Porting A Linux Program Over To Pandora? [Decompression Software]

[CapcomSuicide]

I appreciate I maybe the "Niche" market here, but I am very interested in the battery life of Pandora, and the fantastic keyboard. To cut a long story short I'm an expedition technical scuba diver and often we take long trips along the norwegian coast diving wrecks and unexplored dive sites a bit deeper than your normal sports diver. Our helium/nitrogen/oxygen breathing gases need quite complicated decompression stops and we use a great bit of software called "V-Planner" for this.

HHS Software has ported this to many formats, including iPhone and Windows Mobile, but the battery life of my phone, small screen and lack of a good keyboard makes using V-Planner a bit cumbersome.

Having Pandora do this work in the evenings would be a great help.

Here is the software:

http://www.hhssoftware.com/v-planner/

This is the sort of diving we do here in Norway:

So if the publisher states:

"Linux Support: Fedora, Ubuntu, Redhat, SuSU, GNU Linux and more. "

Do I have a good chance it will work on Pandora? Or does it need to be compiled again?

I could put my Pandora in a dry case and then it would take up much less room than my laptop, and once you start moving lots of gear on expeds (Twinset, decompression tanks, drysuit, scooter, tent etc) it really would be nice to save some space!

I am complete Linux noob, so sorry if this is a very simple question.

C_S

 

[Mithrildor]

Great to see people wanting to use their Pandora for something else than gaming

 

[WizardStan]

sadly it is a precompiled binary, so even though it supports linux, it is x86 Linux. It doesn't look like it would be difficult for them to port (from the screen shots) and really should require nothing more than a recompile for ARM Linux. Without the source code, unfortunately, they only people that can do such a recompile is them. If I had the source, I could compile a version that would run on the Pandora no problem.

 

[CapcomSuicide]

Great to see people wanting to use their Pandora for something else than gaming

Even better if I can plan dives every evening for 45 minutes on a week long exped without having to find a power source. Ultra portable laptops often have very short battery lives, so if the Pandora can run V-Planner there will be a lot of technical divers in my circles that should be told. Anyway, tech divers love gadgets!

 

[Prometheus]

So if the publisher states:

"Linux Support: Fedora, Ubuntu, Redhat, SuSU, GNU Linux and more. "

Do I have a good chance it will work on Pandora? Or does it need to be compiled again?

I'm no expert, really, but I'm not sure that the provided binary would work without being recompiled, and they don't appear to provide the source code, as far as I can see.

EDIT: Ninja'd, and with far more detail, by WizardStan. h34r:

 

[CapcomSuicide]

sadly it is a precompiled binary, so even though it supports linux, it is x86 Linux. It doesn't look like it would be difficult for them to port (from the screen shots) and really should require nothing more than a recompile for ARM Linux. Without the source code, unfortunately, they only people that can do such a recompile is them. If I had the source, I could compile a version that would run on the Pandora no problem.

Thanks very much. I am a fully licensed owner and HHS software have great support. I'll email them now with your comments, & see if they can do an ARM recompile for me.

 

[greendots]

There is already an android port so, at worst, you could wait until Android is fully working on Pandora.

 

[forces]

Well, there should be Android working on Pandora, so i don't see a big problem here.

 

[joseluisjazz]

There are several versions for different platforms (windows, linux, mac, android, pocketpc, iphone).

The linux one is a pre-compiled binary. And it comes comes with the file libborqt-6.9.0-qt2.3.so.

$ file VPlanner
VPlanner: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), stripped

So it's not possible to download any of those versions an run it in the pandora. (The only BUT would be that in some future we could be able to run android applications in it without needing to to install the Android OS, but not until someone ports the its Dalvik's Virtual Machine).

The only option I see viable is to contact them and ask them politely to compile a version for the Pandora, giving them a link to the SDK/toolchain info. It shouldn't be any difficulty involved in that for them, since they've already ported it to so many platforms, including iPhone, witch uses the same architecture as the Pandora.


EDIT: lol! 7 times ninja'd! h34r:

 

[CapcomSuicide]

There are several versions for different platforms (windows, linux, mac, android, pocketpc, iphone).

The linux one is a pre-compiled binary. And it comes comes with the file libborqt-6.9.0-qt2.3.so.

$ file VPlanner
VPlanner: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), stripped

So it's not possible to download any of those versions an run it in the pandora. (The only BUT would be that in some future we could be able to run android applications in it without needing to to install the Android OS, but not until someone ports the its Dalvik's Virtual Machine).

The only option I see viable is to contact them and ask them politely to compile a version for the Pandora, giving them a link to the SDK/toolchain info. It shouldn't be any difficulty involved in that for them, since they've already ported it to so many platforms, including iPhone, witch uses the same architecture as the Pandora.

Thanks again. I have done exactly that, emailed them. Android will be a "Last hope" & fingers crossed I'll get an ARM recompile.

 

[CapcomSuicide]

I got an answer to my email already! Sadly it's a no go. The Linux app also uses an x86 library set for the widgets which can't be ported over without a re-development. Lets see how it goes with Android development in the future then. It's not all bad, I can still play Super Mario World on my Pandora!

 

[WizardStan]

Well, there should be Android working on Pandora, so i don't see a big problem here.

The problem with that is that we currently would need to install the entire Android OS just to run this one application, and if you wanted to run Pandora applications you'd need to switch back and forth between the two.
Maybe in the future we'll get some kind of WINE like app to run Android applications on the Pandora directly, but I wouldn't count on it.