Pdax Versions And Development?

[adf]

How, really is pdaX being developed? (not technically--I mean what areas are being worked on in what sequence?)

The reason I bring this up is that from what I, as an end user, actually see is:

Old Betas 1-3

Pdaxii13

New Betas 4-198 +patches

Some people are developing new libs for old betas (kkhazov comes to mind,, though there are more)

Meanie coninues work on pdaxii13, including usful new developments (like the recent sound enhancements)

The offical development seems  to be in the kernel 2.6 stuff.
..And what about the pdaX86 stuff?  I bet there will be a demand with the upcoming olpc, eeepc and nanopc

Maybe some reorganization would be esaier on all?

what about organizing via a "stable" branch based on pdaxii13 (and even re add 6000 support based on beta1?), a stable/dev-- branch devoteed to updating libraries on the 2.4 based stable system, and a dev branch aimed at more or less matching lib and kernel versions with debian stable (or newer)?

Functionally this is not very different from what seems to be actually happening, but descriptively it might make things easier to follow. How would a new user (or a casual reader) understand the difference between r198, beta4, beta3, pdaXii13, and Beta1? Feedwise, how much reading is required to guess which feeds will work with what setups? I've done terrible things to pdaxii13 using feeds with newer dependencies, and occasionally (like cups and gpe shield) have to resort to older versions to make things work. A simpler descriptive system would prevent this sort of thing (though in my case I suppose I're read/installed enough to know more or less what works and what doesn't on my Z).
Comments?

[Capn_Fish]

I'm guilty on the feed front. My feed is mixed pdaX Latest and pdaX Classic, mostly Latest, and I have no idea which is which for some of the packages. Heck, I haven't tested some of the packages.

[adf]

I'm guilty on the feed front. My feed is mixed pdaX Latest and pdaX Classic, mostly Latest, and I have no idea which is which for some of the packages. Heck, I haven't tested some of the packages.
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I've been assuming that your stuff is for pdaXrom 2.6 kernel-- "Dev" based your your usual "for pdaXrom latest' tag in the new packages thread.  Much of it should work in pdaxii13 "stable" as well, though, shouldn't it?

[Capn_Fish]

No idea. Meanie said it was linked to the version of some lib instead of the kernel, so I stopped saying "for 2.6.x kernels." The console apps may work, I don't know. Feel free to try, though.

[Meanie]

pdaXrom latest is being worked on which is the build from svn, ie r198 and r197.
currently, there is some work being done on the kernel and important sub systems and libraries.

no work is being done on any other official pdaXrom releases.

I personally still do some updates to pdaXrom which is based on beta1/beta3...

[adf]

pdaXrom latest is being worked on which is the build from svn, ie r198 and r197.
currently, there is some work being done on the kernel and important sub systems and libraries.

no work is being done on any other official pdaXrom releases.

I personally still do some updates to pdaXrom which is based on beta1/beta3...
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that is sorta my point -- the official descriptions bear a very limited relation to what is actually going on. Substantial unofficial work is being done on 2.4 based releases, probably all 2.4 based variants in use substantially outnumber the 2.6 users (even the ones using uboot to get into gentoo or debian), but have no real base beyond "adapted from abandoned beta." It doesn't really matter, I suppose. It simply seemed that things could be tidier.

[Meanie]

pdaXrom latest is being worked on which is the build from svn, ie r198 and r197.
currently, there is some work being done on the kernel and important sub systems and libraries.

no work is being done on any other official pdaXrom releases.

I personally still do some updates to pdaXrom which is based on beta1/beta3...
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=166074\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

that is sorta my point -- the official descriptions bear a very limited relation to what is actually going on. Substantial unofficial work is being done on 2.4 based releases, probably all 2.4 based variants in use substantially outnumber the 2.6 users (even the ones using uboot to get into gentoo or debian), but have no real base beyond "adapted from abandoned beta." It doesn't really matter, I suppose. It simply seemed that things could be tidier.
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I actually tried to convince the other developers to adopt a naming convention to easily distinguish between the older but stable releases based on the 2.4.x kernel and the new development work based around the 2.6.x kernel but we didn't really come to a conclusive agreement imho.
I was able to get some consensus to collectively call the 2.4.x kernel based distros (ie beta1/beta3 and derivatives) as pdaXrom Classic. However, the naming for other versions like the newer betas with 2.6.x kernels did not get much consensus and all we could agree on was to call the most recent version of pdaXrom, ie r198/r197, pdaXrom Latest or simply pdaXrom...

I tried to get a roadmap together as well but failed to get a clear picture of where things were heading since it is all still in flux...

 
So here is the current situation from my point of view (and this is just my personal opinion) and does not represent the view of the pdaXrom devs:


Most pdaXrom users are still using a pdaXrom release based on the 2.4.x kernel since those are the most functional and feature rich releases available. Most of those are either beta1 or beta3 based depending on models. In general C1000/C3x00 are using beta3 based releases while users with earlier Z models use beta1 since beta3 (a stable beta3 that is) does not exist for those models.
pdaXii13 is an attempt to provide bug fixes and enhancements to beta3 for C1000/C3x00 models.
pdaXii13 also provides bug fixes and enhancements for 7x0/8x0 but this is pretty much untested since I dont have one of those to test on.
beta1 also exists for 5x00 models but was pretty much unfinished and unpolished until recently when telemetric began to polish it up a bit and backport some of the packages to it.
a 6000 release of beta1 also exist but virtually no extra work has been done on it due to lack of said device.


On the other front, ie the new pdaXrom releases with 2.6.x kernel, a lot of users are staying away from it because of uboot while others (mainly new users) try to install the new pdaXrom using the old install guides or dont understand how uboot fits into the picture. Due to the move to the new kernel, a lot of the config tools don't work anymore in the latest pdaXrom version since they were build for the 2.4.x kernel.
I have released a few service packs for the new pdaXrom which aims to fix a few of those problems and also other problems that had been fixed in pdaXii13. Currently work is underway to update the pdaXrom kernel to the latest in the 2.6 series. Hopefully, once that is achieved, work can continue on other aspects of pdaXrom...

[adf]

finishing up the kernel seems to be the real problem. From what I can gather in casual searches, there seem to be a few "almost-but-not-quite-working-properly" issues with 2.6 on the Z (and in other arm settings, too, if the eabi/firefox problem counts--though I ran across a post someplace that inicated it was a fixable issue with FF). Though I admit to being uncomfortable about U-Boot, as one of those "I really would prefer if the thing did what I wanted when I wanted," sorts of end users (and one that flashed to beta4 when it first came out, and r121 in the 1st week -aieee) I find that the "almost " nature of the 2.6 ports is the most off-putting issue. I'm sure it will be resolved eventually.