PengPod Hits Funding Goal, Plans to Ship Linux Tablet In January 69
An anonymous reader writes "Quoting liliputing: 'PengPod plans to start shipping 7 and 10 inch tablets with support for Linux as well as Google Android in January. The company, founded by Neal Peacock, has been raising money to help support software development for the tablets — and Peacock just wrote in to let us know the project has surpassed its initial $49,000 fundraising goal. In other words, the campaign will be fully funded and backers that pledged $120 or more should get their tablets starting in January if all goes according to plan.'"
And, unlike many ARM SoCs, the kernel for the Allwinner A10 powering it is developed openly.
There goes the tablet experience (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, an "iPad killer" shouldn't be that hard. Android does require a bit more processing power than iOS but it looks and feels so much better. The iPad got left behind a while ago, with its clunky hard-to-use UI.
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"Look and feel" is a personal choice, not absolute.
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Right...hard to use...
How's the non-Swype soft-keyboard working-out for you iOS fans these days?
I'll wait while you peck-peck-peck out a witty reply. After you type in your PIN to access the device, of course - no facial recognition security on those "easy to use" tablets.
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I wish android was in a position to contest the ipad, but with fragmentation getting worse and worse android is just going to get left in the dust.
Thank goodness your dream is todays reality. iPads market share has dropped again sown in one quarter from 60% to 50% in just one quarter. With great launches like the Nexus this is set to continue.
The irony of you quoting fragmentation in a topic where a tablet has the unique feature [what you call fragmentaion] of being open...A feature Apple products lack.
Re:There goes the tablet experience (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: There goes the tablet experience (Score:2)
Re:There goes the tablet experience (Score:5, Insightful)
It should beat out that $99 walgreens tablet
no it wont. It has $50 Tablet specs (shitty photoframe TN low resolution screen). 10' one is $30 more expensive than same hardware bought in shop.
Kernel source is useless when you have no GPU driver and no VPU driver (no h.264 acceleration).
I really dont understand what is this thing about.
It's about sneaking linux onto desktops.... (Score:3)
...as a coaster.
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It should beat out that $99 walgreens tablet
no it wont. It has $50 Tablet specs (shitty photoframe TN low resolution screen).
Back to the Future.
The one positive for Walmart in its five year mission to bring OEM Linux to the masses was the discovery that it could onload truckloads of worthless industrial surplus shit hardware to the geek so long as it was stickered with a Tux logo.
Either it is Linux, or it is a tablet. (Score:2, Interesting)
The Linux philosophy is incompatible with the concept of a tablet. Sadly kids today think "Ubuntu" would be what Linux is. They couldn't be farther from the truth.
A tablet is a consumer device that is not a computer anymore but is very limited and primitive in its functionality. It is not suited for creating anything, or using a computer for its actual purpose in general.
Linux is an operating system whose greatest features are its total freedom... of configurability... of modifiability... and most important
Households without a production device (Score:4, Interesting)
A tablet is not the be-all and end-all of computing devices, but it's not intended to be a production device.
So devices that are great for viewing existing works but not much else have become fashionable. The problem is that these devices' popularity will drive people to end up choosing not to buy a device suitable for creating works, but by the time they grow to regret that choice, it's too late. Look at how video game consoles drove set-top home computers to near extinction in the 8- to 16-bit transition, for example. The C64, Apple II, and the like had set-top presence, but by the time IBM's 16-bit PC and its clones became popular, home computers had all but abandoned the ability to view works on the TV monitors of the time, and locked-down consoles picked up popularity.
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Something that is designed to be used by people who actually make things instead of sitting there and drooling their life away.
The tool maker makes tools that make building or managing other things easier.
It doesn't make him superior to the business woman, artist or craftsman, who has the imagination to see their full potential.
It doesn't make him superior to those whose lives are centered around other tools and other tasks. "Drooling their lives away?" Not at all.
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I have a Transformer Prime, with the keyboard attached its as useful (form wise) as any small laptop would be. It just needs more productivity programs. I tried for a while to program on it but it wasn't worth the extra effort. This isn't due to its form factor so much as with the apps on it.
I find it completely odd that people have so many preconceived notions for what a smart phone or tablet can and can't be. They's computers, pretty darn powerful ones. I would be completely
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Maybe you need to realize that while you *think* you're creating things with your new toy, it's actually more like playing in a sandbox they created.
The illusion of work is becoming more successful than ever.
Someone who prefers a tablet over a keyboard is an almost certain sign that they are useless when it comes to any kind technical competence, and therefore getting things done using modern tools.
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Maybe you need to realize that while you *think* you're creating things with your new toy, it's actually more like playing in a sandbox they created. The illusion of work is becoming more successful than ever.
Someone who prefers a tablet over a keyboard is an almost certain sign that they are useless when it comes to any kind technical competence, and therefore getting things done using modern tools.
Nope, sorry. It's not the tablet form-factor that's responsible, true, but there are people doing great things with the touch interface based on notions of near-direct control that are analogous to puppetry. The technical competence required for current content creation tools is pretty esoteric as they are based on a workflow that arose out of the limits of computers 10-20 years ago and physical analogies that are irrelevant to most modern users. The paradigm shift that we're seeing now goes well beyond
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You'd be inclined to think that if you've been using shitty workflows for 20yrs.
Truth is, tablets have existed for about as long, and some of them were in many ways better than the ones on offer now. Still, they failed.
Some of us have workflows even built into our daily lives, which cannot be accomplished with the limitations of a touch screen.
Most work still depends on being able to type text, one way or another, which a touchscreen alone is useless for.
Most work also depends on focusing your attention on
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You'd be inclined to think that if you've been using shitty workflows for 20yrs.
We all have been. Any changes are just hacked on top of legacy code and inherit all sorts of cruft and inconsistency.
Truth is, tablets have existed for about as long, and some of them were in many ways better than the ones on offer now. Still, they failed.
All the early tablets I worked with were just Windows 95s in tablet form -- there was no attempt to change the UI. As I said, modern UI changes aren't intrinsically linked to touchscreens, but the touchscreens have acted like a catalyst to make a major change.
The first really important factor is the fact that iOS was an almost entirely new platform and made no attempt to preserve backward c
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We all have been. (using shitty workflows for 20yrs)
Speak for yourself.
Our biggest problem to date has been legacy cruft caused by a failure to abstract out code and break the coupling between the UI and the back end.
Funny, because that's exactly what was happening until the web and touch screens gave UI designers new headaches and set us back another 20 yrs.
Loose couplings, and other improvements, need decades to be improved, it's not something that comes as a feature of your "new" (ancient in reality) UI.
None of the new toolkits are even half as useful as the ones they're trying to replace.
it's just that we needed some "mechanism" to overcome the inertia of the old ways.
Did you ever think about there being a reason for the inertia?
Nothing new happens in IT, if you think you've fi
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Mod parent up!
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I beg to differ,
It'ts not the tablet form factor that is the problem. It's the OS and envitornment that limit yourself. You cannot develop for IOS on the ipad or iphone, you cannot easily develop for android in an android device. Those environment are pretty limited, because they are mean to work as appliances, not computers, however, the underlying hardware is a computer, and quite powerfull for what is worth.
You really don't need several gigaherz of processing power but for a couple of task, gaming and ha
800x480 (Score:3, Insightful)
$120
hilarious
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give me 300dpi or give me death
Still available for pre-order (Score:2)
More advertorial service from Slashdot? (Score:5, Insightful)
Again with the PengPod. My SmartQ V7 had Ubuntu, Android and Windows CE several years ago.
This is nothing new, and I'm even more shocked this whole thing has had a followup.
I wish could mod the summary
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Wow... I get modded "flamebait" for stating the PengPod is nothing special or new, and questioning it's Slashdot-worthiness?
So this is what has become of Slashdot... where legitimate criticism is smothered (censored) by moderation?
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Unfortunately, yes. There are still some people with their eyes open around here. It seems like less and less every day.
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Here you go [liliputing.com]
It's not Windows though, but I guess you can figure out how to port it across somehow. Do people still use Windows?
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Like what? All the emulators I've seen have been pretty much Linux-only.
BSNES: anything less is just BS (Score:2)
It has to be Windows, because the majority of emulators are developed to work on Windows only.
Drop the BS and pick up the BSNES [byuu.org]. From that page: "(Windows, OS X, Linux)"
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It's not Windows though, but I guess you can figure out how to port it across somehow. Do people still use Windows?
If you can figure a way to port Windows to ARM, you're cleverer than Microsoft, who've only managed to write a shared abstraction layer for ARM and PC....
No multiple windows on Android (Score:2)
Year of Windows Phone (Score:2)
Linux is a failure on the desktop, but found a niche as Android
If by niche you mean outselling Microsoft Windows...then yes although by machine you mean dominant computer environment. Personally I'm waiting for Year of Windows Mobile.
The reality is Apple is *again* the niche product, with its continued pursuit of profits over market share.
Its off topic, but unlike windows mobile which continues to fail due to its small market share, Linux flourishes I spite of it, and continues to grow. I'd call that a successful platform.
Why? (Score:2)
Not trying to sound like a troll here, but what is the point? There are so many cheap tablets running around, why create another somewhat underpowered one?
Sure, for hobbyists, it might have a place, but for average consumers just grabbing a cheap Chinese tablet ( which this is, ultimately ) seems like the better route to me.
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Don't know if that's a troll, but you did answer your own question. There are only 315 preorders for this thing. Sounds like a hobbyist device to me.
Yeah, for most people it's stupid, but that's the definition for every piece of equipment that every hobbyist buys, regardless of the hobby.
Now the actual project feels a bit dicey to me. First of all the Fixed Funding campaign. That means that he takes a
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No, it wasn't a troll, really. Just didn't see a point in "yet another cheap tablet", when they are a dime a dozen over in the mainland now, to the point of being disposable. ( i have a couple of them myself )
I thought the intent was to create a mainstream consumer product out of this, perhaps i misunderstood. But, even as a hobbyist product, wouldn't it make more sense to take an existing product instead and work on opening it up? Now, if the 'generics' weren't so widely available and so cheap id not quest
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Quick to judge, slow to read....
If you actually read something on their fundraising page, you'll see:
Fixed Funding means is all or nothing, if you don't reach the goal, you see nothing.
The hardware IS ALREADY COMPLETE, they didn't make it, in fact yes, it's a somewhat cheap chinese tablet. (They are chinese hadware importers).
They cannot ship by Xmas because the linux support is not complete, they just finished they fundraising, with only 23 days left for xmas, just the logistics
to deliver all tablets can t
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Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
The company that made my tab (Ainol *snicker*) has released their kernel sources, so it's not like some companies which don't honour the usage rights.
What a load of rubbish.
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Drivers
I've just got a mouse driver working on my android tablet, its not a touch screen driver you need to drag it to get to click stuff. thats took a couple of days It does support an external keyboard and mouse but it loses its advantage as a tablet, bluetooth should be working but I can't get my keyboard to pair up with it compass , accelerometer gps no drivers set up yet hardware acceleration not yet( its a frame buffer).
Yet the potential is there, libre office is installed as is the gimp there is a f
The A10 SoC's Video Decoding Unit Sucks (Score:1)
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Would love to see E17 Enlightenment on this (Score:2)
I'm running Bodhi Linux on a netbook, which is Ubuntu underneath and the Englightment E17 DE on the surface. It's got a configuration that looks like it would be really sweet on a tablet, but I ain't got no tablet and I'm not comfortable rooting or wiping my Google Nexus 7. I'd probably get this just to run E17 on it. I know everybody loves Android but I don't know, there's a lot of special software I use that runs in a terminal environment and Android can't really do that for me, so there's at least a few
Time to get past JTAG (Score:2)
It was a nice idea when it came out. But we have better things these days. So we should stop trying to use JTAG directly or even indirectly, and just use better things. This is supposed to be an OPEN machine, so it should have a simple "boot from anywhere" system. So a minimal hard burned boot loader that does nothing more than find the first SD card (an external one before an internal one) with a regular bootloader on it, and loads and runs that, should be sufficient to let the owner have complete cont