Wifi-troubles + a few quick questions

[Talonite]

Ok, so I received my Pandora (finally!), yet I'm unable to acess the wifi. Now I know, I know, run the updater tool twice. Well I can't do that, as it requires a wifi connection to download the packages... Is there some way in which I can download the latest Pandora-OS/Supersaxon, and get the updatortool to look for that off the SD? Wifi sort-of works when I'm on Android Gingerbread, but all wifi signals are weak (regardless of router-distance), and usually drop-out.

I'm a bit of a 'noob' when it comes to these sorts of things, I'm not really finding allot of the documentation useful, so I'm comming here to ask the community

Also, I have a few other questions, just didn't want to create a thread for each ^_^ :

• Are there any other recent Android ports for the Panda? Jellybean?
• Can I plug in one of those (travel as you go) wif-USB-dongles? I don't know how universal those are, if there's a common standard or they need their own drivers etc., I have no idea.
• How can I get the boot-menu to show up? I hold the right-shoulder button on startup, but it still brings me to the same 'select your GUI' page. I'm trying to run the Ubuntu 12.0 something port. I tried renaming the boot.txt to autoboot.txt, but still to no availe
• What ever happened to that dreamcast emulator port? It looked really promising... And yep, I just wanted it so I could play my beloved Half-Life. Aparently there's a near-finished version of it for the dreamcast, the one that got cancelled.

Don't get the wrong idea though, I love the device! I'm just not sure how to fully operate it yet B)

 

[Linux-SWAT]

Hi !

No recent Android port is available.

The mini usb stick are probably compatible as they use the same chipset family.

Push R right after power on.

 

[ingoreis]

Welcome to the Project
The Wlan Signal Strength sign is a Bug under Android,it show ever 1 Point
In Signal Strentgh.
Android on Pandora was a Project from Notaz but he discontinue this Project,because
He dont like Android think i ^_^
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich would be cool on the Pandora as second or thirt OS ^_^

Sended from Pandora Android with Tapatalk 2

 

[Askarus]

Dreamcast was April's fool .

 

[Talonite]

Ok, seemed to have gotten most of those issues sorted-out.

With the android glitch, does it just display one bar signal strength, or is it actually that weak? If it is actually that weak, what can I do to fix it? Additionally, wifi now works on the Pandora OS, but it's awful! 40kbs a second, and I know my wifi offers more than that, yet the signal strength appears to be 5 waves... Would I do better with a dongle?

Shame that Notaz left the project, anyone got any plans to continue to keep Android up to date on the Pandora? I'd also love a touchscreen-point to Pandora keyboard apk, because I loathe using my stylus to click navigation controls on my favorite games. I know that the apk-environment pnd does it fairly well, but only for a select few android apps. I'd love to be able to config controls for apks myself.

 

[CocoCreekFisherman]

I do know many folks here  use an external dongle for the very exact reason you mention.

They are inexpensive and easy to carry along.

 

[Linux-SWAT]

And easy to lost ^^ (lost 2).

 

[CocoCreekFisherman]

And easy to lost ^^ (lost 2).

^^ me too....Sorry I guess I failed to mention this   :blink:  

 

[WizardStan]

Additionally, wifi now works on the Pandora OS, but it's awful! 40kbs a second, and I know my wifi offers more than that, yet the signal strength appears to be 5 waves... Would I do better with a dongle?

There's a lot of unknowns around the wifi. A lot of people have really bad connections like yourself, and a lot of people have fairly good connections. Many mysteries.Try this: start your wifi and then open a terminal and type the command

sudo iwconfig wlan0 rate 54m power offThat forces it to go high speed with special power saving features turned off. Normally it reduces the speed and cuts some power when idle to save battery life. Note that if this works it will use noticeably more power while the wifi is on.There's also an Android app I have called "wifi analyzer" that will help you find the best possible channel for your router. Works on the Pandora's version of Android as well and will help identify weak signals, and suggest a good channel for your router. Sometimes changing the router channel to something with more stars will help.

 

[Talonite]

Thanks WizardStan, I'll try the command before I look into getting a dongle

Can anyone explain to me how they were able to get the ubuntu port working on the Pandora? When extracting the .tar, I had numerous overwrite file errors, and I am unable to "boot from sd" when going into the boot-up options on startup.

"boot.txt" is located on the root of this SD.

 

[TrashyMG]

Can anyone explain to me how they were able to get the ubuntu port working on the Pandora? When extracting the .tar, I had numerous overwrite file errors, and I am unable to "boot from sd" when going into the boot-up options on startup.

"boot.txt" is located on the root of this SD.

What did you use for a command to extract the data to the SD card?


You may want to try the Slackware port if you want a more polished full featured OS, It's our best and most maintained alternative OS.

 

[CocoCreekFisherman]

I think it is good to have a  WIFI dongle regardless of how good your home connection is. 

For me it's a 'just in case' sort of gizmo. 

 

[Talonite]

Can anyone explain to me how they were able to get the ubuntu port working on the Pandora? When extracting the .tar, I had numerous overwrite file errors, and I am unable to "boot from sd" when going into the boot-up options on startup.

"boot.txt" is located on the root of this SD.

What did you use for a command to extract the data to the SD card?


You may want to try the Slackware port if you want a more polished full featured OS, It's our best and most maintained alternative OS.

Ohhh... bolox I don't know what I'm doing. I had this delusion I could just extract the data from the .tar.gz file on XP from  http://lxtek.de/pandora/ubuntu/ , then dump it in the root of my second SD, hold down right shoulder and then magically 'boot from sd2'. I don't know how stupid I look saying this... but what more is there to do?

I want to get Ubuntu up and running natively, so I can install Steam to play HL1 (which was recently ported to Linux, or so I'm told). It played awfully on Quemu, even with the 1ghtz model.

 

[WizardStan]

That won't work. Doesn't matter the Linux flavour (Ubuntu, Slack, whatever), x86 programs like Steam and HalfLife STILL need an x86 processor. That's what QEMU does, it emulates an x86 processor and is basically the only way we'll ever have a chance to play these games.

 

[klapse]

I want to get Ubuntu up and running natively, so I can install Steam to play HL1 (which was recently ported to Linux, or so I'm told). It played awfully on Quemu, even with the 1ghtz model.

It is my understanding that Steam games are only for x86 linux, meaning you need an x86 family processor to play them. The OpenPandora has an ARM processor, which cannot run x86 programs. So your plan cannot work.

EDIT: I didn't see WizardStan's reply. The forum seems to not give me most recent replies to threads.

 

[WizardStan]

I would also note that Half-Life is well within the ability of QEMU on Pandora to emulate, the problem as far as I can tell is the graphics: software rendering is slow. If we had some kind of OpenGL driver which converted calls to GLES in QEMU it'd definitely be a lot better. It's no easy task though and I wouldn't hold your breath.

 

[Talonite]

Thanks all for the replies, very informative. I didn't really understand how architectures worked, but I think I have a vague understanding now after looking into it.

My ultimate plan of HL1 for the Panda is not over, I've found a linux-port for a Gold-source engine clone (capable of loading up HL1 + CS content) along with the source code. Presumably I'm able to recompile this for ARM, and run it through either slack ware or Ubuntu on the Panda?

I've never entirely understood what binds all the distros of Linux together, so I'm not sure if once again I'm overlooking something else major... but I won't give up! One day I will be catching that train-ride into black-mesa on the Panda!

 

[thatgui]

My ultimate plan of HL1 for the Panda is not over, I've found a linux-port for a Gold-source engine clone (capable of loading up HL1 + CS content) along with the source code. Presumably I'm able to recompile this for ARM, and run it through either slack ware or Ubuntu on the Panda?

If that engine relies on OpenGL a conversion is needed as the Pandora only supports OpenGL ES

 

[WizardStan]

But with source code that conversion will at least be possible.

 

[Binky]

We have a wrapper for OGL--> OGLES, don't we?