Which distro


debian stable, with older packages, and support for arm that isn't quite there yet.


The raspberry pi uses Debian as it's official OS. I have had debian running on my Dockstar for 3 years without any issue. Those are ARM devices, what exactly is lacking in Debian on ARM ?
It wasn't about debian on arm, but more for arm crosscompilers/packager support on debian x86. In stable you have to grab those from an external repo, in testing/unstable it's all part of the default repos.

That post did probably make it look like more of a problem than it really is.
 
Debian stable or if we are close to a next stable release, debian testing that will become stable a few months later.
Does anybody even read my posts? Debian Jessie gets its Freeze end of this year. That should be the perfect time for the Pyra...
Xfce 4.10, qt5, at least 4 years support from on the release date (End of 2014 is only the Freeze) and stable.


Sounds quite perfect to me...
 
My vote goes for Archlinux. I use it daily for 5 years now (desktop + laptop) for personal use and the last year I use it daily and on my desktop at work without any problems.

It will fit our needs perfectly.
 
It wasn't about debian on arm, but more for arm crosscompilers/packager support on debian x86. In stable you have to grab those from an external repo, in testing/unstable it's all part of the default repos.
So what ?The toolchain available in debian sid natively sucks. libsdl-dev:arm[el|hf] conflict with libsdl-dev:x86. So there is no way to have that cross-compilation toolchain and the standard native one. This is a no go to me. As the multiarch effort is a common projet debian/ubuntu, I dont see ubuntu solving this while debian dont.

At the end of the day, either way, we'll need to provide our own toolchain like we always have done.

So the choice cannot be done on devel tools but on end-user feature. Debian testing all the way for me.
 
I prefer Debian or Debian-based. I don't really care though, as long as it has a good package management system and has enough critical mass to be well maintained, complete and up to date. I assume Debian(-based) is the best choice in that respect.
 
Who needs cross-compiling anyway when you can just compile directly on the Pyra (maybe with an external screen and/or keyboard, or using ssh)? That's how many of us do it on the Pandora already; on the Pyra, compiling will take an order of magnitude less time, and big stuff like LibreOffice will already be in the distro, so I don't really see why easy cross-compilation is that important.
 
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Who needs cross-compiling anyway when you can just compile directly on the Pyra (maybe with an external screen and/or keyboard, or using ssh)? That's how many of us do it on the Pandora already; on the Pyra, compiling will take an order of magnitude less time, and big stuff like LibreOffice will already be in the distro, so I don't really see why easy cross-compilation is that important.
I know, the pyra will be much better in nearly everything. But you still have to add Monitor, keyboard and often mouse to be able to develop in a productive way. Instead I could just use my Desktop system without the need of cable-switch-magic.Furthermore many of the pandora developers also develop privately other stuff (which may not run under arm or linux), develop for money with libraries not available for the pyra or develop for more systems than just the Pandora and I don't want to rebuild the gcw toolchain for arm or to use qemu for this...

Especially if you want e.g. Indy game developers to make ports Sowning a pyra, the cross compile toolchain HAS to be easy to install.

greetings, Ziz

EDIT: Another quite possible szenario, that just popped to my head:

At the moment nearly all acitve users and developers in this board own a pandora. I think I was one of the last getting one. However, if the pyra is released, there will be developers, which want to compile for the pyra, but don't own it (yet). Reasons could be:

  • The pandora is just enough for them. I mean the battery, the keyboard and the size are awesome - > 500€ just for hd videos and more fancy 3d?
  • They can't afford one at release date. Some people really have to spare for the pyra
  • Maybe the pyra isn't even avilable at high count at start, so some developers have to wait two months™
 
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Who needs cross-compiling anyway when you can just compile directly on the Pyra (maybe with an external screen and/or keyboard, or using ssh)? That's how many of us do it on the Pandora already; on the Pyra, compiling will take an order of magnitude less time, and big stuff like LibreOffice will already be in the distro, so I don't really see why easy cross-compilation is that important.
I know, the pyra will be much better in nearly everything. But you still have to add Monitor, keyboard and often mouse to be able to develop in a productive way.
I disagree. I have coded 3 applications and 3 games entirely on the Pandora (using the Pandora screen and keyboard), and I don't think I would have been more productive on my laptop or desktop. The Pyra will have a bigger screen and improved keyboard, so I wouldn't say you have to add a monitor and keyboard.
 
Who needs cross-compiling anyway when you can just compile directly on the Pyra (maybe with an external screen and/or keyboard, or using ssh)? That's how many of us do it on the Pandora already; on the Pyra, compiling will take an order of magnitude less time, and big stuff like LibreOffice will already be in the distro, so I don't really see why easy cross-compilation is that important.
I know, the pyra will be much better in nearly everything. But you still have to add Monitor, keyboard and often mouse to be able to develop in a productive way.
 I disagree. I have coded 3 applications and 3 games entirely on the Pandora (using the Pandora screen and keyboard), and I don't think I would have been more productive on my laptop or desktop. The Pyra will have a bigger screen and improved keyboard, so I wouldn't say you have to add a monitor and keyboard.
Maybe. I wouldn't like it, but this is matter of taste. However, you asked "Who needs cross-compiling anyway when you can just compile directly on the Pyra (maybe with an external screen and/or keyboard, or using ssh)" and I gave you a quite long answer with a lot of cases, where you need cross-compiling. ;)
 
The crosscompiler support here is for building the pyra .deb packages, everything should build as automatically as possible for the firmware, you don't want to spend half the time moving files to/from a pyra just to rebuild a package. Although it seems that is exactly how everyone is/was doing it. (There's hardly any usefull docs to find on this)
 
Noooo... not Gentoo... You will wait for days compiling the stuff. Even if the pyra has more juice, it still is not a good idea.

When you have a pnd, the binaries are compiled, with the optimum settings by the developer. This allows all users not to waste time on it.
 
Is Gentoo still alive ? That would be my pick.
Gentoo was the first Linux Distro I ever used because it was the only one that I could really get working.  Everything was compiled for the PCs I had so everything worked on them.  That advantage isn't really for pre-set hardware like the Pyra as whatever OS will be custom fit to the hardware anyway.  I stopped using it years ago because Ubuntu derivatives just work anyway.  Linux has gotten a lot better since Gentoo was fast on it's way to number one.  I do miss it though, I have the install from stage one memorized, or I did back when I used it.  Fun times.
 
Peppermint or Xubuntu might be good choices. I like the sound of Peppermint Pyra. Sounds like a cross between Charlie Brown and Thunderdome.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
 
Who needs cross-compiling anyway when you can just compile directly on the Pyra (maybe with an external screen and/or keyboard, or using ssh)? That's how many of us do it on the Pandora already; on the Pyra, compiling will take an order of magnitude less time, and big stuff like LibreOffice will already be in the distro, so I don't really see why easy cross-compilation is that important.
I'm not compiling on Pyra. My desktop CPU will still be much faster at compiling than any SoC Pyra ships with. Also, you have to deal with one of these three compromises:

A) Edit over a remote connection which can add noticeable latency even when a network local, particularly over wifi

B) Edit on the Pyra directly and hook up a keyboard, mouse, and monitor to the Pyra which requires those things or a KVM

C) Edit locally on a desktop, but then you have to ssh the files you edit which is a pain. A lot more of a pain than sshing the binary which you can make part of the make step. Also, it adds time between when you edit your source and when you make again which adds up if you're fixing compiler errors. I have a funny habit of writing thousands of lines before I compile them ;p

I went with local compilation on my Chromebook because I primarily got it to dev ARM stuff when away from my desktop. But then I had to deal with a or c above and it got annoying fast. That's probably why I almost always test on the Pandora when I'm at home.
 
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^

D) Edit on sshfs-mounted directory (EDIT: Oh, probably what you meant by A)

E) (if possible, my preferred method) Most of the time only transfer files through git, test small changes as much as possible on the desktop, debug pandora-specific stuff using option D

EDIT: Oh, and compiling using distcc in a chroot (urjaman's dchrt)
 
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