We Need Moblin On Pandora.


mazza558

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5-20-09moblinmzonw.jpg


I cannot think of a more perfect match for the Pandora, software-wise.

Modded to have a games tab, and it would be perfect. It's even designed with the same/similar aspect ratio in mind, and would be wonderful with the touchscreen.
Here's a video (clicky)
 
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Looks like a bunch of eyecandy to me. I don't really see much that's useful there. Not to mention the fact that they said it was made for "Intel" processors. That means that there would be a lot of stuff that we would have to change to make it compatible with ARM. I don't see any benefit in using this.

-God Ginrai
 
God Ginrai posted on May 20 2009 at 06:34 PM said:
Looks like a bunch of eyecandy to me. I don't really see much that's useful there. Not to mention the fact that they said it was made for "Intel" processors. That means that there would be a lot of stuff that we would have to change to make it compatible with ARM. I don't see any benefit in using this.

-God Ginrai
Well, it'd launch the Pandora outside of the hobbyist market and into mainstream usage if Moblin was an option. It looks a lot easier to use than the current incarnation of E17 shown in the latest video, and probably has more immediate usefulness to most people than a desktop DE on a DS-sized device.

As for ARM support, Moblin was designed for MIDs first and foremost, and, despite the sponsorship by Intel, the Linux Foundation will want to get this thing on as amny MIDs as possible - this includes ARM processors.
 
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God Ginrai posted on May 20 2009 at 07:34 PM said:
Looks like a bunch of eyecandy to me. I don't really see much that's useful there. Not to mention the fact that they said it was made for "Intel" processors. That means that there would be a lot of stuff that we would have to change to make it compatible with ARM. I don't see any benefit in using this.

-God Ginrai
For organization? It's clean, and straight forward. It's basically gmenu but with even more trimmings. Quite a few people in the community have been designing such menus, and personally I like what I see in that screenshot. Even if it won't work with the Pandora, it's a source of inspiration for menu coders.

QUOTE
As for ARM support, Moblin was designed for MIDs first and foremost, and, despite the sponsorship by Intel, the Linux Foundation will want to get this thing on as amny MIDs as possible - this includes ARM processors.


Hurrah!

-God Eversmile
 
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mazza558 posted on May 20 2009 at 02:39 PM said:
God Ginrai posted on May 20 2009 at 06:34 PM said:
Looks like a bunch of eyecandy to me. I don't really see much that's useful there. Not to mention the fact that they said it was made for "Intel" processors. That means that there would be a lot of stuff that we would have to change to make it compatible with ARM. I don't see any benefit in using this.

-God Ginrai
Well, it'd launch the Pandora outside of the hobbyist market and into mainstream usage if Moblin was an option. It looks a lot easier to use than the current incarnation of E17 shown in the latest video, and probably has more immediate usefulness to most people than a desktop DE on a DS-sized device.

As for ARM support, Moblin was designed for MIDs first and foremost, and, despite the sponsorship by Intel, the Linux Foundation will want to get this thing on as amny MIDs as possible - this includes ARM processors.
That doesn't mean that they'll code an ARM version anytime soon. Also, the Pandora won't be using e17 in the end. It will be using Matchbox. Users can also use the interface cpasjuste made, or the really nice one that efegea is working on.

EDIT:
Eversmile posted on May 20 2009 at 02:42 PM said:
God Ginrai posted on May 20 2009 at 07:34 PM said:
Looks like a bunch of eyecandy to me. I don't really see much that's useful there. Not to mention the fact that they said it was made for "Intel" processors. That means that there would be a lot of stuff that we would have to change to make it compatible with ARM. I don't see any benefit in using this.

-God Ginrai
For organization? It's clean, and straight forward. It's basically gmenu but with even more trimmings. Quite a few people in the community have been designing such menus, and personally I like what I see in that screenshot. Even if it won't work with the Pandora, it's a source of inspiration for menu coders.
-God Eversmile
Except a built-in browser would only cause complaints that the browser doesn't have X feature, whereas if Firefox doesn't do it. they can find an extension, and if they can't find an extension we can tell them make one. There's similar problems with all of the other things it tries to build into its interface.

-God Ginrai
 
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God Ginrai posted on May 20 2009 at 07:43 PM said:
That doesn't mean that they'll code an ARM version anytime soon. Also, the Pandora won't be using e17 in the end. It will be using Matchbox. Users can also use the interface cpasjuste made, or the really nice one that efegea is working on.

-God Ginrai
Variety is the spice of life! More choice, more fun. If they release a version, it's good.

QUOTE
Except a built-in browser would only cause complaints that the browser doesn't have X feature, whereas if Firefox doesn't do it. they can find an extension, and if they can't find an extension we can tell them make one. There's similar problems with all of the other things it tries to build into its interface.


Well, can't firefox be used with this menu? At all? If not, then yeah, I agree with you Mr. God.
 
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Eversmile posted on May 20 2009 at 02:45 PM said:
God Ginrai posted on May 20 2009 at 07:43 PM said:
That doesn't mean that they'll code an ARM version anytime soon. Also, the Pandora won't be using e17 in the end. It will be using Matchbox. Users can also use the interface cpasjuste made, or the really nice one that efegea is working on.

-God Ginrai
Variety is the spice of life! More choice, more fun. If they release a version, it's good.
And we're already getting a variety. Not only do we have the 3 choices I mentioned for styles, but we also have 2 other distros that are trying to be ready in time. (ubuntu and gentoo) Not to mention there's already been talk about other distros like Android, etc.

-God Ginrai
 
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God Ginrai posted on May 20 2009 at 07:50 PM) [quote="Eversmile posted on May 20 2009 at 02:45 PM said:
God Ginrai posted on May 20 2009 at 07:43 PM said:
That doesn't mean that they'll code an ARM version anytime soon. Also, the Pandora won't be using e17 in the end. It will be using Matchbox. Users can also use the interface cpasjuste made, or the really nice one that efegea is working on.

-God Ginrai
Variety is the spice of life! More choice, more fun. If they release a version, it's good.
And we're already getting a variety. Not only do we have the 3 choices I mentioned for styles, but we also have 2 other distros that are trying to be ready in time. (ubuntu and gentoo"] Not to mention there's already been talk about other distros like Android, etc.

-God Ginrai[/quote]Just because there is a choice doesn't mean we can't have more of a choice. Unless of course it won't be compatible with firefox/other good applications, then yeah, it'd be a bit pooey.
 
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Eversmile posted on May 20 2009 at 02:53 PM) [quote="God Ginrai posted on May 20 2009 at 07:50 PM said:
Eversmile posted on May 20 2009 at 02:45 PM said:
God Ginrai posted on May 20 2009 at 07:43 PM said:
That doesn't mean that they'll code an ARM version anytime soon. Also, the Pandora won't be using e17 in the end. It will be using Matchbox. Users can also use the interface cpasjuste made, or the really nice one that efegea is working on.

-God Ginrai
Variety is the spice of life! More choice, more fun. If they release a version, it's good.
And we're already getting a variety. Not only do we have the 3 choices I mentioned for styles, but we also have 2 other distros that are trying to be ready in time. (ubuntu and gentoo"] Not to mention there's already been talk about other distros like Android, etc.

-God Ginrai
Just because there is a choice doesn't mean we can't have more of a choice. Unless of course it won't be compatible with firefox/other good applications, then yeah, it'd be a bit pooey.[/quote]Think about it this way. Even if you did have Firefox on it, you wouldn't get to it just by pressing that Internet tab. That's their browser, that tab would just be a waste of space if you always used Firefox. See my point? Eyecandy. Anyways, I never said that someone can't port it. I'm not gonna push someone away from porting it. I'm simply stating that I don't believe there to be any benefit from using it. It's not going to get us the mainstream crowd any more than ubuntu would.

-God Ginrai
 
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God Ginrai posted on May 20 2009 at 08:00 PM said:
Think about it this way. Even if you did have Firefox on it, you wouldn't get to it just by pressing that Internet tab. That's their browser, that tab would just be a waste of space if you always used Firefox. See my point? Eyecandy. Anyways, I never said that someone can't port it. I'm not gonna push someone away from porting it. I'm simply stating that I don't believe there to be any benefit from using it. It's not going to get us the mainstream crowd any more than ubuntu would.
If it's open source, like Mazza said, it could be modded/coded/whatevered in. If not, then some harder mods. If again not, yeah, unless the browser is awesome, it'd be iffy. IT DOES look nice and organised though, and android certainly looks inviting for mainstreamers too.
 
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mazza558 posted on May 20 2009 at 01:27 PM said:
I cannot think of a more perfect match for the Pandora, software-wise.
Modded to have a games tab, and it would be perfect. It's even designed with the same/similar aspect ratio in mind, and would be wonderful with the touchscreen.
Here's a video (clicky)

Arf,
This is designed for Intel Atom in mind. The interface highly depends on the lastest advance in gallium3d. It's based on cairo _with_ opengl accelaration (not opengles). This is too many things to port to be usefull.

Knowing that Arthur (QT acceleration architecture) have an GLES backend, i'll prefer Plasma as desktop shell. But this is only me :)
 
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The browser is firefox but with a modified UI (think Fennec). So unless they haven't put the thought in, it'll support firefox extensions.
 
Eversmile posted on May 20 2009 at 03:03 PM said:
God Ginrai posted on May 20 2009 at 08:00 PM said:
Think about it this way. Even if you did have Firefox on it, you wouldn't get to it just by pressing that Internet tab. That's their browser, that tab would just be a waste of space if you always used Firefox. See my point? Eyecandy. Anyways, I never said that someone can't port it. I'm not gonna push someone away from porting it. I'm simply stating that I don't believe there to be any benefit from using it. It's not going to get us the mainstream crowd any more than ubuntu would.
If it's open source, like Mazza said, it could be modded/coded/whatevered in. If not, then some harder mods. If again not, yeah, unless the browser is awesome, it'd be iffy. IT DOES look nice and organised though, and android certainly looks inviting for mainstreamers too.
So first someone would have to write all the code to change the architecture. (This includes the stuff sebt3 mentioned) Then they would have to write even more code to mod it to get rid of the locked-in stuff. See how much work that is?

Yes, it looks nice and organized, but so does efegea's menu replacement. Have you seen it yet?

EDIT: Not to mention, efegea has already noted that his will be very extensible, allowing it to be changed and edited by the user in many ways.

-God Ginrai
 
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Ahh... Moblin...
Haven't heard it being mentioned in quite a while.

It indeed is an excellent system, but very unsuited for the Pandora, because:
- It's primarily targeting Intel Atom, thus creating the need to port each and every app released for it if we want an ARM version. And no, not all apps will be open-source for it, most probably.
- It's got an interesting design, but it's very limited in some ways: apps that weren't specifically built for Moblin won't integrate well since they don't use the same UI at all.
- It's Yet Another Linux Distro®, probably splitting communities even more than they're already being split atm.
- Anyone seen the Why Desktop Linux Sucks presentation by Bryan from jupiter broadcasting? He makes some valid points, some of which concern Moblin.
 
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While being a big bag of eye candy that will look lovely if made possible on the pandora, i think consentrating efforts on initial developments that we need more importantly.
i saw this in the news and thought yes that would be ace if possible.

lets hope further down the line someone works on it... :) if only for the love of eye candy over functionality.
 
Although I'm not too interested in discussions like this since they tend to become mud-flinging contests and I wouldn't hold my breath for ARM support from Moblin, there are a couple of low level X/Gnome applications that may have full source code available and may make the Pandora experience a little nicer.

* DISCLAIMER * I can't say that I will work on any of these projects, but I'll mark them for potential inclusion in one of the Gentoo Pandora variants.

http://moblin.org/projects/audio-manager
http://moblin.org/projects/connection-manager
http://moblin.org/projects/fast-boot
http://moblin.org/projects/gupnp
http://moblin.org/projects/syncevolution
 
remember moblin is more then the UI. What we may want to have is the UI, wich is basically gnome mobile. That should be portable to Pandora, seeing clutter has a openGL-ES backend and all other dependencies are processor-independent.

Goddamn, we have so many choices...

Android would definatly run on the pandora, but one might want to run only the darvin-vm on top of angstrom and get a 99% compatible system.
Maemo has a lot of interesting applications (maemo-mapper really is amazing). Combine Angstrom and the recently open-sourced Hildon (I wonder why there was no news about it, yet. The real Hildon is now totally open source, no reverse-engineering project needed any more) and you get a 99% compatible system (at least if rumor is true and the n9xx will be based on omap).
The Ubuntu MID-Edition interface might be a little harder to port, if Canonical isn't already doing this.

A lot of wise decisions are needed to make the pandora the ultimate System it could be, but all the 3rd party programs for the new, trendy embedded systems could be made to run on the pandora just fine.
 
PoisonedV posted on May 20 2009 at 08:09 PM said:
I don't like moblin. it over simplifies things extremely.
It seems you feel the same way about moblin that I feel about ubuntu. ;)

-God Ginrai
 
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