Switching The Pandora On... Help.

[TornadoCreator]

OK, so I did the wizard that it told me to do when I first switched on the Pandora. Now all I get is a command prompt and ascii art with the logo Angstrom. It asks me to log in. I do, it says "$ and does nothing. Am I missing a crucial and obvious step here because so far all I have is an expensive paperweight. There's nothing in the box that tells me what the commands are to use in the command prompt so presumably I'm supposed to just know them already by magic or just guess.

All I want is to access the GUI, all the start up tutorials seem to assume it will automatically boot into the GUI, mine doesn't. Please help, I'm getting really frustrated staring at my Pandora as it may as well be a brick for all the use I can get out of it at the moment. Please be aware I've never used Linux or anything similar, I'm a complete newbie. 

 

[EvilDragon]

Hmm, seems like the firmware wasn't properly flashed. Doesn't happen often, but sometimes it can happen.

You should probably reflash it, that should fix your issue.

Download the latest image here: http://openpandora.org/firmware/fullflash/SuperZaxxon172.zip
Unzip it to your SD Card into the root directory.

Insert the card into your left slot. Press the R shoulder button while switching the unit on and wait until the menu appears.
Choose to boot from SD and wait until the flasher is finished.

Remove the SD Card, switch the Pandora on and wait until the first boot wizard appears.
Important: DON'T reset it before that! If you do that, you have a half-installed firmware (which could behave the same way yours can).

 

 

[TornadoCreator]

It seems to be working fine now. I'll let you know once it's all set up and running; and I'm sure I'll be asking for help a couple more times in the coming days.

Thank you for your help, this is my first time exploring linux and I'm hoping it'll be the start of something great, but it's easy to get confused or overwhelmed by everything. 

 

[elw3]

The golden rule is: 
If it appears hard, textual or anything non newbee friendly, its either broken or you look at the wrong place. 
There is a herd of wizards working nonstop to ensure that the common user wont have to learn magic. 
Dont hesitate to ask for even tiny questions. 

 

[TornadoCreator]

Thanks, I appreciate that.

It's working perfectly at the moment. Now it's just a matter of loading some emulators onto it, a decent browser, office software, and media player; then I'm good to go. Any advice on what software I should go for would be appreciated. Also, has anyone had any luck doing audio recording/editing on the Pandora or is that a bit too demanding for it. If it's able it'd come very much in handy for my podcast recording and would limit the need to carry my laptop around with me.

 

[elw3]

Audacity is what i used for records, together with an USB line in. 
But that is kinda outdated and may be flacky by now on the current os.

 

[rygD]

Now it's just a matter of loading some emulators onto it, a decent browser, office software, and media player; then I'm good to go. Any advice on what software I should go for would be appreciated.

Not sure what emulators you are looking for, but here are some.
Pale Moon and Otter are the browsers I use most often on my Pandora.  There are others if you want to try them out.
For office software, LibreOffice is a good place to start.
I use deadbeef for music on my Pandora.

Take note that ptitSeb ported most of what I linked to, so give him, and everyone else that feeds us software, a big thanks.  Leave a comment and rate the things you use on the repo.
 

 

[Swordfish II]

SMPlayer2 for all your A/V needs, Codec Pack, Pale Moon, and I like Abiword with spell check since it is lighter weight than Libre.  Also Transmisson for eh-hm stuff.

 

[TrashyMG]

Kodi is my main media player in my rebirth Pandora hitched to my TV. For HD media playback I stream videos over network using Universal Media Server:  http://www.universalmediaserver.com/

 

[TornadoCreator]

Audacity is what i used for records, together with an USB line in. 
But that is kinda outdated and may be flacky by now on the current os.

I use Audacity on my PC all the time, have done for years. It's kind of my comfortable go to audio editor so if it'll run on the Pandora I'l certainly give it a try.

Will grab Pale Moon as you guys suggest, should suit my needs for browsing. Does it work with Flash?

As for emulators I'm looking to emulate mainly 8-bit and 16-bit. So NES, SNES, Master System, Mega Drive, TurboGrafx-16, Commodore 64, Amiga 500, and Gameboy/Gameboy Colour. Everything else I'm not so bothered with. I own a Sega Saturn and Dreamcast and collect games for them so don't need to emulate them, I have a PS Vita so emulating PSOne is redundant. Emulating GBA would be cool, but I have a GBA SP and if I don't have the game, I have a 3DS and Wii U so can use Virtual Console for them. I did consider the Gameboy Everdrive but as it doesn''t work with GBA games I'm passing on it for now. Gaming wise I like to collect for Sega systems, but I'm a big fan of portable gaming. I play my Vita, 3DS and Wii U (thanks to off-screen play) far more than I do home consoles... not sure why but handhelds just appeal too me. The Pandora seemed like the perfect way to get all the classic consoles in one handheld device. Sure the PSP wasn't bad for emulation (and I still have my PSP), but I've wanted an excuse to get involved in the Linux community, and the PSP was limited by what was actually available though the hacking community.

Anyway, thanks guys for the warm welcome.

 

[TrashyMG]

Master System/Mega Drive I use Picodrive, 

There are a slew of Emulators on the Repo, hard to keep track of them... 

Exophase a very skilled developer in our community has put together a great PSX Emulator. Also he made a DS emulator:Drastic , luckily it's free for the Pandora community, but he charges for the Android version. He also developed gpSP a GBA emulator... I've never used it myself.

Edit: Just a quick look Temper is a TurboGrafx-16 emulator... 
 

 

[levi]

gpSP works very well at playing Drill Dozer and Mr Driller 2.  I think I've played other games on it, but those are the only two GBA games I remember playing recently.

 

[Mr_Loon]

What software?

PND Manager is always a good start. Have fun with your Pandora