Release Pantfy, a notificacion system for OpenPandora

[Kramy]

I seem to remember hearing that the Ubuntu one isn't that intuitive. If you try to click on the bubble tips, they vanish, rather than actually doing something. But you still have to wave your mouse over them, or they sit there for a long time obstructing your view.

I'd like categories for bubble tips. While playing fheroes2, it'd be nice to know my battery is running low, but I really don't give a crap about system updates, the status of my downloads, etc.; I should also be able to move the bubbles around on the screen (either through external GUI or direct manipulation), since some games/programs have interface elements that shouldn't be covered.

Speaking of which - yesterday I was watching a movie (fullscreen), when suddenly it started lagging like crazy. Ubuntu decided to check for updates. <_< It's as bad as Steam. (Which sometimes downloads updates while I'm playing games.)

Ubuntu has impressed me in that regard - it's the only OS that somehow manages to get around my router's QOS settings. Nothing like choking a game of Left4Dead to download an update for Chromium with 99% of my connection. :twisted:

 

[dflemstr]

I don't really like Ubuntu myself, but I must say that the notification system is pretty slick. It even has it's own specification (very detailed, too).

If anyone wants to imitate or improve this system, then why not either:
- Use NotifyOSD (the Ubuntu thingy) and contribute the new features to the code.
NotifyOSD already has a "don't disturb except with important stuff" mode so that won't be a problem.
Also, there'll probably be loads of apps from Ubuntu that use the new system (NotifyOSD uses the libnotify D-Bus standards but has a few extensions of it's own that are pretty neat)

--or--

- Make the new program at least libnotify compatible; since all applications already use libnotify this is a must.
At least don't use pipes, I mean come on, I thought we were above that
And how would a pipe report click events back to the application, anyways? Or offer a "update the bubble text" system?

BTW: it's easy to turn off automatic updates... Linux is all about freedom, and believe it or not, Ubuntu still is a Linux distro with all it's rough edges, so it's actually possible to turn off updates, unlike in the Redmond OS that I've grown to despise. The Ubuntu update system is still flawed of course; just think about what would be possible if it had PackageKit integrated...

 

[Kramy]

BTW: it's easy to turn off automatic updates... Linux is all about freedom, and believe it or not, Ubuntu still is a Linux distro with all it's rough edges, so it's actually possible to turn off updates, unlike in the Redmond OS that I've grown to despise. The Ubuntu update system is still flawed of course; just think about what would be possible if it had PackageKit integrated...

I don't want to turn them off; I just want them to happen when the CPU usage is at zero, like say... while I'm sleeping.

 

[dflemstr]

BTW: it's easy to turn off automatic updates... Linux is all about freedom, and believe it or not, Ubuntu still is a Linux distro with all it's rough edges, so it's actually possible to turn off updates, unlike in the Redmond OS that I've grown to despise. The Ubuntu update system is still flawed of course; just think about what would be possible if it had PackageKit integrated...

I don't want to turn them off; I just want them to happen when the CPU usage is at zero, like say... while I'm sleeping.

Cron + a bash script? It's not that difficult if you REALLY want to do something.

Here, take this: (and run it like every hour or something using Cron)

#!/bin/bash
# Performs a system update depending on CPU usage
# Needs to run as root

# The maximum allowed CPU usage (in %) for the update to run
CPU_THRESHOLD=5

# Sum up the third column of "ps aux"
total_usage=$(ps aux | awk 'NR > 0 { s +=$3 }; END {print s}')

# Count the number of processors by parsing cpuinfo
nr_of_cores=$(cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep processor | wc -l)

# Simple division
usage=$(echo "$total_usage / $nr_of_cores" | bc)

if [ $usage -lt $CPU_THRESHOLD ]; then
    aptitude -y full-upgrade # ubuntu-specific
fi

exit 0

 

[MistaGiggles]

Interesting idea, I would definitely use this if it was released, it would be pretty useful especially the messenger notifications, but can programs lie this be run simultaneously? Can I be running an PSX emulator and my messenger at the same time? I've never thought of this possibility and don't remember reading if this is possible. Since using the GP2x I had always assumed the multitasking was not done on these sorts of devices unless using a proper linux distro (not expecting to be running the PSX emulator from inside the disto, wouldn't that cause performance decrease due to less available memory and CPU time?)

 

[lulzfish]

I'm pretty sure the Pandora's emulators run on top on Linux, so you'll be able to run a messenger, emulator, and laundry-timer [I need one of these for school, maybe I should get working on it] all at once, and receive notifications from any of them.

It would be very inconvenient to reboot every time you need to emulate a different system, and then reboot again to use the Internet.

 

[WizardStan]

Supposedly everything runs on top of the Xserver, just like a desktop Linux install, unless it doesn't want to. If I recall correctly, a program can optionally kill the xserver (shutting down everything else that you had running as well) so it can have full CPU and memory. Only the most taxing of programs should need to do that. Otherwise you will be able to multitask an IM and MP3 and emulator all at once, depending on the emulator of course.