07-23-2023, 02:33 PM
The PineTab was described clearly as a developer machine with important bits not working yet on the ordering website. I know it was inevitable that some people would buy it expecting something different. I've been waiting years for a Linux tablet! To be fair, though I've played with it, I'm waiting hopefully for working WiFi before I spend a lot more time with it.
If the OP is just looking to get that driver running, well, when it's ready, the update is (most likely) going to be quick and easy. And I bet the announcement about how to do it will be loud & clear on this forum and on the wiki. You won't get left behind.
On the other hand, in the OP's message, I heard a bit of my teenage self. A lot of time, not a lot of experience. Maybe they want to contribute some of that time to the PineTab project and hopes to help things along!
"Anybody can code" is (mostly) true; but the level upon level of expertise it takes to write good software is something different. And kernel modules that interact with actual hardware? I am amazed by those who have gotten that far. It's like the final boss on a massively multiplayer game into which you have invested YEARS of learning and playing and building a guild.
So for mshelby and others who may be asking because you want to help: definitely jump in and start learning. But if you want to contribute to PineTab's hardware driver development, there are going to be *lots* of underlying skills needed. Some of those are programming. Even more of those are the meta-skills that are critical to programming, like asking the right questions and learning where and of whom (and sometimes even when) to ask in order to get the answer you need.
Learning about building a development environment (or how to apply patch files) is not a PineTab-specific question. This is not the right forum to ask those. One of the skills you're going to need if you want to work on kernel drivers is the skill of starting with a search engine and figuring out all the prerequisites. Like how to patch files. Or like what the jargon means. (The jargon isn't meant to keep you out; it's simply a way to short-cut a lot of ideas that can be assumed by dev's who have put in the time to learn their craft. Unknown jargon might, again, be the hint you need to figure out what you need to learn.)
If learning all that is not what you're after, no problem. There are other kind souls doing that hard work. And you know they will proudly share their results with us as soon as they believe they can do so without damaging our machines or losing our data.
We live in a magical time when generally all the software you need for most computing tasks (and an endless flow of flashy frivolities) is available for free. I'm grateful to the PineTab dev's who DONATE tons of time to provide for us fancy toys and tools (free of Apple & Google!). Thank you!
If the OP is just looking to get that driver running, well, when it's ready, the update is (most likely) going to be quick and easy. And I bet the announcement about how to do it will be loud & clear on this forum and on the wiki. You won't get left behind.
On the other hand, in the OP's message, I heard a bit of my teenage self. A lot of time, not a lot of experience. Maybe they want to contribute some of that time to the PineTab project and hopes to help things along!
"Anybody can code" is (mostly) true; but the level upon level of expertise it takes to write good software is something different. And kernel modules that interact with actual hardware? I am amazed by those who have gotten that far. It's like the final boss on a massively multiplayer game into which you have invested YEARS of learning and playing and building a guild.
So for mshelby and others who may be asking because you want to help: definitely jump in and start learning. But if you want to contribute to PineTab's hardware driver development, there are going to be *lots* of underlying skills needed. Some of those are programming. Even more of those are the meta-skills that are critical to programming, like asking the right questions and learning where and of whom (and sometimes even when) to ask in order to get the answer you need.
Learning about building a development environment (or how to apply patch files) is not a PineTab-specific question. This is not the right forum to ask those. One of the skills you're going to need if you want to work on kernel drivers is the skill of starting with a search engine and figuring out all the prerequisites. Like how to patch files. Or like what the jargon means. (The jargon isn't meant to keep you out; it's simply a way to short-cut a lot of ideas that can be assumed by dev's who have put in the time to learn their craft. Unknown jargon might, again, be the hint you need to figure out what you need to learn.)
If learning all that is not what you're after, no problem. There are other kind souls doing that hard work. And you know they will proudly share their results with us as soon as they believe they can do so without damaging our machines or losing our data.
We live in a magical time when generally all the software you need for most computing tasks (and an endless flow of flashy frivolities) is available for free. I'm grateful to the PineTab dev's who DONATE tons of time to provide for us fancy toys and tools (free of Apple & Google!). Thank you!