Why should anyone buy an Open Pandora?

[Binky]

Did I mentioned that the pandora emulates the Amiga without any problem?

I think you may have done

 

[PokeParadox]

Physical controls... seriously... I cannot stress how important they are for decent gaming! O_O

 

[Binky]

And typing.

Onscreen keyboards are horrible :wacko:

 

[Nintendo]

Thanks mate, I didn't know about the 2nd screen attachment thing.

He's kidding.

That or he's talking about DraStic's ability to put one of the screens over TV out..

But probably kidding.

Ah ok, I've been away from the scene. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Rockthesmurf]

You should buy another Pandora as the Pandora has a cool logo.

 

[_wb_]

just get a laptop lol

I have a full laptop, and also an ultrabook and a tablet. Yet I prefer to take my Pandora with me on my daily commute, because it is the only thing that:

1) is small enough to comfortably use even if the train is crowded,

2) can be used as a handheld (so I can use it without needing a table),

3) has a real keyboard,

4) is sufficiently Open (in terms of OS/software) to make it easy to do programming on the device itself, and

5) has a battery life that doesn't make me have to bring a charger.

My full laptop and my has 3 and 4, and maybe 5 (it has a big extended battery) but certainly not 1 and 2. My ultrabook also has 3 and 4, and maybe 1, but certainly not 2 and 5. My tablet maybe has 1 and 5, but certainly not 2, 3 and 4.

 

[Silent-Hunter]

Cups has many dependencies which are not in the original Angrstrom distro in the NAND. That's why it's a little tricky to include it (and there may be some conflicts with some library versions), and on top of that there is the issue of how to link to it if it's a PND and not in the NAND. 

It's far from being straightforward, from the conversations I had with a couple of porters. I will not disclose their names here

Why not simply do what the java pnd does, symlinking all files related to printing on the nand, with the link sources in the SD card?

 

[Mr_Loon]

What WB said + built in gaming controls + amazing audio quality. 

 

[WizardStan]

Java is an executable. When you want it it mounts the PND, when you're done it closes it again. If you accidentally eject the card while it's running no big deal, whatever you were working on probably won't continue working but you can just kill the process and restart. CUPS is a daemon and a bunch of libraries that maintains state, you'd have to keep the SD card inserted and mounted at all times, and recovery if you accidentally eject the card isn't trivial. It probably can be done, it's just a lot more work than what I had to do to get Java working.

 

[Franko]

^ Perhaps people that want to run CUPS could run it off a dedicated SD card always mounted say in the right SD slot?  Thank goodness that we have two full-size SD card slots...

...of course someone would still have to do all of the work in packaging it all up into something usable.

Has there been any work into reducing the (file size) overhead for CUPS if it did indeed need to reside in the NAND?  I would think that the average user would only need one printer driver installed at any one time.  Although I guess the "average user" probably wouldn't have a use for CUPS (and printing from the Pandora) at all...

 

[WizardStan]

If you're going to have a dedicated SD card for CUPS, install the entire OS to the SD card and install all the required libraries directly where they need to go

 

[Franko]

If you're going to have a dedicated SD card for CUPS, install the entire OS to the SD card and install all the required libraries directly where they need to go

Seems a bit "overkill" at that point, but would that actually work?  Sorry, my sarcasmometer is in the shop...  :mellow:  


I've been testing things out on my end...what seems the most functional for me - without getting into the "code" and such.  Seems like Libre Office can send files directly through bluetooth to my bluetooth-enabled PC.  Then I can print documents (of course).  You can also save files as pdf's and send them the same way or email them to a cloud-based printing type of service.  I'm pretty sure that there are some HP type of printers that will accept graphic files directly (via bluetooth/wifi/SD card), the printer will store the images and print directly from them, so no "printer driver" would be required in this case.  So there certainly are other options for the Pandora consumer that really wants to print "from" the device.

 

[ingoreis]

Because you can Connect many Things

 

[Franko]

Because you can Connect many Things

Is that the back of your Pandora?  Holy Moly....LOL.


I guess what I'm saying, in summary, is that "there's more than one way to skin a cat".  I actually run a "printing" business - it's more of a "blueprinting" shop, but we have a LOT of printers/computers of various types.  Until yesterday, I hadn't really thought about trying to print DIRECTLY from my Pandora before.  In all of my use cases, any sort of printer that I'd want to use would already be near a connected PC of some sort.  Even if I'm traveling, there will probably be some sort of "Kinkos" business around where I'd likely be.  I can totally understand why this hasn't been much of a priority by the devs/OP Team.


I would assume that when the "P2" comes out, we'll have a bigger NAND with greater potential for CUPS to work on our platform.

 

[MarkW]

Because you can Connect many Things

Now that's plain showing off - an Audi mouse????? Is it 4-wheel drive ? B)

Back on topic. Why a Pandora? For me, it is the only way to put as close to a full-blown linux system in my pocket as I can get; that's justification enough for me. I happen to rather like linux. Couple that with the exceptional battery life and my phone is relegated to providing a mobile hotspot (for as long as the battery lasts - and the OP can help out there) - about the only job that it does well in reality. And, I can still check my diary whilst I am on the phone without holding my phone down by my naval and shouting at it..

I now use the OP for pretty much everything except web-surfing. And I only have to resort to the Mac for that because everyone seems to assume I have a monitor the size of cinema screen nowadays. Back in the day....no, don't get me started.

If you can't justify the OP to yourself, then I very much doubt the OP community will be able to convince you. We're all here because we already believe the OP can do whatever it is each of us asks of it.....

 

[brokemike]

Well my Ill have my pandora back pretty soon. I have the rebirth edition, and can anyone tell me weather fbA 3rd strike works better on it. and weather or not ds emulator works smoothly on my version. and can the browser handle sites like youtube? hows flash? 

 

[WizardStan]

Flash sucks. I'm not just talking on the Pandora, but in general

But seriously, Adobe has basically abandoned any premise of trying to make flash run well on ARM, it runs fairly well for vector games and animations (but not all, there are limits) but videos are straight out. We have a standalone youtube viewer, Minitube, which works great. Youtube does work if you set it to 240p playback and have some patience while it buffers the first minute but it's probably just easier to use Minitube.

 

[WolfSpider]

Flash ran very good on my phone last time I checked.

 

[ekianjo]

Flash sucks. I'm not just talking on the Pandora, but in general


But seriously, Adobe has basically abandoned any premise of trying to make flash run well on ARM, it runs fairly well for vector games and animations (but not all, there are limits) but videos are straight out. We have a standalone youtube viewer, Minitube, which works great. Youtube does work if you set it to 240p playback and have some patience while it buffers the first minute but it's probably just easier to use Minitube.

Please don't forget to mention Youtube Downloader. That's way better than Minutube in many aspects (and this has nothing to do with the fact that I'm a maintainer )

 

[WizardStan]

Flash ran very good on my phone last time I checked.

What do you mean by "Flash"?Do you mean Youtube? Because it's entirely likely your phone has better video decoder support than the Pandora. Playing videos, however, is not "flash". It uses flash to play them, but the bottleneck is always in the way the video is decoded, and Flash as a general rule does this poorly; not always, but just in general.

If you mean games and animations, yeah, the Pandora can handle many of those just fine.

Point being there absolutely needs to be a distinction between Flash the video player, and Flash the everything-else-that-flash-was-actually-designed-for.