Pyra in the wild - the real life experience

[wismerhill]

... and there's even GUIs for this (I dont know if xfce have one but plasma surely has)

There is, it is appropriately called lxrandr. And that one is easily usable under other lighweight environments, as it has only a gtk dependency.

 

[ible]

xrandr also sounds like the name of a cool alien planet or species.

new genre: science fiction, linux bash scripting mashup?

 

[elvissteinjr]

Xfce has a multi-display setup GUI and quick settings dialog when plugging in a new display since 4.12, as well.
Current OS images default to Mate iirc, though.

 

[NetBLOKS]

@Askarus since there is a longer pause in terms of news, may I ask you or one of the other prototype owners to post a Pyra-related video?
I'm no junky, I'm not addicted, no no... I just need my fix NOW
The "help" would me much appreciated.

 

[FBnil]

@NetBLOKS Dont' worry, got you covered:

<==== Pyra News Live Stream

 

[levi]

The longest gap between news stories in the past year I can spot was between Sep 5th and Oct 1st so that's a month less four days. So by that metric we can't claim news is late before about Jan 21st. Although we did get a posting from hns on the 9th on the kernel mail thread talking about approaches for making the GSM chip communicable, if that counts for anything.

 

[Askarus]

In 3 days I'll have my last exam at University.

Then I'll do some work at University. I'll use a Raspberry Pi and a laptop.
One is a hotspot and the other device will connect to it.
We use Gstreamer to send video data and send some commands vice versa.

I'll do the same with the Pyra for testing purpose.
Maybe today I'll get a new mainboard from ED with fixed Wifi.
I will do speed and download test with different routers and 2.4 and 5GHz. I have access to at least 4-5 different networks.
Additionally I want to send some webcam video stream from my Laptop top the Pyra and maybe send a Gigabyte of data from one device to the other.

I also want to use the Pyra as hotspot and maybe write a script to make it easy.
That would be a nice feature for those who have the LTE modem and want to have a mobile hotspot.

I have no idea how much I'll get to work but that are my plans for the next month.



I didn't have much time during the Semester for much Pyra work.
Due to the still bad keyboard I did not use it for much.
However for what I used it it was stable. No crash, no freeze no error.

Oh and in the meantime I cracked my case and gave it ED to send it to the Greece company.
It'S nothing to worry about as I still use the prototype material and not the final one.

My conclusion so far:
There are too many things missing to use it as an every day all in one device for now.
What is working however is reliable and stable.
Nubs work as they did on the first day. Screen is nice. Battery for reading PDF and doing small stuff is 8-10 hours.
With a new keymat and better Wifi (well, not really. Pandora is not really better) the only thing missing for me to replace my Pandora completely is sound.


For videos:
All I have is a smartphone. It has a good camera but that's it.
Maybe I will finally find some time to make videos at ED's office.
Let's see what my holidays will bring.

 

[matzesu]

Ok seems like the Prototyphe Plastik is worse that the worse plastic on the Pandora, ,
Im Glad Mass Production Pyras are Bulletproof..

What happens to your Case to get cracked ??
And is the missing Sound only due to the lack of Software Development at this time, or just missing Speakers ??

 

[Askarus]

What happens to your Case to get cracked ??

When I open my Pyra I do it with the left hand. So there is one-sided force.
It broke where the lid is stuck inside the plastic.

And is the missing Sound only due to the lack of Software Development at this time, or just missing Speakers ??

I have no speakers.
Headset should work but ALSA is not configured correctly.
I'm downloading the latest OS version right now. Maybe it's fixed already.

 

[matzesu]

Couldnt EvilDragon send you, if you get the new Board, also 2 of these little Speakerthings ?? I dotnt know how much they cost, but they shouldnt be that expensive..

 

[Askarus]

Couldnt EvilDragon send you, if you get the new Board, also 2 of these little Speakerthings ?? I dotnt know how much they cost, but they shouldnt be that expensive..

I will pick them up personally
I study in Ingolstadt.

I will ask for it maybe. As long as the padding is not fixed it's not that useful to have them I think.
But if they don't work I don't need them

 

[Askarus]

As I can't make nice Videos I have some crappy pictures for you.
It's all preinstalled software except Geany.
Two Geany pictures have a white line in the editor.
It's the 80 character line. Maybe some of you care

 

[Grench]

When I open my Pyra I do it with the left hand. So there is one-sided force.
It broke where the lid is stuck inside the plastic.

I have no speakers.
Headset should work but ALSA is not configured correctly.
I'm downloading the latest OS version right now. Maybe it's fixed already.

And we're all still jealous.

 

[Silent-Hunter]

I love how readable the text looks like it'll be. I was worried 1280x720 would be too high res to read at that size.

 

[Askarus]

And we're all still jealous.

And I truly hope you will get one soon

I love how readable the text looks like it'll be. I was worried 1280x720 would be too high res to read at that size.

That Size and Resolution is perfect.

I compared it to my 3DS xl.
Screen size is the same. If the Pyra would have the form factor of the 3DSxl we could get a bigger screen.
But the one point EvilDragon is right about is typing.
The 3DSxl would be too big to reach the middle row comfortably. Pyra is perfect for me

The one thing I thing a bigger screen might be necessary is to put the Pyra in portrait mode and read an e-book.
The screen is still too small for that. Except maybe if the e-book can do dynamically line break and is not a PDF. So one could increase letter size.

 

[PowerGod]

Except maybe if the e-book can do dynamically line break and is not a PDF. So one could increase letter size.

Calibre should be able to convert PDF to EPUB, but I'm not sure how much magic is the final result.

Anyway the combo Calibre+AlbiteReader(J2ME) did wonders for my little feature-phone, so something even better could be surely obtained for the Pyra

 

[FBnil]

And we're all still jealous.

I imagine @Askarus like in the scene of Pyrates of the Pandorians: "I got a jar of hardware, I got a jar of hardware, and guess what's inside it!". And @Grench shaking his fist from afar.

 

[levi]

Two Geany pictures have a white line in the editor.
It's the 80 character line. Maybe some of you care

Woot!

 

[SavingsAttorney]

True, though 500MHz WAS inside the specs once

I think TI simply didn't test all of them properly and therefore, doesn't support them officially.
I'm sure some more power can be saved if we find the perfect voltage / MHz combinations that are possible.

Would it be possible to have a dynamic clock speed, similar to what Apple is doing in macOS for power management: down-clocking when there is less
activity or if the CPU gets to hot?

 

[levi]

Yes, I think that's the target. The pandora already runs the on-demand sheduler I think, which will scale back the CPU frequency as soon as you stop using it, but it doesn't have to consider over-temperature as far as I know. I expect similar from my Pyra to be honest.