menu/codeblocks.pnd -m


cd /mnt/utmp/codeblocks/


exec bash --rcfile ./cbpnd_cli.sh


NOTE: PANCARDA is the label I gave to my SD card, yours will probably be different.


This way you can code from a desktop PC or laptop which has a larger screen and keyboard than Pandora for a more comfortable programming experience.

 

[levi]

FWIW, if you run Linux on your other computers, it might be worth trying out Ptitseb's crosscompilermaker script - being able to compile your project on a beefier computer then scp it onto your Pandora can be more productive than building things locally.


Of course, if you want to compile on the go then you'll need a local compiler, and for that Code::Blocks fits most people's requirements.

 

[zomg]

Thanks for your replies, they helped fill in a lot of gaps that I had.

 

[zomg]

would jEdit for debian/slackware be possible to run? It doesn't specify whether it's x86 or not. Java programming would be nice to have.

 

[j0e]

jEdit is written in Java, so should run on anything that has a jdk/jre (looks like it uses java7 which is even available for angstrom on repo.openpandora.org). Here's the debian packages page for it, which shows it's available for all architectures: https://packages.debian.org/stretch/jedit

 

[zomg]

nice, thanks