Hi everybody,
As some of you might have noticed, I am still trying to find my way
with the Beagleboard. I've been trying the automated images, Steve's
build, the older demo image and I've tried something with Ubuntu.
Unfortunately it hasn't been a very fruitful venture.
I noticed that choosing one of the above is effectively eliminating
some of the options. My current experiences are:
1. Steve's build - 3D works, the webcam doesn't work from build to
build (In one of his earlier builds, I have been able to use it).
Working with the DSP is out of the question without recompiling the
kernel. So far I haven't been able to get the DSP to work. The
repositories are changing everyday and the number of applications
varies a lot.
2. Koen's automated install - Great system, would really like to use
this as default. However, I can't get 3D to work at all and the DSP
binaries seem to be present, however currently I haven't been able to
use GStreamer or see any of the beautiful video acceleration.
3. Ubuntu - Very familiar and a very potential distro, but it needs a
lot of time to mature and it doesn't feel as responsive as the above
two.
4. Demo image - I need to install some codecs and Koen mentions this
by "hitting accept to the license agreement", but I don't know how to
get it to work and frankly I have no idea what license agreement Koen
talks about. It feels like I have to recompile some drivers.
All in all I have been trying quite a lot but I do miss some kind of
consistency and coherence. I see all nice demo's on the Open Pandora,
which should be basically the same hardware and I want to have that on
my Beagleboard too 
So I hope someone has a complete rootfs and kernel image with all
features working and who is willing to share it with me. I would also
love to know the steps how to finalize the installation and I am
offering to write these down on the Wiki.
Hope someone can help me.
Kind Regards, Eelco
I noticed that choosing one of the above is effectively eliminating
some of the options. My current experiences are:
1. Steve's build - 3D works, the webcam doesn't work from build to
build (In one of his earlier builds, I have been able to use it).
What webcam are you using? Which USB port is it connected to? Are you
using a powered hub on that port? What app are you using to test it?
How does it fail?
It works on my system, on the EHCI port, with a powered hub, with my
webcam. Of course this doesn't mean a whole lot, since there is a
wide universe out there: many webcams, hubs, etc. If people don't
give me detailed problem reports it isn't likely to get fixed!
Working with the DSP is out of the question without recompiling the
kernel. So far I haven't been able to get the DSP to work.
DSP support will get added over the next few weeks.
The
repositories are changing everyday and the number of applications
varies a lot.
Well those are my "daily" development builds so they do change quite
often 
Nature of the beast. I delete the ones that are clearly
broken, so 99% of the time what you find will work (though all are
guaranteed to have bugs!)
The application set in the build however changes *very* slowly. I'm
not sure what you mean by "varies a lot".
<snip>
So I hope someone has a complete rootfs and kernel image with all
features working and who is willing to share it with me. I would also
love to know the steps how to finalize the installation and I am
offering to write these down on the Wiki.
Hope someone can help me.
What you are asking for is no small task, which likely explains why
you haven't been able to find that perfect image.
There are a handful of folks sharing their work. I respectfully
suggest that you help them improve their work, either by helping them
fix bugs/add missing features, or by sending detailed feedback on
issues you've discovered. We all want that image "with all features
working"!
Steve
Steve,
Point taken, I know that everyone is working hard to get the vanilla
version. I only had the feeling that a lot of people were actually
able to do a lot more stuff with their Beagleboard. I haven't been
able to see the DSP decoding capabilities (big buck bunny won't even
download for me) and I haven't been able to get Quake 1, 2 or 3
working (but this is my own stupidity as the 1.32 point release of
Quake 3 is hard to install on both Vista or Ubuntu).
So I really like to help people out. I am not a hard core developer
but I write easily and know how to combine things. I am going to look
for some opportunities to put this to good use. And while I am doing
that I hope someone will find the ultimate distribution.
Steve, about your builds, which one is your favorite until now?
Kind regards,
Eelco
The most recent is usually the one with the fewest bugs 
Steve
My favorite computer programming song (an oldie):
99 little bugs in the code,
99 bugs in the code,
take one out, compile again...
100 little bugs in the code.
100 little bugs in the code,
100 bugs in the code,
take one out, compile again...
101 little bugs in the code.
101 little bugs in the code,
101 bugs in the code...
Keep singing until n == 0.