Release Xubuntu on Panda

[_VWV_]

I just wanted to say thank you to Notaz for that video of Xubuntu running on Pandora. The figures are interesting and I think they show that a) Pandora has enough RAM for light tasks like several tabs in firefox, abiword, mplayer, etc. But b ) heavy tasks like firefox + OO, or firefox + evince.. well basically any serious multitasking may cos problems due to insufficient amount of RAM. I messed around the internettablettalk and read people's expectations about the coming n8x0 successor - many demand more RAM indicating that 128MB might be not enough in 2009-2010 for general computing (UMPCing). The video by Notaz in the blog section just strengthen my doubts whether Panda is really what I need.
I heard some people preodered Panda just in case it's coming competitors (like the n900 or mids or whatever) won't be cheap/powerful enough. I dislike such attitude towards devs as returning money to such people may provoke stringent financial climate in the OpenPandora LTD. So because of my doubts I changed my mind and won't preorder from the first batch. I'll wait a bit to see the software part of Pandora.
By the way 2800 units in 6 hours - that is impressive! Great job and congratulations to people invested their time and effort into Panda. I think no less than 3500 units will have been preoderd by Sunday.

 

[craigix]

We will be asking the community to help us chose the best programs package which is optimised for memory for the Ubuntu option.

As several people have pointed out with some tweaking we can make a major difference in the RAM usage, and coming from one of the best optimising communities (the GP32 and GP2X) I've no doubt that we will be able to work wonders.

 

[benjiro]

First off: Arg, cut your text in parts ( when the edit button is restored ). Hard to read.

Now, the Ubuntu On Pandora movie showed a 70MB free memory after the entire Linux OS + X + Gnome have been loaded.
With FireFox, what caches its pages in memory ( and can not be deallocated by the OS ), it still had 45MB free.

Lets assume that the OS was running with not very useful services like cups etc... Its unknown what other memory saving techniques can be used. So there might be some room in saving memory space.
And if it was FireFox in a default configuration, just ported to the ARM architecture, you can also save memory there, by limiting the page cache. To be honest, on a SD card, there is less need for page caching in memory, thanks to the fast access time of the flash memory.

Now, in my opinion, your best to combine the Pandora with a fast SD card, "if" you are planning on running a full blow linux os on it. This for several reasons:

- Swap speed had a better response if your using a Class 6 card, instead of a Class 2.
- Boot / Access time will also be better.

Notasaz said that he was using a old 2GB card, so i'm assuming its a Class2, and it might explain the longer loading time ( felt more that it was starting up from a CDRom drive ).

Will a 256MB Pandora have been better? For Gaming / Emulation probably not, or limited effect. For a full blow Linux OS, yes. Is it possible now. No. The Memory on Chip problem vs high cost for a 256MB version. More memory on the Pandora is beating a dead horse... Unless TI releases a 256MB version with the same price point as the 128MB version OMAP before Sunday, aka before Craig sends out the order, you won't be seeing one. We can only hope that some of the TI people read this, but you have better luck winning the Euro Millions jackpot.

Ps: it was 2000 units in 6 hours.

 

[rokdcasbah2]

I seriously doubt that CUPS is running in those vids.

Also, you don't need to have a swap at all. It'd probably be better without, considering the speed. Plus, swap isn't just used when you run out of RAM, the OS will often cache things during idle cycles so that when you do need to page it out, it will already be done. I think that may be pretty noticeable with an SD card, and worth avoiding.

 

[_VWV_]

@benjiro
I agree that 45 MB with firefox loaded is very good (no, it's brilliant!). And I do agree with you and Craig that RAM usage can be further improved.

If I'm not mistaken, Notaz said his card was classless - that old it was .

And again I agree with your comment on 256MB Pandora. Yeah, 256Mb version is impossible right now and might remain the same in future, coz devs have stated they don't want to split community.

What I really don't get right now is if a speedy SD card can substitute RAM to some extent. Access time is good in case of proper SD cards, but read/write speeds won't exceed 30 MB/s (as Evildragon (or was it Mweston?) told us on the old forum) I remember Squidge saying (or was it somebody else?) that swapping is bad whatever media is used. That is why I want to hear from happy Pandora users about their everyday experience before I order mine. If 128MB of RAM is really an issue for UMPCing, I'd stick with something else. If it's not an issue at all, I'll be happy to buy a Pandora, coz I believe it'll remain the most moderately priced OMAP 35xx based device on the market with super active community.

 

[mechanizeddeath]

It's been years since I did any programming, and even then I was only a student barely past "Hello world." :roll: That being said, even at the beginning I sought efficiency in my code, and I felt more pride when my crude creations were smaller and/or faster than those of my classmates, than I did when I recieved a high grade on it.

Because I know from the GP2X that the people in this community are much better developers than I could ever hope to be, I can't help but believe that those 128MB are going to be more than enough for our awesome apps.

 

[sam fisher]

It's been years since I did any programming, and even then I was only a student barely past "Hello world." :roll: That being said, even at the beginning I sought efficiency in my code, and I felt more pride when my crude creations were smaller and/or faster than those of my classmates, than I did when I recieved a high grade on it.

Because I know from the GP2X that the people in this community are much better developers than I could ever hope to be, I can't help but believe that those 128MB are going to be more than enough for our awesome apps.

How the hell did you measure the performance of a hello world to be faster than your classmates....

 

[benjiro]

How the hell did you measure the performance of a hello world to be faster than your classmates....

School grade programming? Trust me, anything you do is faster then 80% of your class. Try some C programming, and most are just going to be studying the text, and reproduce it without knowing what it does. So any bit of know-how you got off programming, puts you clearly ahead of the rest...

 

[sam fisher]

How the hell did you measure the performance of a hello world to be faster than your classmates....

School grade programming? Trust me, anything you do is faster then 80% of your class. Try some C programming, and most are just going to be studying the text, and reproduce it without knowing what it does. So any bit of know-how you got off programming, puts you clearly ahead of the rest...

Well a hello world is so simple it's not really easy to get one to perform well over another...

 

[PokeParadox]

I suppose it is if you can implement it quicker than everyone else in the class... (i.e. taking real-world performance into account as opposed to just when you run the program.)