Programs From The Ångström Repo

[torpor]

I'm not just talking about storage on more than one device, I'm talking about storage that might not even be there at all.

Thats what NFS *IS*, in fact: storage that may not be there.

[quote name=']How well does that NFS based software work when a vital server goes down?[/quote]

The same as it does when you pull out an SD card: not at all! In fact the only answer to your question that makes sense is "what software? No SD/NFS==No Software." I think I could see a situation where the desktop environment can handle that, after all .. it does for so many other Linux boxes already.

Leave it to the persons involved, imo. They are both grown-ups, I think

We are, and I have a lot of respect for Jeff and his position, and I *will* be using PND files after all (no choice in the matter), but I still have the right to voice the opinion that I think PND files blow.

Skeezix, lets maybe take the technical side private, if you like .. or at least lets put this off until I've got my Pandoras, have a copy of the build environment available, can boot off my own self-built SD-based image, and have provided a working example of a repo/package manager that blows PNDs out of the water .. until then, I respect your position that its there, it works, and it does the job. I hope you have thought about it, though, in the meantime .. just a little ..

 

[skeezix]

torpor -- btw, we didn't have the luxury of waiting, as you know; get yourself a beagleboard, or an n900, or use qemu, or vmware, etc

libpnd actually builds and runs on a lot of default linux installs, no problem; I had it working under BSD too

jeff

(GG, now now, we're a little bit upflamey here, but torpor is not being irrational, I think he's just not seeing where we're coming from. He might be right, but I think he's off his rocker, but certainly he has some very valid points, and is also thinking down the road in some ways, where as I was coming at it from a more conservative lean. Is okay, no feeling being hurt

 

[skeezix]

At least read my one up there .. I really think we may be in agreement, that you thought pnd was being something it wasn't. Or maybe I'm wrong again

ie: Using an automated tool to stick a pnd into /pandora/menu .. thats freeaking fine and desirale by me, something we've always wanted to add, but needed more manpower We've all along looked forward to something that says 'hey, new vesion available', etc. That is not in competition with pnd files.

It just now occurred to me that you think I'm really thinking the be all and end all is peopel using a browser to download the files by hand, and that was it. If you though tthat, then no worries, I moved on form my BBS a long time ago

jeff

 

[torpor]

Ooops, okay, just want to grant you the respect you deserve and answer your points here:

NFS != SD in _usage pattern_
NFS is generally mounted once and lives awhile (until it died, or sw blows up from flock issues, etc

I think the SD and NFS systems are comparable. I've gotten stuff installed on my Touchbook that is only available when its in range of my home NFS server, for example, so I think it *IS* comparable in terms of the problems that need to be solved and it certainly provides a workable means of testing any repo/package-manager based systems with consistency. I can set up 30 NFS mountpoints, and if my repo/package-manager scheme can deal with it, well then: I win, you lose.

An NFS volume is not generally where you have 5 of them coming and going every 2 mins, with users installing apps across any of them. An app tends to live on one NFS volume, not 5 of them.

Well, I dunno what Pandora apps you are installing across multiple SD cards. Care to enlighten me?

(BTW, we have our NFS servers hiccup quite frequently at work, and our systems are robust enough to handle the re-mount/re-scan ..)

So yeah, get deb or ubuntu, and tell it to install emacs on /mnt/foo on NFS; but what if you then install that same package to /mnt/foo2, and /mnt/foo3; mostr package managers just donm't like this, at all.

I don't really agree with you on this, they can be *made* to deal with the situation of lost mount-points, its just .. that .. you probably haven't tried to do that yet.

To wit .. you know your mount loopback above? Thats what pnds are, you realize, right? \

.. albeit without needing a libpndfile.so and accompanying shim/glue scripts in the BaseOS, yeah .. and by the way, I can do this on any Linux system, not just ones with the PandoraOS on them.

We should perhaps try to constrain our discussion, I think we're flying too far all over (at least I am, I'm not sure what we're fithing about anymore, specifically ; so theres repo, theres package management, theres what he executable is.

Let me come back to this in a couple weeks when I've got a working proposal for you, okay? I think we're stretching the limits of forum attitude here, and whats needed is a viable set of technology to demonstrate the different points of view. I don't have a Pandora, yet. I will soon, and then I will sync up with DJWillis on the Base OS build environment, and try a few things to convince you that you can forget about PND and use a properly configured Base OS+repo+package manager to do things properly ..

Sounds like you're really arguing about package manegement / dependancies; PNDs are not meant to go there. We expect to either extend or use a layer on top .. ie: As I've often said, we could use a package manager on top of pnds if we wanted, but I didn't think the existing ones worked for our needs.

Actually, I don't even need to suggest replacing PND, repo+package-manager can serve as a complement entirely. I'm just grumpy that you guys didn't build a repo *first* so that we wouldn't need Windows-style hotfix packs for Grandma to get all hot and bothered about ..

Can you define the exact problem statement, give me the Invariant
I bet in the end, we are in agreement.

My position: We should have a repo for the Base OS, and banish the thought of Hotfix.PND's *FOR-EV-ER* from our worlds.

One pnd depends on another? You'll find every time I was asked, that I said we need to use some package system or extend pnd, but that we had not researched enough, nor had resources, nor user experience, to make a decision... and that we weren't going there yet.

I'm going to help with this.

What pnd does address is being an executable that includes documentation links, and can provide multiple applications from a single file, with user changes/data being directed to one standard location. A little more than a executable, but no more.

Its a clever .ISO, yo, except it has a library dependency that the user has to - for now - maintain by hand.

 

[torpor]

torpor -- btw, we didn't have the luxury of waiting, as you know; get yourself a beagleboard, or an n900, or use qemu, or vmware, etc

I've got a Beagleboard(+pico+usb gamepad) .. but is there a build of the latest public PandoraOS release that I could boot on it? Maybe I should just sync up with DJWillis asap and get the build env going so I can target the Beagleboard + Touchbook + Pandora locally as systems ..

 

[SomeGuy99]

I very rarely say this about anyone, online or offline, but I think Topor is being a dick.

If you want to start your own alternative firmware for cheery repo fans, that's a very positive thing. Go do that! I look forward to seeing what you come up with, and I'll probably be installing it and trying for myself.

But the way you're writing, it seems you're more interested in changing the status quo with the official firmware.

You talk about Grandma and Iphone OS, but you're missing something:

Iphone applications are in .app format, with no dependencies needed beyond the base OS.

They can be installed manually by importing into Itunes and syncronised.

Apple have the largest 'repo' in the world, probably, with the App Store.

Despite being self contained files, applications can be installed in a package like manner using either Itunes on the desktop or on the device.

Iphone OS also tracks new versions and updates for these apps and can prompt for installation.


If you ask me, PND files are just one step beyond that in simplicity. Unlike the Iphone, the Pandora filestructure is entirely open, and the device is also not designed to be syncronised with a desktop computer. It makes sense to keep the application files (pnd) contained within themselves and be mounted rather than install all over the memory card (the iphone has a fixed non-removable memory).

Oh, and this grandma techo-phobe stereotype is a load of nonsense. Only the other day I was on the bus and the old ladies were talking about PS3, 360 and PSP and one was playing quite happily with an Android phone.

 

[skeezix]

So we are in agreement then I think -- ED, djwillis, myself, we all want a repo for the firmware, to suck down patches. We don't have tim to set one up, bu tit takes all of 5 mins to whip up a pnd, so it got used.

Hotfixes will not come from pnds in the future, except maybe for a little while until things settle down. (Or if we never get organized, but hopefully that is not the case.)

And in your NFS case -- yeah, most system sthat use NFS just hang and wait for the NFS to come back; now thats elegant

So yeah, what we've always said..

Repo for firmware
PNDs for executables
Some system on top of PNDs to manage install, updates, dependancies; but without this yet, people can just download and do file copies themselves, since its a single file per app, no weird stuff.

So we agree? great!

jeff

 

[torpor]

I very rarely say this about anyone, online or offline, but I think Topor is being a dick.

I may be being a dick but at least I'm no sycophant, that is for sure! Hate me for my honesty, but I think this business is something that definitely needs to be improved, and if its only sycophants allowed in the discussion, well then ..

If you want to start your own alternative firmware for cheery repo fans, that's a very positive thing. Go do that! I look forward to seeing what you come up with, and I'll probably be installing it and trying for myself.

Gonna!

But the way you're writing, it seems you're more interested in changing the status quo with the official firmware.

On the basis of 10+ years of experience with OpenEmbedded/Angstrom/-Zaurus, I'm trying to avoid the situation where PandoraOS gets borked by bad decisions, and the decision *not* to set up a repo from the gate is a bad decision, imho. Hate me if you like, but I do believe this is a discussion for the sharing of ideas, popular or not!

Iphone applications are in .app format, with no dependencies needed beyond the base OS.

Ever looked at the libs that many .app's package along with them? Now, count how much space you can save on your NAND-limited device if only they didn't all have a copy of the same libs bundled along ..

Iphone OS also tracks new versions and updates for these apps and can prompt for installation.

If the only change to a 10 Meg .APP file is an updated libBlowMe.so, I have to download the whole .app file .. hmm .. see *any* problem with this, at all? I do, but then again, I remember the days when the only connection to the Internet depended on the dampness of some soggy noodle in the basement somewhere. Not everyone has 1000mb/s connections to the Apple "repo".

If you ask me, PND files are just one step beyond that in simplicity. Unlike the Iphone, the Pandora filestructure is entirely open,

Right, and being open means being able to discuss it freely without prejudice ..

and the device is also not designed to be syncronised with a desktop computer. It makes sense to keep the application files (pnd) contained within themselves and be mounted rather than install all over the memory card (the iphone has a fixed non-removable memory).

It maybe makes sense, but an improvement on this situation would be to have the repo handling the distribution of diffs/vectors so that users don't have to do it themselves. That is all I'm trying to say, and now we've established that, at some point (hopefully in the NEAR future), we'll have a repo to handle the hotfix/BaseOS update issue, well then .. good.

/dick-mode-deflate

 

[torpor]

And in your NFS case -- yeah, most system sthat use NFS just hang and wait for the NFS to come back; now thats elegant

Let me fix that for you:

And in your NFS case -- yeah, most poorly configured systems adminstered by chimps that use NFS just hang and wait for the NFS to come back; now thats elegant

Verity, it goes with milk.

 

[Aninhumer]

We are, and I have a lot of respect for Jeff and his position, and I *will* be using PND files after all (no choice in the matter), but I still have the right to voice the opinion that I think PND files blow.

I can certainly appreciate the view that they are a step down from a proper package manager, but that doesn't mean they're completely rubbish.
I think they're a reasonably suitable and simple solution to a very complex problem.
Combined with a decent automatic update system, it would provide most of the end user advantages of a repo.
The only actual issue I heard suggested was apps breaking when libraries update.
A simple solution would be to make sure any apps that need updating are prepared beforehand and are released at the same time to be automatically updated.
Even if the original dev isn't available, the old libs can be shoved into a PND as a quick fix.

If you intend to develop a powerful package manager that can solve it properly, that's excellent.
Personally, I think you might be underestimating the extent of the problem, if you think it could have be solved already, but that's my pretty much unsubstantiated opinion, so knock yourself out.

 

[torpor]

Even if the original dev isn't available, the old libs can be shoved into a PND as a quick fix.

That is a very important point, and I'm glad you've enlightened me about it.

 

[SomeGuy99]

Is topor on drugs or having a mental breakdown? That's not an insult by the way - I'm a little concerned. Do you suffer from mania at all?

And no, I'm not a sycophant. I could write several paragraphs telling all the ways in which I'm not, but you probably wouldn't accept it.

 

[jlepley]

I don't think he's being entirely serious anymore.

 

[mali]

I had to check the meaning of "sycophant" via dictionary, I thought is was an elephant with a funny haircut

 

[bce23w]

Wow.

"You admire it!" "I admire its purity."

The more knowledgeable and passionate people on the boards and interested in the Pandora, the better. Though that said, a risk arises of all these confident folks talking past one another.

 

[likwidoxigen]

A lot of folks have been forgetting some odd but important considerations -- ensuring that their replacement system can run multiuser and multitasking; theres been some 10 'new pnd file formats' proposed in the last week (some very well considered), but they ofgten fall on that one -- if you run 5 MAMEs at once, it better work; likewise, can two different active accounts run it at once?

I'm sorry Jeff but I'm really really confused. Why the heck would you design a system for a handheld that gives 2 hoots about multi-user? If there's multiple users on a single handheld at the same time they're doing it wrong. I mean it's great to fulfill all sorts of crazy use cases; however, that's just a engineering-gasm and not a real-world necessity.

Now don't get me wrong personally, with regards to PND, I love the flexibility, versatility and ablity for "brain-dead" simplicity of it all with swapping in and out sd cards. I think that a quick GUI package manager thrown together with some wget and text processing to pull out version numbers a crude but effective PND Package manager could be built easily. I should be in the first 250 to get a pandora so once mine comes in (if real-life work ever slows down) I'll toss the app together and see how it goes.

I really would like to see dependency information in PND's however. Then if an OS update comes along an automated patcher could include older-version libs in currently installed PNDS if they're not compatible with the new ones coming down the pike.

 

[Aninhumer]

Yeah I really don't see why PNDs couldn't be extended to provide many of the features of a package manager/repo, without having to create a whole new system.
If some kind of "update check" URL was added to the PXML, you could implement an update manager easily.
If you added dependency information, you could have libpnd check that on launch, and resolve issues automatically.

And you wouldn't lose any of the simplicity of the PND system.

Another thing just I thought of as well, torpor, you can't move stuff around easily with a repo installation.
Say I go off on a SNES ROM downloading spree and want to separate all my SNES stuff onto one card cause it's getting too big, that's basically impossible with current package management systems.
PND makes it a drag and drop job.

 

[God Ginrai]

I had to check the meaning of "sycophant" via dictionary, I thought is was an elephant with a funny haircut

Strange... When I looked up "sycophant" in the dictionary, it didn't say "people who disagree with torpor" as would have been suggested by his use of the term.... :\

-God Ginrai

 

[Alpha2]

I'm sorry Jeff but I'm really really confused. Why the heck would you design a system for a handheld that gives 2 hoots about multi-user? If there's multiple users on a single handheld at the same time they're doing it wrong. I mean it's great to fulfill all sorts of crazy use cases; however, that's just a engineering-gasm and not a real-world necessity.

I'm just a Layman here trying to absorb all the info but might not multi user compatibility be something required by linux? I'm just saying it's basically the same thing as any other computer just in pocket form with a hard drive you arent allowed to save anything on very often.


While I'm sticking my nose in here I'll just add my own 2 cent real quick, I like the idea of the PND system, it's like a cartridge or even a rom, you slap it in boot it up and you go on with your day. Maybe I might need to make an extra folder or two but we all use computers whether it's a PC a mac or some other variant it's not like asking us to ad a folder is going to kill us as long as we know where to put it. With a repository only those of us used to Linux actually know whats going on and if it's anything like windows update it's just going to be so annoying that people ignore it until something happens that they have to deal with an update in order to continue using the device. As it stands now most of the people with Pandoras are just getting used to them learning the quirks and reporting bugs, and as such they're going to be watching the forums or the Pandora website looking for updates because it's simple when a warm body actually says "Hey Listen! Install this and sunshine happens!"

Maybe when there are a few thousand more Pandoras out there things can get a little more automated, but until then I'm just glad for the simple hand holding that ED and all the OS devs are providing right now. Thanks guys. And thanks also to the people smart enough to question the way they've done things because that's the only way anyone knows if there's not a way things can eventually get better. I dont expect it over night I'm just happy to see lively debate rather than people cursing each other out.

*patiently awaits his pandora*

 

[skeezix]

Bryce -- us too

This is why I said 'all along' that I think we need to either extend PXML, or use a layer on top. We didn't have the manpower (ie: free time) to consider it well enough, and a few public discussions went all nuts, so we (or I?) simply just decided we'd leverage the community later for it. I do believe its better to start simple and gain traction for your niche target audience, then as you see where things are moving, you enhance.

So we all agree that adding to things is good; I think Torpor is going through same thought, but also wants to dump the whole .pnd thing entirely, whereas I'm interested in keeping the .pnd thing, but with a layer on top.

What I always figured was, during app discovery (on boot, or every once in awhile) could look up in Canonical Location for pnd-updates, and offer to or automatically download them. For my part, I think the base firmware should rarely or never loose a lib, we shoudl always just add additional versions or new libs, but never remove any (ie: to avoid risk to old apps.) So I always figured we'd have a repo for the firmware to push down fixes (where binary compatible) or enhancements etc, and then a repo (same one, or another one) for looking for pnd updates.

For pnd dependancies, sure, also; we either built some dependancies into PXML ("need this unique-id list to work", apply recursively), or better, we leverage some existing technology for that.

So I don't see using a repo manager as conflicting with PND-files, which is where I'm confused by all the above; a few people here or there seem to think we want peopel only downloading by hand, which of course is silly. (You can get files and maintain them however you want, ideally automated from a picker, or manually if you need/want.)

So I donm't think we're actually at odds, but people have some idea where they think we're going, and their idea vector is not actually where we're going; so they're fighting their perception of our target, not our real target.

Or maybe I'm totally wrong on lots of counts; thats always possible too

jeff

Bryce -- why would we do that? we designed it to handle that; we did not design around that, we designed tohandle it, should it happen; obviously multiuser is not likely, but multi-invocation is _very likely_. Consider -- what if someone makes a Firefox pnd, and then yoiu run two copies at the same time? Certainly not an unlikely scenario. In terms of full screen games, sure, but not for other apps. So we take things into consideration .. during designing and system, you figure the expected usage, plus some common other cases.. gotta try to be graceful in handling them, right?

BTW .. a unix system is multiuser nearly by definition, and many apps ported will expect it; certainly, you'll notice during first boot you picked a username (so we didn't just assume 'pandora', you get to pick a name.) But you could also create additional users and switch between them. What if you'r enot carrying it like a PDA, but using it as your kitchen computer with lots of users, or a guest account etc?