Pictures, Videos and thoughts of a Pyra dev-prototype

[levi]

FWIW, my /usr, /var and /home are on the SD card in my eeePC since the expandable internal drive controller died and left me with just the fixed 4GB module, and that solution seems to be working fine. But I've had to put tape over the socket to stop me idly fiddling with it, as I tended to do when it used to just contain a blanking plate. Given I've never yet managed to rescue a remount as read-only that happens on a file system error without rebooting, I imagine if I removed the card I'd be on a hiding to nothing.

Regarding union mounting the transflash, I'm not confident it will be mountable at the same time as the eMMC/NAND until I see it working. If it is shown to work, I may just port my /usr and /home folders over to it a little like I have on this eeePC.

 

[WizardStan]

Regarding union mounting the transflash, I'm not confident it will be mountable at the same time as the eMMC/NAND until I see it working

That's literally how liveCDs work (at least the Ubuntu LiveCD): the CD is the base OS which then creates a RAM disk and union's it overtop of the liveCD. That's how you're able to "install" and save stuff. I don't know how to get it working on a "real" system, I just know it's possible, and not entirely uncommon.

 

[levi]

Yes, but to be able to mount the eMMC/NAND and the transflash at the same time means Niklaus's theoretical interleaved accesses needs to be coded up and tested. Union mounting works, yes, and is how live CDs work and how the Pandora's PND system mounts appdata and the pnd into the same folder, but in both those cases, the two mount points are wired up to the CPU using discrete buses. The eMMC and the transflash share the same lines as far as I know, and unless I've missed something, interleaving accesses on those lines hasn't been proven to work yet.

 

[WizardStan]

Oh, I understand now. Sorry, I thought you meant you had concerns about union mounting the root FS at boot.

 

[Silent-Hunter]

What about union mounting a regular SD card? Would that be a good idea? Any benefit to it?

 

[ptitSeb]

While you are arguing about eMMC & CDCard lifespan, I installed VisualStudio Code on the Pyra.

On the Pandora, it's super tricky to get it running. Compiling Atom (and Node.js) on a not really supported platform (linux-armv7 with softfp float) is hacky.

On the Pyra, the platform (linux-armv7 with hard float) is supported. So even if VSCode is not on apt repositorie, you just follow a few command and that's it, it just run on the Pyra

(actual capture from the Pyra)

It is a bit small on the screen, maybe I'll enlarge font size a bit to make it more confortable to work with...

 

[Silent-Hunter]

Nice! I wonder if it will run Minecraft any better than the Pandora.

 

[0x14f]

While you are arguing about eMMC & CDCard lifespan, I installed VisualStudio Code on the Pyra.

On the Pandora, it's super tricky to get it running. Compiling Atom (and Node.js) on a not really supported platform (linux-armv7 with softfp float) is hacky.

On the Pyra, the platform (linux-armv7 with hard float) is supported. So even if VSCode is not on apt repositorie, you just follow a few command and that's it, it just run on the Pyra

View attachment 30656
(actual capture from the Pyra)

It is a bit small on the screen, maybe I'll enlarge font size a bit to make it more confortable to work with...

This is so incredibly cool. I use VSCode regularly and find it a great IDE for the moment. Would love to have access to all my frontend dev stuff on the handheld. I wonder pyras power will be enough for grunt watch for js, scss + a vagrant vm.

Octave on Pyra is a big want for me too.

 

[tarator]

ptitSeb
Very nice! Could you also try if Eclipse Oxygen will run?
In best case downloading, unpacking and running `./eclipse` should bring the IDE up.

Download Page:
https://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/eclipse-ide-java-ee-developers/oxygenr

 

[sebt3]

Octave on Pyra is a big want for me too.

Well, it's just an apt-get away, see : https://packages.debian.org/stretch/armhf/octave/download

 

[Pyramancer]

If you're going to go that far you may as well go a little further and mount the internal uSD as an overlay. You can install the base OS onto the internal NAND, mount the uSD with read/write over top of it, and then install whatever you want and it all goes to the uSD card. If the card goes bad or you feel like something in the OS isn't working right you just disable it (remove it) and the NAND goes back to stock.

Nice! I haven't encountered overlayfs before; could be useful.

 

[EvilDragon]

I forgot to ask, how do you find the keyboard for thumb based input? Is it light enough so your hand doesn't get tired quickly?

´
The dev prototypes have an old keymat which is very stiff.

 

[Shlee]

That keyboard layout is horrible.. is it too late to change it?

 

[igboo]

That keyboard layout is horrible.. is it too late to change it?

Yeah, we can change it... What's your order number?

 

[Shlee]

Yeah, we can change it... What's your order number?

5

that actually might be true.. hey, Ed, what's my order number?

 

[Caine]

That keyboard layout is horrible.. is it too late to change it?

If you are serious then I would love to know your reasoning, but this thread is not the place for that.

 

[EvilDragon]

Aha. Are the production keymats going to get lighter? I know that too light could be an issue for some users, on the other hand, being able to type more than a few lines without getting exhausted would be nice too.

Well, the keymat in the "Test the keymat!"-Thread has the correct lightness already. So people are testing it, and so far the reactions have been positive

 

[Shlee]

If you are serious then I would love to know your reasoning, but this thread is not the place for that.

I'm pretty serious about the horribleness, but the fact I'm bring it up so late is in jest...

 

[ClockworkCoder]

Well, the keymat in the "Test the keymat!"-Thread has the correct lightness already. So people are testing it, and so far the reactions have been positive

Yep, Goldilocks would be proud

 

[troy]

That keyboard layout is horrible.. is it too late to change it?

[internal screaming]