What comes in the box?

[dflemstr]

Re: What about the OS?

If it comes with Ängstrǒm(don't remember the accents perfectly), will it have FF pre-installed?

Just btw, to make this perfectly clear: the spelling and pronunciation of the Pandora OS (and I'm Swedish so I know what I'm talking about here)

Spelling
An easy one: Ångström.
Circle over the "A" and dots over the "o".

Meaning
The literal translation is "Stream of steam", but it can mean other things too; it's used as a family name in some places in Sweden (and come to think of it, there's probably an IKEA product with that name )

Pronunciation
Oh, this is a difficult one.
Let's take "Ång" first (meaning steam): The "Å" is pronounced like the "aw" sound in "brawl" or the "o" in "afford", and the "ng" is pronounced like the "ng" in "bang".
"ström" is easier (meaning stream); "str" is pronounced like the same letters in "string", and the "ö" sounds like the "i" in "bird"/"girl" (and the "m" sounds like a "m" obviously).

And yes, we will have Firefox preinstalled.

 

[JayFoxRox]

Doesn't the angstrom name come from the unit? That would make a lot more sense..
Its still from the swedish family name angstrom but the meaning you explained doesn't really fit - while the meaning of the unit does: 1 angstrom = 0.1 nanometre

//Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ångström

 

[dflemstr]

Doesn't the angstrom name come from the unit? That would make a lot more sense..
Its still from the swedish family name angstrom but the meaning you explained doesn't really fit - while the meaning of the unit does: 1 angstrom = 0.1 nanometre

//Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ångström

The source doesn't matter, it's the meaning of the name I was after (It fit so well with the pronunciation and spelling so I thought why not)
But yeah, that's probably the source.

 

[riosingh]

the pandora box should include all the evil in the world. .

And hope

 

[Tor]

I guess Ångström was chosen as a distro name because it's another way of saying "Yo, this is a very small (as in 'made for small devices') distribution". Instead of using the overused mini/micro/nano/pico words. An Ångström is 1/10 of a nanometer, as I think was mentioned in another post already.

 

[dflemstr]

I guess Ångström was chosen as a distro name because it's another way of saying "Yo, this is a very small (as in 'made for small devices') distribution". Instead of using the overused mini/micro/nano/pico words. An Ångström is 1/10 of a nanometer, as I think was mentioned in another post already.

We've all hopefully paid attention in highschool, so we should all know this already (or at least those who took physics courses)
They could have picked femto, atto, zepto or yocto too, though.

I'm wondering now, will there be any demo apps included? Like the keyboard test app MWeston showed in a video some time ago, or some graphics demo app, or anything.

 

[WizardStan]

They could have picked femto, atto, zepto or yocto too, though.

I would have also accepted Quantum or (to a lesser extent) Iota.

 

[Vorporeal]

I think some people doing homebrew projects or ports are trying to get some stuff released and out the door now with the possibility of it shipping on the Pandora (or on the accompanying CD). (IIRC, Poke was trying to do this with PandoraPanic.)

 

[Chip]

I know that it won't come with any media player preinstalled because of patent issues.

That doesn't seem to make sense. Aren't you only pushing the patent laws if you have patent-encumbered *codecs* installed? Tons of completely FOSS distros come preinstalled with mplayer or xine and a ton of codecs, just not the specific ones that they can't legally include.

It's a simple case of "better safe than sorry". True, there are plenty of distros that include MPlayer, but some of the codecs included with MPlayer are contested. It is far safer to allow people to install a media player themselves.

 

[Kyosys]

The pandora is heavily internet based. You can only order it online, even! Dare I say that anyone who has a pandora is expected to have access to an internet connection? I don't think the fact that emulators and even media players have to be downloaded is much of an issue, really.

I'll probably prep an SD card as soon as I hear they're shipping preemptively, so whatever.

 

[valhalla]

That doesn't seem to make sense. Aren't you only pushing the patent laws if you have patent-encumbered *codecs* installed? Tons of completely FOSS distros come preinstalled with mplayer or xine and a ton of codecs, just not the specific ones that they can't legally include.

Among the patent-encumbered codecs there are mp3 and most of the commonly used video ones: between preinstalling a media player that supports only free codecs and doesn't play anything most people already has, and not preinstalling anything, I'm afraid that pandora's choice is the one that would lead to less user confusion.

Distributions have it easier because they are just software, and some of the patents only apply to devices, expecially outside the US.