What should be included in the firmware?

[Titcher]

I'm all for the minimal install on the base NAND. If the OS is going to be debian, then we could benefit from the debian way of doing things! Run tasksel or something equivalent on first run (it's just a little ncurses GUI which runs some apt-get installs), and if people don't have working wifi (those poor souls), debian has the facility to have offline install sources (see debian DVD releases, etc) which surely could be set as an SD card.

 

[Klumpen]

For the no internet use case, Ed could optionally sell an SD card with a mirrored package repository and some easy setup PND (and perhaps some scripts to update the package repository on a system with internet).

I am sure, he will offer an option to buy it bundled with an SD-Card anyway, so he could just clone this bigger SD-image before shipping and global components would only have to flash the basic stuff and save time/money, nice idea. People who don't need it just buy it without this SD then.

 

[Granitehead]

I think doing software "bundles" is too much choice taken away from beginners (even if you don't have to install them). It's more like the Apple way than the way of an open source project.

The goal is to make it easy without limiting functionality.

So I'm still in favour of a start up wizard which asks the user about different programs to install for each task and helps users to decide by providing information about each choice (obviously possible to skip that part). {I'm willing to write the text/structure of this wizard if someone else codes the gui}

But I agree my earlier suggestion was complicated to implement. So, based on the "put .debs to maybe install on NAND" idea, this: After the base image is installed, fill the NAND with as much .debs as possible or sensible (if we have enough, we have enough). The start up wizard gives the possibility to easily choose from those .debs. For advanced users there is a way find out which packages are available that way and to choose from them fast or to skip the procedure altogether. Depending on user selections, the first start wizard then installs packages and deletes all those .debs afterwards.

Of course those packages may already be outdated at that time, but no matter what you do, if people don't have internet connection and update, then their system will become outdated anyway. So it doesn't matter.

 

[Askarus]

if people don't have internet connection and update, then their system will become outdated anyway.

Can't we just stop that?

They order from an online shop.

The more I think of it the more nonsense it sounds to me,

 

[_wb_]

The question of what should be included in the firmware was/is very important on the Pandora, because of these reasons:

1) it basically has one fixed configuration of programs and libraries

2) there is little space, so hard choices have to be made

3) PNDs rely on the firmware, if anything changes, PNDs can break.

I propose to update the .pnd format to a .pyra format that can deal better with different base system configurations, by specifying the dependencies of the program: what libraries and programs does it rely on and what versions.

This means that when installing a new .pyra, you can get a message "This .pyra application relies on debian packages X, Y and Z which are not currently installed on your system. Would you like to download and install them?"

If the system works like that, it is no longer that important what you put in the default firmware. I would probably put most of the stuff we have on the Pandora in there, because the size of that is no big deal and those are probably important enough anyway. And that would mean that .pnd files will often work without needing extra installs (well, if the .pnd is sufficiently sane).

Also, it probably makes sense to use parts of the Debian installer like tasksel in the first boot wizard. I don't think we have to reinvent wheels here, basically any distro has some solution for the problem of how to ask the user what the initial set of installed programs should look like.

 

[Granitehead]

If the system works like that, it is no longer that important what you put in the default firmware. I would probably put most of the stuff we have on the Pandora in there, because the size of that is no big deal and those are probably important enough anyway. And that would mean that .pnd files will often work without needing extra installs (well, if the .pnd is sufficiently sane).

Also, it probably makes sense to use parts of the Debian installer like tasksel in the first boot wizard. I don't think we have to reinvent wheels here, basically any distro has some solution for the problem of how to ask the user what the initial set of installed programs should look like.

As I understand it, no, .pnds will stop working because even if you have the same libs they would be compiled with some other option or something (I've forgotten what it was about exactly. Ah yes, armhf vs something else, wans't it?). They would need their libs the Pandora way while the Pyra programs would need libs in that other slightly faster way.
Could tasksel be configured to display other choices and generate custom meta packages?

 

[theredbaron]

Personally, I would prefer a very "base" install:

DE: I assume XFCE is most wanted though I would want LXDE due to size/preference.

Music Player: Something small, I prefer Cmus(C*).
Video Player: Smplayer2 is great for this. Small and can play just about anything.

Browser: Midori is great for a stock browser.

Txt editor: Leafpad would be fine for this. I prefer Gedit, but it isn't good for a stock editor.
File Manager: If XFCE then Thunar, anything else just go with PCmanFM (I have had bad luck with caja ).
Package Manager: Synaptic works great at this. Though aptitude would be fine to, as long as it has a menu option for those that hate launching terminals.

That's it. All the base system needs to give is a "base". It should be usable for simple media and internet, but everything else can be installed as needed. Personally, of the apps in the first post I would also install Radiotray, Firefox, and Pidgin, but they are not "needed" for a base install.

The /only/ thing that goes against the base install principle that I think might be good to have on stock would be XBMC. It is a bit (lot) bigger, but worth it imo, if you also remove the other vid/audio players. It would allow the Pyra to be a perfect media center, even more so due to the video out. This would also remove the need for The Tube (youtube I assume?) with it's addon's. As it runs quite well on my Pi, I believe it would be great on the Pyra as well. At least if there are decient gpu drivers.

Also, Hi all, first post here. Been watching the Pandora since it was announced, and now the Pyra. Pandora was a bit out of my price range, but I do hope to get the Pyra. It just sounds awesome, and would be a perfect replacment computer for me. As such I know I am not a community member exactly, but I just thought I would put my opinion out here.

 

[comradekingu]

A nice community made splashscreen, boot animation, login screen, desktop, video of ed explaining how to use the system.

Minimenu has its use, not default but there for optional use, pnd-manager would be a great frontend to apt-get. wbs image viewer and nubnub recompiled to debs.  Some of the note-taking, personal manager apps on the repo seem nice, havent used.

I think a irc client (pidgin ?) connecting to #pyra or #pandora by default, or at least a freenode webirc tab in the browser would be convenient and a nice touch.

GCC and maybe other popular development tools

Having things available per default is a lot more friendly to newcomers to debian. Also, it gives some sort of preview, out of the box experience. If you are technically minded you can netinst only what you need or remove packages if you think they soak up your bandwidth for no reason.

Edit: i agree wholeheartedly with the above poster, but i think maybe vlc and firefox has more mindshare.

 

[theredbaron]

I too like VLC and Firefox, and as I said firefox would get installed quick. I just think that it would be best to keep the size down, and keep things simple. Midori is much smaller then firefox.

As for vlc, well, it just isn't (imo) as easy to use as Smplayer. Corse, this is also a preference thing. I normally have both installed, as well as XBMC. They are each for different use cases for me.

Sent from my MB870

 

[bzar]

I'd go with the suggested small first-boot menu to suggest installing some bundled .debs (individually choosable). Personally I'd probably want some, but not all of them anyway.

 

[ekianjo]

I haven't read all comments, but most of what I have seen "don't install anything by default". 

Well, I think the default image should have what;s necessary to open standard files out there. 

Standard files include doc, docx, etc... so in my view, OF COURSE we need to have LibreOffice by default and these kind of things. It's just a big pain in the ass if everytime you get a new unit you have to redownload everything, and think that there are several countries where you actually PAY for bandwidth (i.e. not free to download tons of data off the network). 

Agree it should "rather less than too much" but even most Linux distros nowadays come with the bare minimum, ie. firefox, libreoffice, gimp and the like. Why do we need to be backward about this ?

Browser: Midori is great for a stock browser.

Btw disagree with that, Midori crashes a lot. I'd rather have qupzilla, way more stable and very lean as well.  

 

[DrHAX]

flux capacitor drivers.

 

[ekianjo]

This means that when installing a new .pyra, you can get a message "This .pyra application relies on debian packages X, Y and Z which are not currently installed on your system. Would you like to download and install them?"

Does not work this way, because then you'd kill the "hot-swappability" of PNDs. If you transfer the card to another unit without internet connection, bam! it can't run it. 

 

[Ellorion]

I like PanPlayer.

A "pnd"-Manager out of the box.

Mono runtime?

 

[Natsu]

Can't we just stop that?

They order from an online shop.

The more I think of it the more nonsense it sounds to me,

Well, they could have spotty internet connection or travel a lot.Could be getting it for a friend.



Anyway, I prefer Gimp and of course the basics already installed.

 

[comradekingu]

If i do "mkdir -p /media/sdcard1/archives/partial && apt-get -d -o dir::cache=/media/sdcard1/ install gimp" on my pyra

then i can head over to your non internet cave, which is for case of argument outside of 3g range, and do "dpkg -i *.deb" on the sd card root and it will install gimp along with dependencies from that sd card.

Then we can sit there and have a conversation about the multitude of other ways i could have done just that.

I could even bring a whole offline mirror and batteries over to you in case you are declared lawless and have to live on an isolated island somewhere, but why would you be, its 2014...

 

[theredbaron]

Btw disagree with that, Midori crashes a lot. I'd rather have qupzilla, way more stable and very lean as well.  

I would have to defer to your judgment on that, as I have only used Midori on my desktop's x64 cpu, never on arm. I never had trouble with it, but I know arm can be a whole different beast.

 

[slaeshjag]

The build of midori and webkit that we've had on the pandora in Zaxxon, are not very good examples of performance or stability. Those builds suffered greatly from the outdated system libraries, and my ports of libwebkit had this problem that the newer libs I had in the PND kinda didn't want to cooporate with the rest of the system, which is why I stopped maintaining that. Even just .next should do a much better job at it.

 

[_wb_]

This means that when installing a new .pyra, you can get a message "This .pyra application relies on debian packages X, Y and Z which are not currently installed on your system. Would you like to download and install them?"

Does not work this way, because then you'd kill the "hot-swappability" of PNDs. If you transfer the card to another unit without internet connection, bam! it can't run it. 

If you transfer a PND that requires SuperZaxxon 1.60 to a Pandora that still runs Zaxxon 1, you get exactly the same problem (only it will not give a nice error message that you need to upgrade, it will just silently or violently crash).

Of course the intent is that the base system includes the dependencies of .pyra packages. But if you want the base system to evolve over time, you need some mechanism to deal with missing dependencies gracefully.

 

[Caine]

For the Pandora I had the idea to utilize XBMC as the default media environment and game launcher.

It was a bit too heavy weight for the Pandora and didn't support ARM very well at the time.

I would still like to see this idea become a reality for the Pyra. Have a lightweight window manager with XBMC on top and develop the required plugins for XBMC to detect and launch PNDs (not so hard, had it mostly working already). Slap a Pyra theme on there and Bob's your uncle.

I think XBMC is a great environment for the gaming-handheld oriented crowd with lots of plugins features and a very active community.

My lightweight window manager of choice would be awesome wm, but I acknowledge that it is not for everyone.

Thus:

• awesome wm (and the suckless tools)
• XBMC (pre-configured as launcher)
• Qt
• GTK