What should be included in the firmware?

[slaeshjag]

Please, no niche WM's installed as default. There's a different one for every user.

 

[Caine]

Please, no niche WM's installed as default. There's a different one for every user.

I was expecting that answer
I'm fine with it either way. But, a lightweight WM is needed and any lightweight WM will do.

 

[slaeshjag]

Preferably one that anyone could use. I know I'll be installing dwm first thing I do, but the installed defaults should cover as many as possible

 

[LEOXD]

But, a lightweight WM is needed and any lightweight WM will do.

Since the Pyra will be far more powerful than the Pandora in basically any aspect, there is no need to take the lightest WM/DE available. The second or third lightest thing will do it as well. 

Plus, I don't think that tiling WMs are that useful on small screens. 

 

[Caine]

Plus, I don't think that tiling WMs are that useful on small screens.

I don't want to derail from the main topic too much, but I think awesome wm would be awesome to have on the Pyra.
I use awesome wm on the desktop (no desktop environment for me) and most of the time I run my applications full-screen. It has a very efficient work-flow, is distraction-free, minimalistic and very, very fast. Even without using tiling this is useful.

 

[theredbaron]

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

Honestly, this is what I would do. I am not someone who will change SD card often, or every really. So I would just use advanced launcher for all my apps, and run the touched interface.

Instead of Awesome, you could just use Openbox. Very lightweight, not as lightweight as awesome, but also not tiling .


Also, does XBMC need a WM? I thought it had a standalone version that didn't need one. The apps would still need one, but I was just wondering.

 

[God Ginrai]

You guys are forgetting that we need a default DE that is easy to understand. I'm not saying that the ones you guys are mentioning are hard to understand or learn, but a Windows user who might buy this device would probably be lost if presented with those WMs.

-God Ginrai

 

[Caine]

Instead of Awesome, you could just use Openbox. Very lightweight, not as lightweight as awesome, but also not tiling .

Also, does XBMC need a WM? I thought it had a standalone version that didn't need one. The apps would still need one, but I was just wondering.

I believe that XBMC does indeed have a standalone mode which runs on bare X, but as you say any application launched from there would require a window manager to be present. I already stated the point that awesome is not the best choice for most. Openbox would be more than acceptable to me.

You guys are forgetting that we need a default DE that is easy to understand. I'm not saying that the ones you guys are mentioning are hard to understand or learn, but a Windows user who might buy this device would probably be lost if presented with those WMs.

I do not disagree with you. In my opinion we should have a good and suitable desktop environment for productivity tasks and content creation. Options such as XFCE, LXDE and KDE are likely candidates here.
Besides this I argue for a more game console like interface (like what minimenu was for the Pandora) geared towards media consumption and gaming. I argue that with the added memory and power of the Pyra XBMC would make a marvellous replacement for minimenu.

 

[God Ginrai]

I do not disagree with you. In my opinion we should have a good and suitable desktop environment for productivity tasks and content creation. Options such as XFCE, LXDE and KDE are likely candidates here.

I like KDE, but honestly I feel like it is too much to use as a base install. I think XFCE would be a better candidate there. As for LXDE, I've disliked it ever since I had so much trouble trying to set up lxdm. (Never did get it working... -_- )

Besides this I argue for a more game console like interface (like what minimenu was for the Pandora) geared towards media consumption and gaming. I argue that with the added memory and power of the Pyra XBMC would make a marvellous replacement for minimenu.

Oh I have nothing against XBMC. I'm sure there will be a large number of users interested in using it. Replacement for Minimenu? I'm not so sure. However, I definitely believe that it would be a popular alternate interface. I don't know if including it by default would be a good idea, tho'. Doesn't it take up a lot of space?

-God Ginrai

 

[theredbaron]

You guys are forgetting that we need a default DE that is easy to understand. I'm not saying that the ones you guys are mentioning are hard to understand or learn, but a Windows user who might buy this device would probably be lost if presented with those WMs.

-God Ginrai

I have found LXDE to be quite easy to understand. The only problem with it is that there is no gui program for alot of stuff, you just edit txt files (though it is really easy, imo). However, you do make a good point. I think the best DE for windows users would be XFCE. It is really simple, with an easy to use control panel.

I do not disagree with you. In my opinion we should have a good and suitable desktop environment for productivity tasks and content creation. Options such as XFCE, LXDE and KDE are likely candidates here.

I like KDE, but honestly I feel like it is too much to use as a base install. I think XFCE would be a better candidate there. As for LXDE, I've disliked it ever since I had so much trouble trying to set up lxdm. (Never did get it working... -_- )

Besides this I argue for a more game console like interface (like what minimenu was for the Pandora) geared towards media consumption and gaming. I argue that with the added memory and power of the Pyra XBMC would make a marvellous replacement for minimenu.

Oh I have nothing against XBMC. I'm sure there will be a large number of users interested in using it. Replacement for Minimenu? I'm not so sure. However, I definitely believe that it would be a popular alternate interface. I don't know if including it by default would be a good idea, tho'. Doesn't it take up a lot of space?

-God Ginrai

The size of XBMC itself is about 40MB, but with all the libraries needed it would be more like 100-200MB. This is alot, even more so if you consider that smplayer is less then 20MB. So, I guess it all depends on how low you are trying to keep the install size as to weither or not it is worth it to have it on stock.


As for LXDM, on Arch it works fine, it is what I am using now. It isn't the best "looking", but it does work fine.

 

[God Ginrai]

The size of XBMC itself is about 40MB, but with all the libraries needed it would be more like 100-200MB. This is alot, even more so if you consider that smplayer is less then 20MB. So, I guess it all depends on how low you are trying to keep the install size as to weither or not it is worth it to have it on stock.

Also, in general, we should keep the default distro pretty basic, so that there is less stuff that EvilDragon has to support.

As for LXDM, on Arch it works fine, it is what I am using now. It isn't the best "looking", but it does work fine.

Maybe for you it does. I tried to install it on my Arch system 2 years ago, and it was an utter nightmare. I couldn't get it to show up on start up, and if I just ran it, I could see it, but it would not log in correctly and show my DE.

-God Ginrai

 

[theredbaron]

The size of XBMC itself is about 40MB, but with all the libraries needed it would be more like 100-200MB. This is alot, even more so if you consider that smplayer is less then 20MB. So, I guess it all depends on how low you are trying to keep the install size as to weither or not it is worth it to have it on stock.

Also, in general, we should keep the default distro pretty basic, so that there is less stuff that EvilDragon has to support.

As for LXDM, on Arch it works fine, it is what I am using now. It isn't the best "looking", but it does work fine.

Maybe for you it does. I tried to install it on my Arch system 2 years ago, and it was an utter nightmare. I couldn't get it to show up on start up, and if I just ran it, I could see it, but it would not log in correctly and show my DE.

-God Ginrai

I agree with the XBMC thing, which is why it wasn't in my list. Just something I thought people might want.


As for LXDM, I don't know why that would be, except maybe that they were switching to SystemD around then, and it might have had problems.