61 replies to this topic

[Bosbeetle]

So about the firmware, last week was supposed to be a lot of firmware testing. So I was wondering how stable is it now? And what are kinks (we now there will be some for we will have the first batch not completely ironed out firmware) that are to be dealt with?

Another question I am curious about is how the firmware is put on the NAND. Is this something that is done at the factory in texas or do you guys need to mannually put the firmware on the NAND, I am completly ignorant how this type of stuff works but I'd like to learn.

[Lunatic]

I would like to know this as well. A lot of devices can access internal storage as a usb volume, like my sansa media player, but I don't know if the Pandora does it this way.

[RajTakhar]

give em a little time

CraigX did say in a post he expected first units to arrive 1st dec and out by 10th december

So we can assume they are kinda busy at the moment

but given I think he said the same thing this time last year - dont be suprised if it goes any longer

from what i can remember it was mainly wi-fi, which DJWillis resolved, leaving just the final gui selecion XFCE or the PND system from capjuste

hopefully it'll all come together soon

[hells_dark]

CraigX did say in a post he expected first units to arrive 1st dec and out by 10th december

What do "arrive" and "out" mean here ?

[Bosbeetle]

CraigX did say in a post he expected first units to arrive 1st dec and out by 10th december

What do "arrive" and "out" mean here ?

He said put the 103 in cases dec 1st and he added 10 days for the guessing thread.

[mali]

ED is working on the OS right now. I suggest to ignore Craig's comments regarding expectations/predictions/estimations of arrivals/going out/whatever for now and wait for ED to chime in. It'll save us some moaning and flaming

[Bosbeetle]

But still I wonder about how and when the firmware will be put on the NAND just a small technical detail I am intrested in. I dont want to turn this thread into another its supposed to be out now/yesterday/two months ago flamefest.

[WizardStan]

But still I wonder about how and when the firmware will be put on the NAND just a small technical detail I am intrested in. I dont want to turn this thread into another its supposed to be out now/yesterday/two months ago flamefest.

Flashing the firmware is the last thing that is done. From the clues I've put together, they have an SD card (or multiple SD cards, more likely, so they can work on more than one at a time) that performs several automated tests, and then copies the firmware to the NAND. They insert this SD card, power it up, it boots off the card, does its thing, they remove the card, box up the Pandora, and move onto the next one.

[Bosbeetle]

But still I wonder about how and when the firmware will be put on the NAND just a small technical detail I am intrested in. I dont want to turn this thread into another its supposed to be out now/yesterday/two months ago flamefest.

Flashing the firmware is the last thing that is done. From the clues I've put together, they have an SD card (or multiple SD cards, more likely, so they can work on more than one at a time) that performs several automated tests, and then copies the firmware to the NAND. They insert this SD card, power it up, it boots off the card, does its thing, they remove the card, box up the Pandora, and move onto the next one.

So its manual than.

[EvilDragon]

As I did work with the latest image during the last day (and changing the settings to make it much more comfortable for Pandora usage), I can tell you how the status is:

The image is pretty stable so far. I haven't had ANY crashes. I worked for hours and it was absolutely stable.
Customizing the desktop works nicely, working with it is very nice (good speed )

I'll probably manage to make some video tomorrow, but don't nail me on that, I'll try

Booting is a bit slow at the moment, however, we're booting a complete Linux desktop, so that's nothing special. It boots about as fast as a standard PC, I'd say.
Suspend and Hibernation are not included at the moment, probably also won't be for first release, but a firmware update should follow soon, so I guess in January (latest) you can simply suspend the unit like a normal PDA and then you don't need to reboot each time you use the unit.

Right Click (Tap and Hold) is currently being worked on.
I did connect a USB Hub with mouse and keyboard and that also did work without any problems.

The first boot wizard (which helps you setup the unit with a user account, Autologin (or not), XFCE4 or PMenu as default boot, etc.) is already working.

PMenu works fine, cpasjuste and DJWillis are currently working on a bitbake recipe to include it automatically upon Angström image creation (at the moment, I had to copy the files over manually).

Bluetooth is also working fine via command line, a GUI will be included within the next days.

Network Manager also does work (with g_ether, WiFi and - AFAIK (haven't tested it myself) UMTS sticks).

3D Acceleration (even in Windows) does also work.

PND-Files does work in readonly-mode, as there is a problem with AUFS which is currently being fixed.

For a first release this is really nice.

The only things that need some more work:

* Right-Click (Tap and Hold)
* Include Battery-Status (it charges, but it can't read out the current status yet)
* Include Suspend (Hibernation doesn't make sense at all, it's not much faster than a normal boot and it needs to save the memory on SD Card)
* Some more WiFi-Tweaks (to make it faster)
* Some minor issues (i.e. permissions on files, etc.)
* Fix AUFS (so pndlib does work as it should)
* Speed-Up booting!
* Some more scripts (enable TV Out, etc.)

That's mostly it
Pretty usable already

EDIT: About the NAND:
Yes, we're working with an SD Card to boot from.
DJWillis tried a NAND install months ago and it worked fine on first try, so it's nothing special (after all, NAND is basically just the same as an SD Card).

We'll probably put it on while assembling (just before shipping) to make sure you got the latest OS.

We might even install a minimal OS which allows you to download (via WiFi) or load from SD Card the most current image and install from there.
This would make sure you get the most recent image when flashing
But those are just ideas, we'll keep you informed about how we'll manage it.

[Bosbeetle]

Nice update thanks Looks like the firmware already has come a long way.

Edited by Bosbeetle, 23 November 2009 - 03:42 PM.

[WizardStan]

So its manual than.

Um... I guess? I'm not sure what you're looking for. The only way to make it any less manual is for a robot to insert the SD card and power it on.

[lulzfish]

3D Acceleration (even in Windows) does also work.

I'm not sure what you mean here, 3D acceleration in windowed mode, or in a Windows host emulating the Pandora?
Or for compositing, like Desktop Effects?

Edited by lulzfish, 23 November 2009 - 03:44 PM.

[Bosbeetle]

So its manual than.

Um... I guess? I'm not sure what you're looking for. The only way to make it any less manual is for a robot to insert the SD card and power it on.

Like I explained I have no clue how it would work, now I got the answer. Thank you.

[WizardStan]

So its manual than.

Um... I guess? I'm not sure what you're looking for. The only way to make it any less manual is for a robot to insert the SD card and power it on.

Like I explained I have no clue how it would work, now I got the answer. Thank you.

yeah, but you said "it's manual then" as if you might have expected it to be otherwise. I want to look inside your brain for a second and find out if you have other ideas