Pandora Should Move To Android


Prometheus said:
I'm afraid I don't know why you're quoting me, Dave. :p My comment was referring to Craig's "Remember this is how we do things, we just ask the forum and see what happens. It's hardly the first time I've just dropped a topic on the forum to see what happens.".

EDIT: To make that a bit clearer, I was referring to a large debate thread occurring when Ubuntu was being looked at, way back when.
I don't know. You said OS and I guess I was looking for a comment to reply to but it kind of doesn't make sense I should delete it as to not look TOO dumb.
SomeGuy99 said:
Well, it would increase the amount of installable software. Not counting the Angstrom or Debian repositories, which currently require a work around.
Yeah but really how many games do we seriously need? We have emus that play thousands of games each. Then there homebrew games and PC game ports like Doom, Quake, Tyrian etc. That is as of today. I doubt new stuff will stop tomorrow. We have allot of "productivity" apps that will run under XFCE. I really don't think we are starved for apps. Beat all of the games in those emus and ports then come back and pine for android :p
 
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DaveC said:
I don't know. You said OS and I guess I was looking for a comment to reply to but it kind of doesn't make sense I should delete it as to not look TOO dumb.

It didn't look dumb, it looked like you needed a hook for your argument... which is fair enough.
 
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It didn't look dumb - I just found it a tad confusing. :p For the record, I agree with what you said. ;)
 
Gruso said:
Dual boot option maybe. Android is pretty, but sluggish on a 600mhz device in my experience.

Me too, Android is nice, and really welcome as dual boot option, but not to be the only OS.

Check out the Odroid. it's an Android OS console.
 
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Grench said:
(...)
Angstrom - UI by itself is relatively unusable by non technical users. Footprint is good. Tiny user base. Only usable repository is whatever this community makes for it in PND files. Zero brand recognition, even Linux users seem to have little idea what it is.(...)
IMHO - Flip the whole thing to Ubuntu simply to get rid of the unrecognizable Angstrom OS.
(...)Angstrom is a hacker OS with no name recognition, no user base to speak of, no independent marketing for the OS, etc... It is too confining from a user audience perspective.

Angstrom is not meant to be a recognised brand, Angstrom is meant to be a tool used to build a customized system that stays out of the way, it is a tool for hackers and other developers to write "firmwares" for any customer base.

Speaking of user base: do you know that Palm WebOS is built with openembedded just like Angstrom for Pandora? Is that mainstream enough?
 
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milkshake said:
from what I have read of the comments most people (obviously not everyone) seem to have some sort of negative feeling towards an OS that they have never used?! comments like that make me sick.
the Android OS is brilliant OS and I think would be an asset if done correctly for the pandora.

Have you ever tried the open source edition of Android? the one that is missing both marketplace and google services?

I did, on a beagleboard, and I still feel the pain.
 
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Don't know if anyone has brought up this but their is a gaming device being built with android. http://www.hardkernel.com/
Unless I'm wrong you have the right to use their code. That would be some what of a good starting point I assume.
 
SomeGuy99 said:
I didn't mean to upset you okay. As I said already, you're one of my favourite people on here.

If my humour genuinely upsets people, I will stop. I never meant to cause any harm.
:p ;)

To answer the original question: Nope.

I see this has really turned into a fruitful discussion. So sorry I move it to LOL! at first.
 
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craigix said:
This thread has been good for us, it removed all the bullshit we would have found had we googled 'is android worth our time?'.

Remember this is how we do things, we just ask the forum and see what happens. It's hardly the first time I've just dropped a topic on the forum to see what happens. I might make it a more regular thing, it's interesting.

Pandora debating club.
Be careful, history teaches us once Pandoras Box is opened, things can become very ugly. ;)
Now imagine, when more than one Pandoras Box is opened... :ph34r:
 
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fusion_power said:
Be careful, history teaches us once Pandoras Box is opened, things can become very ugly. ;)
Now imagine, when more than one Pandoras Box is opened... :ph34r:

LAN Party?
 
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mali said:
SomeGuy99 said:
I didn't mean to upset you okay. As I said already, you're one of my favourite people on here.

If my humour genuinely upsets people, I will stop. I never meant to cause any harm.
:p ;)

To answer the original question: Nope.

I see this has really turned into a fruitful discussion. So sorry I move it to LOL! at first.

Okay then, that's nice. Wait... what original question?
 
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Da Dude said:
Gruso said:
Dual boot option maybe. Android is pretty, but sluggish on a 600mhz device in my experience.

Me too, Android is nice, and really welcome as dual boot option, but not to be the only OS.

Check out the Odroid. it's an Android OS console.

Yes ODROID is android based console but question is do you have ODROID?
If ever you have are you satisfied?
My answer is no.(actually I have ODROID)
ODROID is working fine as a just one of android devices but not be a gaming console like a pandora.(even less than GP2XWiz)
Most of reason is control
I have only one software (SNES EMU) wich is work ok with ODROID Keybad.

Previously I wrote seconday OS or experimental is ok.
but I change my mine just experimental is enough.
coz. if officially support it probably Dev Team spend more time for android also.
I want to they concentrate on current OS and make it more solid and more functional.
This is much better than have dual OS I think.

But pandora is Open device so if really want run android on pandora just port yourself.
Or launch open project and find your comrade to make it :p

P.S.
Sorry my English is poor coz. English is not my primary language.
Hopefully understand what I want to say. :)
 
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SomeGuy99 said:
Wait... what original question?
Something about switching OS, iirc.
Btw, I really like Craig's idea regarding a debate club. When I know it beforehand I can adapt ;)
 
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Another reason to consider this - as a dual boot option or a quasi-emulated set up is to get software we otherwise won't be able to get.

Yes, this includes bits that have DRM on them. Regardless on where you come down on the DRM discussion, there are things we aren't going to get without it.

An example: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=165849822

I would like to be able to use the Pandora as an e-book reader with current titles, etc... I don't see the big book houses outright supporting Linux.

Getting access to the Android Market would be a nice win - getting there from here might be a long uphill battle though.
 
Grench said:
I would like to be able to use the Pandora as an e-book reader with current titles, etc... I don't see the big book houses outright supporting Linux.
I cant see how you couldn't be happy with current free offering : http://www.e-book.com.au/freebooks.htm#2
 
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@Grench
Pandora would never comply with Google's certification rules so the market support would have to be hacked. From a marketing point of view this would be pretty bad, because you'd have to create your own market, which would be pretty shitty I think, and the user would have to hack the market himself. So you would basically deliver a bad product the user has to hack. Using a fully open OS and properly supporting it is a much better alternative. Reviewers would moan that the device has no market access out of the box.

I don't mind an Android alternative from some community devs if they feel like doing some work on it, but I'd never want to see a single minute of the core devs time spent on that crap, tbh.
 
sebt3 said:
Grench said:
I would like to be able to use the Pandora as an e-book reader with current titles, etc... I don't see the big book houses outright supporting Linux.
I cant see how you couldn't be happy with current free offering : http://www.e-book.com.au/freebooks.htm#2
You're kidding right? A library full of 50 year old books and public service announcements? I like reading current books - and I'm perfectly willing to pay for them.

mali said:
@Grench
Pandora would never comply with Google's certification rules so the market support would have to be hacked.
Never say never - we don't even know what the certification rules are. Can the certification be applied to an isolated virtual machine run on the device? We don't know. At this point the whole discussion is hypothetical anyway.

mali said:
From a marketing point of view this would be pretty bad, because you'd have to create your own market, which would be pretty shitty I think, and the user would have to hack the market himself. So you would basically deliver a bad product the user has to hack. Using a fully open OS and properly supporting it is a much better alternative. Reviewers would moan that the device has no market access out of the box.
Assuming an absolute when something hasn't even been looked into? Android only makes sense to me if there is access to the Android Market - I think we agree there. I simply don't take it as writ that we have no chance of being able to get something working. I could even see the possibility of an android2_2.PND file that pulls the OS off of an SDHC card in, essentially, a hosted VM environment on the Pandora. Performance might not be 100% with the current 1Ghz phones for those applications, BUT not every application requires that kind of performance.

mali said:
I don't mind an Android alternative from some community devs if they feel like doing some work on it, but I'd never want to see a single minute of the core devs time spent on that crap, tbh.

Crap? Is getting access to book readers, Netflix streaming, Google maps & routing, etc... crap then?

If we stop fighting over whether or not to have this as the base OS and address it as an VM environment and treat it like any other emulator on the device - THEN we have something really going for us. I agree that it is a poor choice for a root OS on our device. Shutting the door on it out of hand, though... Odd for this community.

Will Google let an Android VM on an ARM device access the Android Market? No idea. However, I don't think anyone has asked yet. Who knows, we might get lucky and have someone there understand the legitimate use for something like that and give it their blessing.

And -if- we can start setting up a VM on ARM environment, I could see us putting in an iPod environment as well - just add the OS scraped out of your old iPhone or similar device.

Heck, you could even run CE in one, though I don't see any point to CE anymore.

Can you imagine popping in an SDHC card and having those pop up as emulated/VM environments?

The Pandora is built to emulate and house other operating systems. So far the concentration has been on doing this for old game consoles where we emulate it's CPU, RAM, etc... -What if- we were to set something up to house the modern OSs running on other ARM platforms as VMs? In theory it could be easier than writing an emulator because the CPU uses the same instruction set. I think it might just be a killer application set all it's own.

IMHO
 
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@Grench
Hey, I don't want to offend you or anything :)
With "crap" I mean an Android with amputated marketplace. The Archos 5 IT is an example for a device without official market access. They didn't get the Google certification because of the lack of face buttons and missing 3G, iirc. The Pandora has no 3G, no accelerometer, no dedicated Android buttons.

Most people here don't have anything against a community created Android, just against it being an "official" thing. This whole debate can basically be boiled down to a few sentences and doesn't warrant that much discussion anyway. Someone who checks some tech sites from time to time should know all what has been discussed so far. Thus I was rather irritated to see this thread at first and thought there would be more behind it.

edit:
And what would a VM change regarding certification? I don't get it, tbh.
 
@Grench :
About books, the most recent book I've enjoyed is 1984 which should be copyleft by now. So no I wasn't kidding.
Harry potter isn't the kind of book I enjoy. I Mind you : I don't like what neo-Holywood produce either. So I may be just too old to understand.

About the rest : you don't know what you're talking about.
exemple : To use a VM, you have either to emulate, para-virtualize or virtualize (using hardware instruction). ARM have no support for virtualisation instructions. para-virtualisation kernel modules aren't avail for an other plateform then x86. qemu-arm on arm will do something between full emulation and para-virtualisation. Don't expect any form of performance.
 
sebt3 said:
@Grench :
About books, the most recent book I've enjoyed is 1984 which should be copyleft by now. So no I wasn't kidding.
Harry potter isn't the kind of book I enjoy. I Mind you : I don't like what neo-Holywood produce either. So I may be just too old to understand.

About the rest : you don't know what you're talking about.
exemple : To use a VM, you have either to emulate, para-virtualize or virtualize (using hardware instruction). ARM have no support for virtualisation instructions. para-virtualisation kernel modules aren't avail for an other plateform then x86. qemu-arm on arm will do something between full emulation and para-virtualisation. Don't expect any form of performance.
I think he meant the Dalvik VM. Would still be problematic though.
 
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