wraggster
July 18th, 2010, 18:55
News via http://www.openpandora.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=2&Itemid=2&lang=en
Wow, what amazing six weeks!
The Pandora has just been delivered to the first 600 users - and software comes flooding in.
Besides the official hotfixes (where a few contributions have come from the community, too) which fixed most of the bigger problems, quite a few ports, games, emulators, etc. have been released.
So all of you still waiting for your Pandoras: You will have a LOT of cool stuff available ready to play! I know it's hard to wait - but just think about what you can do with it once you receive it...
The Games
At the moment, there are 63 files in the freeware games section already - which basically means: At least one free game a day!
Not only casual games like Spout, Ceferino or Alienblaster, but also games which can keep you busy for a looong time like Battle for Wesnoth, FreeCiv, Gianas Return, Numpty Physics or Clonk Planet.
And if those games aren't enough for you, why not replay some classics like the Secret of Monkey Island series or one of the other countless adventure games ScummVM does support?
Or do you rather want to play Baldurs Gate? Well, we have GemRB in beta testing... Hexen? Rise of the Triad? Yep, all out there, waiting for you to be played.
There are also some multiplayer games out there - wanna play BomberClone against 11 other gamers...? Or try OpenLieroX.... there's a lot of fun coming.
Of course, a lot of other classics can be played using one of the Emulators...
There are already 27 files in the Emulators section - covering the real retro ones (Atari 2600, 7800) as well classics (C64, Amiga, MSX, Speccy, Atari ST, SNES, Genesis, etc.) and even weird ones like the SIMH where you could emulate a PDP-1...
Those are all fullspeed with sound - even in the unoptimized state some of them are in (a few of them are just quick ports).
PSX and Nintendo64 are getting there. PSX runs pretty much fullspeed with sound with a lot of games if you overclock, Nintendo64 is still a bit slow. But both are under heavy development right now - and will become better.
Please note: Using emulators and/or roms for certain system might be illegal in the country where you're in. Please make sure you don't do illegal things here!
A good way to legally emulate would be Amiga with the licensed emulator kits (including all the roms), for example.
Or DOSBox is also an example how you legally emulate - and it is running well for an unoptimized version: It plays games like Pirates! Gold or MadTV... so choose your classic and PLAY!
The Apps
There's a lot more than just gaming on the Pandora. You can listen to music, browse the web, do office work, etc.
Therefore, quite a few nice apps have been released here, too.
You don't like the built-in browsers? Well, Fennec, Chromium, FireFox... they're all available.
Want to follow RSS feeds? Liferea will help you.
Have a VNC server somewhere and you want to connect to it using the Pandora? Remmina will do it for you.
Want to listen to music? Choose your player! Besides MPlayer, you can download Audacious, GMU, OMMPC, Exaile or Deadbeef. Some even support classic game formats like SPC or NSF - so if you're up for some classic chiptune sound, you won't need much space.
And if you rather want to compose music - Milky Tracker and Schism Tracker are already available.
The OS
Quite a few things are happening around the OS right now. As mentioned, a lot of stuff has been fixed using Hotfixes during the last weeks.
At the moment, we are working on official Pandora feeds (meaning: You don't need to download and install hotfixes anymore - you can use an online updater on your Pandora to update your machine).
It's already being tested. There will be stable and unstable feeds available - so if you want to help us test and bugfix the latest stuff, you can do so (risking a reflash in case something goes really wrong).
Of course, there will also be regular Hotfixes released in case you don't want to do it online.
BTW: Did you know SDXC is already supported? Apparently, it just works :)
The community has also started to work on improving the OS. paeryn is currently working on SDL - that would speed up games and eliminate tearing.
If YOU want to help out with the OS, check out the current open tasks or take a look at the bugtracker. Maybe there's a task you want to work on and help improve it?
Other Projects
Beside programs or OS works, there are also other Linux flavours available - and some teams are working on them.
A mobile version of ArchLinux is already booting into X and can do updates via pacman, while a Pandora version of Gentoo called Neuvoo is also reported to boot and emerge already in IRC.
Also, did you know you actually run Debian within the Pandora OS?
So without rebooting or using any speed, you can actually use all the programs from the Debian repository...
Isn't that nice?
Tutorials coming up
Well, using the Pandora is cool - but especially new users might have some problem figuring out how such things work. I will create some video tutorials soon which show how to set it up, connect to the internet, use PNDs, etc.
It will take a while, but it's something I really want to do :)
Wow, what amazing six weeks!
The Pandora has just been delivered to the first 600 users - and software comes flooding in.
Besides the official hotfixes (where a few contributions have come from the community, too) which fixed most of the bigger problems, quite a few ports, games, emulators, etc. have been released.
So all of you still waiting for your Pandoras: You will have a LOT of cool stuff available ready to play! I know it's hard to wait - but just think about what you can do with it once you receive it...
The Games
At the moment, there are 63 files in the freeware games section already - which basically means: At least one free game a day!
Not only casual games like Spout, Ceferino or Alienblaster, but also games which can keep you busy for a looong time like Battle for Wesnoth, FreeCiv, Gianas Return, Numpty Physics or Clonk Planet.
And if those games aren't enough for you, why not replay some classics like the Secret of Monkey Island series or one of the other countless adventure games ScummVM does support?
Or do you rather want to play Baldurs Gate? Well, we have GemRB in beta testing... Hexen? Rise of the Triad? Yep, all out there, waiting for you to be played.
There are also some multiplayer games out there - wanna play BomberClone against 11 other gamers...? Or try OpenLieroX.... there's a lot of fun coming.
Of course, a lot of other classics can be played using one of the Emulators...
There are already 27 files in the Emulators section - covering the real retro ones (Atari 2600, 7800) as well classics (C64, Amiga, MSX, Speccy, Atari ST, SNES, Genesis, etc.) and even weird ones like the SIMH where you could emulate a PDP-1...
Those are all fullspeed with sound - even in the unoptimized state some of them are in (a few of them are just quick ports).
PSX and Nintendo64 are getting there. PSX runs pretty much fullspeed with sound with a lot of games if you overclock, Nintendo64 is still a bit slow. But both are under heavy development right now - and will become better.
Please note: Using emulators and/or roms for certain system might be illegal in the country where you're in. Please make sure you don't do illegal things here!
A good way to legally emulate would be Amiga with the licensed emulator kits (including all the roms), for example.
Or DOSBox is also an example how you legally emulate - and it is running well for an unoptimized version: It plays games like Pirates! Gold or MadTV... so choose your classic and PLAY!
The Apps
There's a lot more than just gaming on the Pandora. You can listen to music, browse the web, do office work, etc.
Therefore, quite a few nice apps have been released here, too.
You don't like the built-in browsers? Well, Fennec, Chromium, FireFox... they're all available.
Want to follow RSS feeds? Liferea will help you.
Have a VNC server somewhere and you want to connect to it using the Pandora? Remmina will do it for you.
Want to listen to music? Choose your player! Besides MPlayer, you can download Audacious, GMU, OMMPC, Exaile or Deadbeef. Some even support classic game formats like SPC or NSF - so if you're up for some classic chiptune sound, you won't need much space.
And if you rather want to compose music - Milky Tracker and Schism Tracker are already available.
The OS
Quite a few things are happening around the OS right now. As mentioned, a lot of stuff has been fixed using Hotfixes during the last weeks.
At the moment, we are working on official Pandora feeds (meaning: You don't need to download and install hotfixes anymore - you can use an online updater on your Pandora to update your machine).
It's already being tested. There will be stable and unstable feeds available - so if you want to help us test and bugfix the latest stuff, you can do so (risking a reflash in case something goes really wrong).
Of course, there will also be regular Hotfixes released in case you don't want to do it online.
BTW: Did you know SDXC is already supported? Apparently, it just works :)
The community has also started to work on improving the OS. paeryn is currently working on SDL - that would speed up games and eliminate tearing.
If YOU want to help out with the OS, check out the current open tasks or take a look at the bugtracker. Maybe there's a task you want to work on and help improve it?
Other Projects
Beside programs or OS works, there are also other Linux flavours available - and some teams are working on them.
A mobile version of ArchLinux is already booting into X and can do updates via pacman, while a Pandora version of Gentoo called Neuvoo is also reported to boot and emerge already in IRC.
Also, did you know you actually run Debian within the Pandora OS?
So without rebooting or using any speed, you can actually use all the programs from the Debian repository...
Isn't that nice?
Tutorials coming up
Well, using the Pandora is cool - but especially new users might have some problem figuring out how such things work. I will create some video tutorials soon which show how to set it up, connect to the internet, use PNDs, etc.
It will take a while, but it's something I really want to do :)