Will Linux Ubuntu be preloaded?


Debian was the first distro I ever used extensively. Before that, I played around in Linux but never seriously used it for anything. It was the first distro that I ever installed without some sort of hassle or problem. I fell in love with apt.

I ran Debian for a couple years on that old computer, which had a 600MHz CPU and 128MB of RAM.

Hey, wait a second... :shock:
 
Yuck, if Debian was preinstalled, wouldn't that severely limit the number of packages available to include?
 
Personally I'd like to see us stick with XFCE as a window manager and apt as the package manager. Why? Well one of the best ARM Linux ports out there is Debian/Ubuntu, which is apt based. Plus apt just rocks. Secondly, XFCE rules at being very very low resources while still retaining a very user friendly interface. It's almost as light at Fluxbox but still retains the welcoming interface of Gnome, which would really help a lot of basic users use the device without troubles.

Does that mean stick with the already partially ported Xubuntu? I'm not specifically recommending it, but it might be a good start, the XFCE/apt combo is hard to beat on limited devices.

I agree with sHARD's comments.

Puppy Linux whilst very good is not as user friendly for novice users (specifically installation of software). Also combining Pandora and Ubuntu gives Pandora more PR boost than any other Linux distribution would. I could see a point in the future where the Ubuntu community champions the Pandora as 'one of their own', Canonical could be the de facto 'Big Name' behind Pandora that so many pundits are looking for.

Xubuntu IMO seems to be the right version of Linux, light on resources but still looks like familiar Ubuntu.
 
xfce isn't as light as fluxbox.... i have used it off and on for a couple years and ram usage is pretty bad compared to the *boxs + rox (which is basically an whole DE since rox includes a panel)

rox + blackbox = about 1mb or about 1.5 mb with fluxbox (includes panel pinboard and extensive DnD python scripted dockapps so should be fully cross platform)
xfce = about 15mb (includes everything in rox except less DnD and some halfway decent integrated apps which I have better alternatives addons are comparatively heavy)
NOTE: that is disk space not ram
most of the xfce programs can be easily replicated with scripted guis which are always very small and light weight

openbox is also very nice and is what i have on my debian box with fluxbox alone on my slackware box

for now i don't think E17 KDE or much else is stable enough to cut it unless somebody does an awesome job of getting them setup


on a side note would it be possible to launch gmenu in the root window as the desktop backround and have rox as the panel? that would be super awesome....

/me still has no money if i weren't in a public place i might shead a tear :) this is the most awesome project ever!

Edit: since when has debian lacked packages .... saying that debian restricts you package base is completely silly btw T2 has over 3000 packages and i think 1300 or some compile on all supported platforms
 
Ryzure said:
Yuck, if Debian was preinstalled, wouldn't that severely limit the number of packages available to include?

Um, out of all the named distros, Debian has the largest package base. For that matter, Debian and some of its decendents (ie: Ubuntu) are some of the only Linux distros to have ARM packages prebuilt *at all*. Nokia has recently helped with a big push towards building every package in Ubuntu for various ARM archs.

What I'd suggest myself is more building a custom distro based on Debian/Xubuntu, as opposed to simply throwing Xubuntu on there. As has been stated previously there's a lot of optimization that could be done, code wise *and* package setup wise. Xubuntu ships with a lot of things that are useless to the Pandora hardware.

Also on cb88's point, I love Blackbox myself, but the complex GUI really lends itself to a real mouse. A touchscreen/joystick interface would really work a lot better when powered by an iconographic interface, IMHO.
 
I can't really add much here that hasn't already been said, but...

cb88 said:
they should also have a release name like gutsy etch etc... maybe like version 1 "roudy" etc
*ahem* I believe you mean like "Pithos", "Urn", and so on. ;) Or maybe, "Athens", "Olympus", et al. Maybe even "Zeus", "Hera", and, well, you get the picture. :p
 
http://www.t2-project.org/ << link to T2 nothing is prebuilt BUT you just run the scripts after you have it configured how you want (I figure the process sounds similar to openembedded) and it generates a whole load of packages automatically then builds a disk image if you want

Edit: heh... i was trying to think up a good release name but they weren't coming to me cosguri ;-)
 
sHARD said:
Ryzure said:
Yuck, if Debian was preinstalled, wouldn't that severely limit the number of packages available to include?
Also on cb88's point, I love Blackbox myself, but the complex GUI really lends itself to a real mouse. A touchscreen/joystick interface would really work a lot better when powered by an iconographic interface, IMHO.

thus my idea to run gmenu in the background on the root window with rox as the filer and panel and openbox asa the WM
 
cb88 said:
Edit: heh... i was trying to think up a good release name but they weren't coming to me cosguri ;-)
Haha. :lol: (Although, I'm not cosurgi, though. I'm Prometheus. ;) No worries, though. :lol: )

I struggled with some of those, incidentally. :lol: I could only think of two for each bit of Greek theming. :p
 
Let’s keep this thread about Ubuntu. :) Obviously it’s not the first choice of distro for many existing Linux users, but this thread is about making Ubuntu happen for Pandora. It’s for the greater good. (“THE GREATER GOOD.”) Ubuntu is the distro that will capture the masses.

My input is more on the marketing side, skip the rest of my post if you don't care what it's called.

I like the idea of “pubuntu”, but the “poo-buntu” joke will be impossible to shake. (I considered uDora but I don’t think we can use that either ;)). PandUbuntu (or PandoBuntu, PandaBuntu) is an extra syllable, but immune to poo jokes. And it rolls off the tongue ok.

Prometheus said:
I can't really add much here that hasn't already been said, but...

cb88 said:
they should also have a release name like gutsy etch etc... maybe like version 1 "roudy" etc
*ahem* I believe you mean like "Pithos", "Urn", and so on. ;) Or maybe, "Athens", "Olympus", et al. Maybe even "Zeus", "Hera", and, well, you get the picture. :p
Agreed. It should go with the creature theme, but with a mythological slant.

Crafty Cyclops
Cocky Centaur
Giggly Griffin
Gawdy Gorgon
Manky Minotaur
 
Gruso said:
Let’s keep this thread about Ubuntu. :) Obviously it’s not the first choice of distro for many existing Linux users, but this thread is about making Ubuntu happen for Pandora. It’s for the greater good. (“THE GREATER GOOD.”) Ubuntu is the distro that will capture the masses.

My input is more on the marketing side, skip the rest of my post if you don't care what it's called.

I like the idea of “pubuntu”, but the “poo-buntu” joke will be impossible to shake. (I considered uDora but I don’t think we can use that either ;)). PandUbuntu (or PandoBuntu, PandaBuntu) is an extra syllable, but immune to poo jokes. And it rolls off the tongue ok.

Uboxtu? Hey at least it gets a Box reference in there :p
 
Gruso said:
My input is more on the marketing side, skip the rest of my post if you don't care what it's called.

I like the idea of “pubuntu”, but the “poo-buntu” joke will be impossible to shake. (I considered uDora but I don’t think we can use that either ;)). PandUbuntu (or PandoBuntu, PandaBuntu) is an extra syllable, but immune to poo jokes. And it rolls off the tongue ok.
For some reason, I really like PandUbuntu here - it seems to flow quite nicely, in my view. :)

Pubuntu is definitely a Bad Idea. :lol:

Gruso said:
Prometheus said:
I can't really add much here that hasn't already been said, but...

cb88 said:
they should also have a release name like gutsy etch etc... maybe like version 1 "roudy" etc
*ahem* I believe you mean like "Pithos", "Urn", and so on. ;) Or maybe, "Athens", "Olympus", et al. Maybe even "Zeus", "Hera", and, well, you get the picture. :p
Agreed. It should go with the creature theme, but with a mythological slant.

Crafty Cyclops
Cocky Centaur
Giggly Griffin
Gawdy Gorgon
Manky Minotaur
Love it. Love it, love it, love it (it's cool like Handhelds Mojo's Harry Potter naming scheme for their ARM Ubuntu ports :D). :p Any chance of chucking some of the Greek Gods in there, too? I mean, they're part of the mythology as well, after all. :D

EDIT: Whoops, sorry. I hope no-one minds the quote-pyramid. I'll slim it down if anyone has issues with it.
 
craigix said:
How light and efficient? Let's make that list :)
I'm very anal about speed and snappiness. I've come across two file mangers that were lightweight but didn't have a horrible or especially ugly interface. ROX Filer is one of those file managers, the other one is Thunar (though I haven't tested Thunar on anything slower than 1200 mhz, ROX was quite usable at 133 mhz, 16mb ram). I personally prefer ROX, because I like its RiscOS-inspired interface. I especially like the (optional) desktop and panel it provides.

For a good C programmer it shouldn't be hard to adapt ROX to recognize directories with PXML files asAppDirs (A movable directory that contains an application. Click the directory to run the program.)

Anyway, I very much recommend you give ROX a go, a debian ARM package seems to be available. Thunar is also quite good and sports a more mainstream interface.

Other suggestions for light-weight software:
  • Image viewer: Feh
  • Mail client: Claws
  • Word processing: Abiword
  • Music: Audacious
  • Browser: Epiphany
 
Any chance that a CLI (either fb CLI or terminal emulator) will be preloaded? Probably a silly question, but ever since the GP2x, I can never be too sure.
 
I'd probably choose Openbox as an option. I like its speed and configurability. Though probably not the most attractive for linux newbies, so maybe it would be a good idea to be able to choose xfce instead.

Also, I think the name Openbox goes very well with Pandora :) who knows why? ;)
 
Back
Top