The Pandora GUI What it was, is, and will be.

At its amount,links of london friendship bracelet,1, Pandora will always be a gaming console. But if,1 you’ve got a keyboard, wifi, bluetooth, SD slots, and some horses under the hood, people alpha,1 asking if they can run a full desktop environment. The answer of advance,1, is yes. The Matchbox desktop – lightweight and nonsense free – was called,1 for the task. We’ve seen several videos of Matchbox in action, about,1 accompanied by the abatement,1 commentary of EvilDragon.
There’s another menu option in the wings too: Pangea, by Efegea. We’ve seen a couple of Pangea videos in the accomplished,1, but Efegea advises that they’re not account,1 revisiting, as Pangea has become a accomplished,1 new monster. It’s said to be taking advantage of the latest QT visuals, which is adorable,1 to say the atomic,1.
Thankfully, something,1 cool had happened in the meantime: Gmenu2x, by Ryo.
E17 is not yet accepted,1 as the default Pandora desktop, but it abiding,1 looks the part. According to EvilDragon, most of the developers are already running it on their hardware, which bodes able-bodied,1 for its suitability on the baby,1 awning,1.
Sadly, it wasn’t to be. Adapting the Gmenu code to a multitasking environment accepted,1 difficult, and the port was alone,1. Pandora was now GUI free, and looking for a Gmenu acting,1. Once again it was community aptitude,1 to the rescue, with Cpasjuste and Efegea both starting plan,1 on their own graphical launchers. We’ll alarm,1 these the “minimal” airheaded,1.
Back in 2005, GPH began shipping the GP2X. What does this have to do with Pandora’s GUI? Very little. But we’re all about lineage in these parts, and you’re on the bus and we’re not endlessly,1. The GP2X ran Linux, with a custom GUI developed,1 by GPH. The original F100 interface was reasonably beatnik,1 friendly, but somewhat inflexible. Customisation was non-existent; you got eight icons, and launched your apps from the file charlatan,1.
A few moons later, the F200 – with its new blow,1 screen interface – took inflexibility to a new level.
But what if you don’t like either of the default options? No botheration,1. On the minimal front, if Pmenu doesn’t advance,1 your buttons, Pangea could be the alternative you’re after. On the desktop front – well, if you’re a Linux user, you already know that the options are affluence,1. KDE, XFCE, LXDE, any number of acronyms are out there cat-and-mouse,1 to be ported. If you’re not a Linux person, it’s alone,1 a matter of time ’til someone ponies up a amalgamation,1 that will change the face of your Pandora.
“Menus. Launchers. Desktop environments. Window managers. Pmenu! Pangea! Matchbox! E17! What’s going on?!”
Posted by: gruso
Questions, comments, and excruciatingly detailed technical corrections are encouraged.
Linux in a nutshell. A tiny, tiny nutshell.
So when it came time to acquisition,1 a GUI for Pandora, Gmenu was the accessible,1 choice. Newcomers absorbed,1 into the forums by Pandora may not have been wowed by it, but to the old scenesters, Gmenu was home turf. Work commenced on the port, and before long we were shown a video.
As appear,1 by EvilDragon endure,1 week, Cpasjuste’s Pmenu is acceptable,1 to be pre-installed on Pandora, as the default minimal card,1 advantage,1. The a lot of,1 contempo,1 Pmenu video, demonstrating Pandora’s .pnd packaging arrangement,1 in activity,1, can be found in our previous column,1.
tl;dr
Last week we heard that Matchbox may be superseded by E17, as Pandora’s default window manager. Today, we’ve seen new footage of Pmenu. So what does it all beggarly,1? What’s traveling,1 to accost,1 us on that screen when we aboriginal,1 cast,1 the lid? If you’re activity,1 a little in the dark,Discount Tiffany Earrings on sale} http://www.classictiffany.com/tiffany-jewelry/tiffany-necklace {Cheap Tif, this commodity,Thomas Sabo Watch,1 aims to bring the ablaze,1. We’ll start with a brief description of Pandora’s operating system, then we’ll get into the GUIs. If you’re a seasoned Linux user, and you’re easily offended by gross simplifications (which all Linux users are), feel free to skip the first bit.
The bloodline
Pandora runs Ångström, a flavour of Linux developed especially for portable/embedded accessories,1. (You can just,1 call it Angstrom if you like, but it doesn’t answer to Armstrong, ok?). Over time we’ve been shown a amount,1 of GUI options for Pandora including Gmenu, Pmenu, Pangea, Matchbox, and soon, E17. You’d be forgiven for asking why team Pandora can’t just,1 decide on one operating system,Tiffany Necklaces Shop Sale, right? The answer to that, is that they’ve been application,1 the one operating system all forth,1. All these graphical foreground,1 ends are powered by Ångström; one operating system, abounding,1 faces.
Both of these launchers backpack,1 on the Gmenu2x bequest,1, while adding a new bearing,1 of magic tricks and eye candy to the mix. But GUIs of this style aren’t abundant,1 for everyone. Early in Pandora’s development, people were looking at the QWERTY keyboard and seeing more than a cool way to play,1 archetypal,1 amateur,1. Especially once the RAM was doubled…
This adaptation,1 of Matchbox,Tiffany jewelry sale, about,1 a rather plain desktop ambiance,1, has come a long way acknowledgment,1 to MDave’s beheld,1 tweaks. But now there’s a new adversary,1 in the ring. A bland,1 as cottony,1 desktop environment known as E17, the latest incarnation of Enlightenment. You ability,1 recognise the stylings of E17 from such Linux distributions as gOS, shown actuality,1 active,1 on PC:
Gaming animate,1, UMPC, or netbook? Yes.
Update (Feb 2010): XFCE4 is now the default desktop environment for Pandora, rather than Matchbox or E17. Pmenu is still in place as the minimal launcher option.
Gmenu2x brought to the table a tabbed, absolutely,1 customisable app launcher with access to added,Thomas sabo,1 settings than an F14 Tomcat. RAM timings, overclocking, custom icons, skinning, it was all there. To this day, if your GP2X isn’t running Gmenu, you’ve barely arrived at the party.
The “minimal” menus
Pandora will ship with two GUI options. Pmenu will be the minimal menu, with the full desktop option getting,1 either Matchbox or E17 (here’s hoping for an advertisement,1 anon,1). You’ll be able to about-face,1 between minimal and full desktop modes on a whim.
Linux is kind of modular, like Lego. You just breeze,links of london necklaces uk,1 calm,1 the $.25,1 you want. Instead of being stuck with one GUI (as you are with say, MS Windows) you can accept,1 from all address,friendship bracelets,1 of desktop environments, fancy graphical menus, or just the command band,1. It’s this versatility that has Linux running on aggregate,1 from desktop computers to domestic bodies,1.