question about the default install.

[truekaiser]

looking through the information it seems the pandora will be released with a custom embedded linux distro.
so here are my questions.

1. what kernel version/versions will be supported other then just saying 2.6

2. is it the full kernel or a stripped version for embedded systems.

3. why do you support samba which creates a headache for us linux home users and not something much more simple like nfs?

4.(related to #1) is the kernel changeable or is the version tied to the binary blob video driver like nvidia drivers on the desktop. because say for instance in a few versions the linux kernel gets some new optimizations for the new arm cpu that this machine has but risks breaking the binary blob video driver?

5. Some people might think that ~600mhz & 128mb ram is a limited platform but i have seen linux run smoothly on less, so i have to ask will the default os on it be designed around multi-tasking or is it going to be a single tasking machine unless you put on a custom linux install(i hope the guy who wants to put gentoo on it gets it to work.)?

 

[Kimundi]

Well, the mayor idea behind the OpenPandora project is that you can change it software- and even hardwarewise however you like, so althought I can not say with wich software the Pandora ships (cause nobody knows now ), you are free to modify it.
About the binary blob Video Driver, I think it works the way that you have an opensource "interface" to the binaryblob which can be modified.

 

[Pleng]

Can't answer all your questions, sorry.

5. Some people might think that ~600mhz & 128mb ram is a limited platform but i have seen linux run smoothly on less, so i have to ask will the default os on it be designed around multi-tasking or is it going to be a single tasking machine unless you put on a custom linux install(i hope the guy who wants to put gentoo on it gets it to work.)?

By the looks of things the unit will ship, by default, with a multitasking interface, with all apps taking up the full screen and there will be some kind of key/button combo (or indeed a dedicated button) to switch between apps.

There are already videos of Ubuntu running on the unit, demonstrating GIMP and Firefox, so if a desktop style interface is our preference, and if you can handle the extremely small text you'll get on a device with such a small screen/hi res, you won't be disappointed.

 

[javaJake]

1. what kernel version/versions will be supported other then just saying 2.6

2.6.276 (edit: see below)

Still looking for the source, though, so don't take it as fact until I can prove it...

Edit: Hmm, apparently some speculation about the version. Still looking...

Last Edit: OK, this looks solid enough. 2.6.26. Still new.

2. is it the full kernel or a stripped version for embedded systems.

I can't tell you what's in the .config (because I don't know) but I can tell you they used an open-source kernel with some patches, so if they did what you didn't want them to do, you can easily do what you want to do as if they hadn't ever done what you didn't want them to do before they had done what they did without realizing that they were doing what you didn't want them to do in the first place. "Savvy?"

3. why do you support samba which creates a headache for us linux home users and not something much more simple like nfs?

Because it Just Works. Usually. Samba will allow users to get onto Windows networks, which are obviously more common. NFS is an open-source version, but not widespread.

If you want my opinion, neither are any good, so you just have to deal with what you've got and hope for the best.

4.(related to #1) is the kernel changeable or is the version tied to the binary blob video driver like nvidia drivers on the desktop. because say for instance in a few versions the linux kernel gets some new optimizations for the new arm cpu that this machine has but risks breaking the binary blob video driver?

Theoretically, any drivers that have to be compiled in for the Pandora can be tweaked for different kernels. Even the binary blobs have an open-source sliver, or layer or something like that, that goes between the kernel and the lovely blobs. If you need to make the blob more compatible with a particular kernel, you should be able to modify that layer/sliver/thing to make it work. Theoretically.

5. Some people might think that ~600mhz & 128mb ram is a limited platform but i have seen linux run smoothly on less, so i have to ask will the default os on it be designed around multi-tasking or is it going to be a single tasking machine unless you put on a custom linux install(i hope the guy who wants to put gentoo on it gets it to work.)?

The default OS will be a revised version of gmenu for the GP2X, and will include multi-tasking. Somehow they've got it running in kDrive (a slimmed version of X) so that we can have multiple windows going at once.

However, I could be very wrong in that last paragraph. Be sure to search around, because that question has been answered before.

And, I'm the guy for Gentoo, and I want it to work or else.

 

[truekaiser]

3. why do you support samba which creates a headache for us linux home users and not something much more simple like nfs?

Because it Just Works. Usually. Samba will allow users to get onto Windows networks, which are obviously more common. NFS is an open-source version, but not widespread.

If you want my opinion, neither are any good, so you just have to deal with what you've got and hope for the best.

4.(related to #1) is the kernel changeable or is the version tied to the binary blob video driver like nvidia drivers on the desktop. because say for instance in a few versions the linux kernel gets some new optimizations for the new arm cpu that this machine has but risks breaking the binary blob video driver?

Theoretically, any drivers that have to be compiled in for the Pandora can be tweaked for different kernels. Even the binary blobs have an open-source sliver, or layer or something like that, that goes between the kernel and the lovely blobs. If you need to make the blob more compatible with a particular kernel, you should be able to modify that layer/sliver/thing to make it work. Theoretically.

so the video driver is going to be like the nvidia one, lovely. with the nvidia binary blob for desktop linux even though it has a open source interface layer. It still doesn't compile on every new kernel version and nvidia users normaly have to wait a few months if not longer to get them to update the code enough to run properly. In which case i hope the guy here who wants to make a open source driver can get it running pretty soon. I would be warry of carrying around a hand held like this into a large public place if there is security hole i can't get the fix for because the maker's of the power vr driver have yet to update it to work on the fixed kernel..(not remote, ask any linux nvidia user)

As for Samba, i have no idea what you did but Samba NEVER works out of the box for me. i have 4 linux computers and i used to try to use samba to share files between them, it never worked. some times some would only see one or another computer. sometimes they won't see each other at all, the kicker is it depended on luck i could shut them off one night and turn them on the next day and samba would behave differently. NFS is much more simple, it treats the shares like part of the file system making it transparent to the rest of the system. Also as long as you don't have it set to auto-mount the shares at boot time you won't run into trouble. speed is about he same as samba but app's won't complain about using shares. Nfs can be run on windows if you look for the unix util's on microsoft's website. they offer it for free since the code is from the open source world.