Newbie little review and questions


lambertus

Still Fresh
Joined
Sep 8, 2008
Messages
51
Well, talking about pleasant surprises :) Got an UPS email on the 26th, an email form Pandora Ltd. on the 27th and a nice white box with the goodies today (the 28th). I guess someone's been nasty and broke the 2 months rule eh?


I'm going to repeat the stuff you all probably read n2 before but, anyway, things needs to be said.


Hardware:


- Case finish looks awesome. Love the matte finish.


- Lid is sturdy, hinge moves smooth but tends go fully open when shaken a bit.


- When the lid is closed the gap is not even. Why is there only one rubber stop installed?


- Left sholder button is a bit squishy, but it seems to improve when used a bit.


- Nubs feel as smooth as silk. Never expected that. Really a great job.


- Right click on the D-pad is not as confident and clicky as the other three positions. Needs a bit more force to register.


- Keyboard works well. I need to adjust to the Fn key position though. Is it normal that the Pandora key seems to do nothing in both MiniMenu and XFCE?


- The shiny surface of the keys makes the alternate function lettering (blue) difficult to read in office (TL) lighting due to reflections of the lights above.


- Feedback from the power-on button is confusing. Nothing changes for a while if you move the slider to the right while Pandora is sleeping so I find myself pushing the slider a few times not knowing if it has any effect. I guess the answer is you need to keep the slider in position for about a second?


- Screen appears sensitive and accurate to the touch but, I admit, I have no comparison (don't have a smartphone or similar).


Software:


- Configuration was a breeze. Few things to enter and you're set to go. Great work, can't say anything about it.


- When you've chosen MiniMenu as your default menu and you enable WiFi then there's no popup window when networks are found. Ergo, you cannot connect to a (new?) network using MiniMenu. This confused the hell out of me until I changed to XFCE.


- I missed an application (Pandora game perhaps?) that is able to make a sound without the need of loading extra content from an SD-card. But I know internal NAND is sparse so I can understand any decision to leave it out.


- Starting software in XFCE doesn't give you any feedback that it registered the request. So I often end up with multiple instances of the application I want to run. Is it possible to assign one of the leds to show NAND read/write activity?


So there it is, lot's of really good stuff and a few things that I probably just need to adjust to. All in all I'm really pleased with the Pandora so far. But I do have to say though, in all fairness, that the planning has been a disaster and I would not have put up with it were this a project of some multinational. I frequently referred to the Pandora as 'sunk expenditures', that says enough I guess.


I hope you enjoyed this little review. What I would like to do next is: Get Java running, try to get JOSM (the Java OpenStreetMap editor) working and configured and perhaps provide it as a PND package (depending on how well JOSM performs on the Pandora). Any tips to keep in mind in advance?


My main questions up to now:


- Where can I see the firmware version/revision?


- Are new Pandora's shipped including the latest Hotfix?


- Can I install the latest Hotfix even when that Hotfix is already installed?
 
My main questions up to now:


- Where can I see the firmware version/revision?
At this time, I don't believe that's possible.

- Are new Pandora's shipped including the latest Hotfix?
To my knowledge, no, so you'll want to grab the Hotfix 4 PND and install that, as it contains a few important bug-fixes. They're cumulative, so you won't need the three that came before it.

- Can I install the latest Hotfix even when that Hotfix is already installed?
Yes, and as far as I know it shouldn't do any harm.


I hope this helps. :) (By the way, about the right-direction on your d-pad; Others have reported similar, and found that they wear in after a bit of use, so that may well clear up.)
 
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I hope this helps. :)
Sure it helped. Thanks!

Edit: I just noticed that during booting the text ZAXXON is shown. Intriguingly the codename for Hotfix 4 also seems to be ZAXXON. This probably means Hotfix 4 is already installed?
 
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New observation:


I want to download the community codec pack. So I start Midori, got to the URL, click the link and select Save As and then click on the mounted SD-card.


Then the following error shows up:

Could not mount 1.0GB Media


Failed to execute child process "gnome-mount" (No such file or directory)

Now, if I open File Manager and create a new file of directory on the SD-card everything is fine. So it seems like


1) gnome-mount is not included.


2) Midori wrongly thinks it needs to mount the SD-card first.


Edit:


Downloading the community codec pack using Arora isn't working either. As soon as you click the link in Arora it starts downloading it. After a few kb the application seems to freeze, the CPU usage goes to 100% (@500 MHz and @900 MHz as well) and judging by the lights on the WLAN router no data is transmitted. Yuck!


Edit 2:


After waiting a while Arora is starting to show garbled text after it apparently has downloaded 16 MB of the package. Well, that really wasn't the plan... Watching it a while running at 100% CPU I see the percentage loaded slooowly increasing, but the amount remains: 16894.97 kb. Looks like a signed counter that's full or something. Anyhow, both browsers don't seem very mature. It's up to good old wget to do the job proper I guess.


Edit 3:


wget rocks (ofcourse it does!), it finished the job in no time topping somewhere in the 550K/s. Cool.
 
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I can't recall off of the top of my head what the solution to the SD Card issue is (I was lucky enough to get my Pandora last June, so it's been a while), but "Zaxxon" is the name of the current version of the OS (much like the way the current Ubuntu Long Term Support edition is "Lucid Lynx", and so on) - it bears no relation to what Hotfix version you currently have installed. You do need to install Hotfix 4.
 
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Thanks, I've updated now and indeed the Midori SD-card mount problem is solved. Strange that the Midori fix is not mentioned in the changelist of the Hotfix.


This exercise answers a few of my questions above too:


- The new Pandora's are not shipped with the latest Hotfix installed.


- ZAXXON is the name of the firmware serie and not of a specific Hotfix.


On the other hand:


- Arora is still confused about the nature of a PND file (it gives: "failed to load" now though).


- Midori crashes if I visit the apps.openpandora.org url and click on "More" and then click the "Back" arrow. (It happened twice in a row, the third time it didn't, the fourth time Midori crashed again). I hope that the Google Chrome in the next Hotfix will be a bit more mature.


You've been using your Pandora since June.. can I ask you a few questions about that? Are you still using it every day? What for mainly? Anything you want to see differently? Did it live up to your expectations?
 
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You've been using your Pandora since June.. can I ask you a few questions about that?
Certainly. :)

Are you still using it every day?
Except when I'm lacking on time (as happens sometimes), yes. And whenever I go anywhere, it goes with me, usually along with my Nintendo DSi, which I feel it complements nicely (once the 3DS is out, the same will be the case, of course :p ).

What for mainly?
Generally games/emulation (I have a vast game collection spanning my entire life so far, and it's nice to be able to format-shift a substantial chunk of it on one device :p ), and writing. I also use a "MiFi" device when travelling, which provides a 3G or HSDPA internet connection (depending on coverage) for web-browsing when I'm on the move.

Anything you want to see differently?
Aside from the eventual implementation of a proper sleep mode (which isn't there yet), nope, not really.

Did it live up to your expectations?
More than. I dreamed of a device like it since I was a little kid, and I still find that owning one is like having a piece of science-fiction that exists in reality. :lol: (Better yet, it already does more than I had ever wanted it for in the first place, so everything new is a massive bonus which I'm always grateful for.)
 
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You've been using your Pandora since June.. can I ask you a few questions about that? Are you still using it every day? What for mainly? Anything you want to see differently? Did it live up to your expectations?

Hey this applies to me as well might as well answer :p


Are you still using it every day? Yes, especially on the train


What for mainly? ScummVMing and watching movies


Anything you want to see differently? Not really maybe a bit better video playback


Did it live up to your expectations? Yes!
 
Thanks for the answers. I really hope I'll be as enthusiastic as you in six months. But now I'm using it intensely I notice quite a few rough edges, like mplayer stuttering every time I switch windows. It even happens at 900 MHz, although much less. But I think, we first batchers, all recognised the potential and I'm sure Pandora will be my travelmate as well.

Hey this applies to me as well might as well answer :p
And all Dutchies right? ;)
 
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Thanks for the answers. I really hope I'll be as enthusiastic as you in six months. But now I'm using it intensely I notice quite a few rough edges, like mplayer stuttering every time I switch windows. It even happens at 900 MHz, although much less. But I think, we first batchers, all recognised the potential and I'm sure Pandora will be my travelmate as well.

Hey this applies to me as well might as well answer :p
And all Dutchies right? ;)

how do you use mplayer, ive been using it through the terminal and then it works great :)


there is a post of skeezix about which tags to add


And yup Im dutch there are quite some dutch pandoraists
 
how do you use mplayer, ive been using it through the terminal and then it works great :)


there is a post of skeezix about which tags to add
I just double click the .mp3 (or .flv) in the file manager. I'll search for the skeezix post about this, see if it helps. Thanks!
 
^ Try out Deadbeef. That's the only audio-player I use, personally, and I use it every time I take the Pandora out somewhere. :p
 
Thanks for the answers. I really hope I'll be as enthusiastic as you in six months. But now I'm using it intensely I notice quite a few rough edges, like mplayer stuttering every time I switch windows. It even happens at 900 MHz, although much less.

Standard answer to something like this is that once the DSP is accessible this will probably be gone. This means that while this might be a problem now, it won't be for very long.
 
^ Try out Deadbeef. That's the only audio-player I use, personally, and I use it every time I take the Pandora out somewhere. :p
Thanks, will do.

Thanks for the answers. I really hope I'll be as enthusiastic as you in six months. But now I'm using it intensely I notice quite a few rough edges, like mplayer stuttering every time I switch windows. It even happens at 900 MHz, although much less.

Standard answer to something like this is that once the DSP is accessible this will probably be gone. This means that while this might be a problem now, it won't be for very long.
Thanks for the tip, I've read that in other places as well but I'm not really convinced that an overload of the CPU is the cause and offloading it to the DSP will automatically fix this. Why? Because CPU usage is around 10% while playing MP3 (as shown using top) so there is ample processing time available for other processes. I don't quite see how a mere window switch would be so heavy on the CPU that the music stutters. Isn't this more like a symptom of a too small buffer somewhere, or a bus or memory subsystem priority problem, or a kernel scheduling issue? And will using the DSP (which probably also needs buffers and bus/memory access) actually solve this?
 
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Is there a Trac (ticket handling) system somewhere?


The Cancel and Close buttons of the Date and Time configuration application in MiniMenu won't let you cancel or close the selection. A new window opens that says: "Error: Please select a timezone". Same goes for setting the date and time.
 
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What I would like to do next is: Get Java running, try to get JOSM (the Java OpenStreetMap editor) working and configured and perhaps provide it as a PND package (depending on how well JOSM performs on the Pandora). Any tips to keep in mind in advance?
Wow, I just noticed that another OSM editor: Merkaartor is already available as PND. Seems to run smooth so I guess there's no need for JOSM anymore (for me at least).


Not so cool: the GF claimed ownership over the Pandy... I'm gonna put up a hell of fight :p
 
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I've searched the boards for this, but could not find an answer:


The Pandora was left recharging last night and the battery was at 100% this morning. Now, 4 hours later I startup (wakeup) the Pandora and the battery is showing only 89% charge state. Is 10% discharge in 4 hours in powersafe mode normal?
 
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