TitanUranus

I have a couple of questions, I suspect the answer is no, but is there EXT4 support yet (or are we still in need of a kernel update?). My second question is related to filesystems of SDHC, what's the fastest filesystem we currently have? I'm going to try testing a fat32 partition for storing stuff on, and I'll increase the cluster size to 32k - will I notice a difference to EXT2/3 (I know EXT2 wears out flash less, but right now I'm interested in speed primarily write speed). Does increasing the cluster size to 4k in EXT or 32+ in fat32/NTFS help with speed? Finally, how good is swap memory management. I'm used to the OS running off SD, but would I notice a faster speed when using swap if I ran the OS from NAND and a 256mb swap on SD1 and a 256mb swap on SD2 as opposed to a single 512mb swap on SD2 with the OS booted and running from SD1?

Cheers folks.

I'm not entirely sure if I'm putting this in the right place, so if any mod wants to move it please feel free.

Well, for the first time since Hotfix 5 I decided to do some extensive overclocking testing and I've gotten some surprising results.  I'd like to know if anyone else experiences similar changes in their clocking abilities on their pandoras, or if they'd like to report anything related to this (either the emulator I used to test or the actual opp voltages).  I'm not really asking for support, but some explanation would be very welcome.  I used hotfix 7a3 running from SDHC in these tests.  First off, even with reduced overclocking there seems to be a big improvement in the speed and functionality of a lot of software, especially the XFCE interface so this isn't a complaint or worrying me, it's just curious.

First off, I'll tell you what I was testing.  I tested the maximum stable MHz for OPP1 through OPP5, and for a fair test I used PSXreARMed r13, playing 007-Racing through level 1 and loading and starting level 2.  It invariably crashed when the helicopter in level appears or between loading levels if the clock rate is too high.  Most often it'd just exit the emulator, but a few times I got a proper machine freeze crash and had to reboot.  I chose the PSX emulator since it uses NEON and is unstable at previously acceptable OC values.  Or so I thought.

OPP1 was a big surprise.  On hotfix 5 and 6 I used the same settings I'd created under hotfix 5.  The OS used to crash around 480 MHz on opp1, certainly if you loaded up any CPU intensive software.  Now it (the OS) runs flawlessly and is stable (and remarkably playable) with the PSX emu right up to 525 MHz (but crashing at 530)!  OC'ing with opp2 was similar, but less dramatic, with the OS and PSX running flawlessly at 660 MHz and crashing at 665 MHz.  So there I was, thinking OC'ing would probably be better and more stable for other opp values too.  Not so.  I used to have everything running great on opp3 right up to 850 MHz, now the PSX emulator flakes out at a mere 830 MHz.  At one point I had the OS running well at 875 MHz on opp3, but took it down to 850 on hotfix 6 when PSX started using NEON.  So why the drop in stability at 850 MHz on opp3 between hotfix 6 and 7?  It gets worse though, opp4 flakes out at 895 MHz and it used to be stable right up to 950+.  What shocked me most is that opp5 became unstable at a mere 985 MHz when I regularly  tested stuff at 1024 MHz in the past without any problems.

Perhaps the PSX emu just becomes unstable when overclocked beyond a certain point, I had the frame rate limiter off and the car was flying along at about double the normal speed, so could it be that this just causes the emu to freak out even without overtaxing the CPU?  This may make sense as the OS seems stable enough at higher MHz when running lots of CPU intensive stuff like firefox 9 with flash sites.  Or has the clockspeed come down because the voltages to the CPU were affected by the increase in voltage to the SD cards - in which case running from SD might be less stable than from NAND???  Does running from SD cause more heat that affects the max CPU MHz (and could this explain why OC'ing higher at opp1 was better as the CPU just doesnt get heat problems at low voltage?).  Does anyone know any of these answers, and more to the point does anyone care?

I'm now astoundingly good at level 1 of 007-racing, and astoundingly bored of it too.  Someone else might like to test their pandora using some other game/emu (N64 uses NEON too) with the same OCD style dedication with which I tested mine.  Let me  and the world know your results please.

How I installed JDownloader On My Pandora

EDIT:  I forgot to mention you will need to download and install the Java.pnd first, get it here:

http://repo.openpand...ad.php?app=java


Ok, I use JDownloader a lot, and decided to try installing it on the Pandora - it works but not 100% perfectly.  It should still perform well enough to make it useable.  Here's how I installed it (I installed it on NAND, but I really recommend installing it on an OS running from SD).  You might encounter some irritating problems setting it up, but once it's running it's fine.  You will probably need to use a swap file to get some extra memory (especially if running JDownloader and Firefox).  You can download and use this simple program from slaeshjag to set up a swap file:

http://repo.openpand...s-0.1-slaeshjag

For this guide I will use "cardname" where you see this please substitute the name of your SD.  So here we go, this is how to get JDownloader on your Pandora:

Step 1:

Download the following file to the root of your SD card:

http://94.23.204.158/jd_unix_0_9.sh

Step 2:

Open a terminal and type the following:

sudo su (press return and enter your password)

cd \media\cardname

chmod +x jd_unix_0_9.sh

Step 3:

Now in the terminal type "thunar" and press return to open up the file browser.  Once it's open, navigate to your SD card and find the file you downloaded called jd_unix_0_9.sh.  Now right click on the file and select "execute".  This should open the installer.  For now, just install it in the default directory, with your own language.  Just leave the default download directory when asked (for some reason it wasn't easy to change it with while installing).  When/if asked don't install "flashgot" plugin and don't create a desktop icon (it won't show up anyway).

Step 4:

Once you have it installed it, don't try to run it.  Close thunar, close the terminal, log out and restart your Pandora (for some reason I had to do this).

Step 5:

Click on the start tab, look in the "Network" utilities, click on JDownloader to start it up.  You should be connected to the internet before you do this so it can update its self (can take a little while).  Once it's started you can fiddle about with the settings.  Firts of, change the default download directory (this is essential if you were silly enough to install on the NAND system),  Some of the settings are a bit hard to get at because of the window size, but nothing of note is unavailable.If like me you have Firefox as a desktop icon, you can right click the firefox desktop icon and copy the run command from there and paste it into the "custom default browser" setting of JD.  I also disabled the hjsplit and unrar plugins, but these things are really up to you.  Now you can go browse the web (I use Firefox 9, but you'll need some swap available - I reccomend 512mb).

Hope someone finds this useful.  I've probably gotten a few things wronf or missed something out, but really it's not that hard - even I figured it out.  Now you can queue up all those rapidshare and megaupload roms you want and leave them downloading overnight.  Any problems let me know and I'll try to help.

TITAN