Open Hardware and Software Laptop 152
New submitter mihai.todor85 writes "It looks like Andrew 'bunnie' Huang has been quite busy lately, developing a nice open hardware laptop. He was even kind enough to provide all the schematics without NDA. For anybody interested in owning such a device, he says that he 'might be convinced to try a Kickstarter campaign in several months, once the design is stable and tested' if enough people are interested."
that will make RMS happy? (Score:1)
maybe
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Only if he can compile the schematics into chips.
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Alas, at the moment it looks not to be - are there open-source schematic to RTL and RTL to transistor layout tools yet?
After all, the existing VHDL and Verilog compilers are horrendously buggy and expensive.
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Why so serious? :)
Re:that will make RMS happy? (Score:4, Informative)
RMS - a spark (Score:3)
RMS is not a destination; he is a journey.
Actually, RMS is the STARTING POINT of (hopefully) a very llooooooooooonngg journey.
For every inferno, there must first be a spark that started it all.
RMS is _that_ spark.
Re:that will make RMS happy? (Score:5, Interesting)
You sir, are an idiot.
RMS created the free software movement. He is the original author of gcc, emacs, and others. Unless you only use windows (probably the case based on your post), you have benefited from his work. Lots of kids here on /. like to trash talk RMS at every opportunity, but they are either stupid, or ignorant of what the world was like without RMS's free software movement.
No, free software doesn't feed starving babies, but it is the basis of the education of millions. And, many thousands of those millions contribute back-- keeping this movement of sharing knowlege alive-- now across generations.
You. What have you done with your life that makes you think you measure up favorably against someone like RMS who has done so much? Yeah, thought so. Nope, being a pathetic loser troll doesn't give you any bragging rights.
World needs more dedicated folks like RMS (in all fields).
Re:that will make RMS happy? (Score:4, Interesting)
Free software is a very large part of the reason these idiot trolls have the ability to annoy people. They should be thankful. the era of software freedom seems to coming to a close though. Open source has won the battle for the server, but is in a losing battle for the client, with walled gardens springing up all over.
Re:that will make RMS happy? (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure native's faster, but HTML5's write-once, run-everywhere (a feature no one else can offer now) is big.
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As someone who recently did a bunch of HTML5 code for a multi-platform app, your use of "write-once, run-everywhere" amuses me.
More like "write once, then rewrite once per OS and browser version, avoid any advanced features, and run (almost) everywhere but don't expect it to work or look the same". YMMV.
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As someone who recently did a bunch of HTML5 code for a multi-platform app, your use of "write-once, run-everywhere" amuses me. More like "write once, then rewrite once per OS and browser version, avoid any advanced features, and run (almost) everywhere but don't expect it to work or look the same". YMMV.
Yep. The same can be said about Java, and I presume, any product that claims to be "write once, run anywhere" -- Write Once Debug Everywhere is more like it, and when I consider that, I might as well be writing cross platform native code which is write once, Debug on 3 to 5 platforms vs write for the web and test on 3 to 5 platforms times three to seven browsers... ~20 testing environments vs ~4.
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As a long-time web developer, I say that there has never been a better time for cross-browser web development.
If you're using in-development features of an in-progress standard, you can't realistically complain about lack of consistent implementations.
look at the authors on the software you use (Score:2, Interesting)
extremely high chance its not RMS, but some guy whose day job is at a huge corporation, "selling out" to the man. the whole thing is hypocrisy stuffed inside the asshole of elitism. most 'free software' is built by work-a-day nobodies who prefer anonymity and the act of building itself to any kind of idealistic horse shit.
Re:that will make RMS happy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Android [android.com] is the biggest mobile platform at the moment. It has eclipsed Microsoft in the number of installed systems. Although these typically are not traditional desktop/laptop PC installations, the market seems to be heading more in the direction of Android (and similar systems) than it does towards those 'traditional' PC configurations.
In other words, the biggest platform at the moment is open source. Never mind that are several closed markets which serve this platform, you are not bound to them.
A quick look around the farm here shows that the advent of Android has pushed the last stronghold of closed source - mobile - off the cliff. All our PC's, servers and laptops run Linux in some form or other. All our phones run Android in some form or other. All our tablets run Android in some form or other. There is a television in the house somewhere, served by a DVB-T [wikipedia.org] receiver/decoder. The thing runs Linux. The DSL modem? Linux. The router? Linux (OpenWRT). There is only one remaining 'closed' box attached to the network here: the (HP Laserjet 2200) printer. Guess which of all these devices is the most troublesome?
In contrary to what you state, gaining software freedom has never been as easy as it is now. Even better: it looks like it will become easier still with the advent of open hardware.
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Is Android really free software?
The version of Linux included in Android is not entirely free software, since it contains non-free "binary blobs" (just like Torvalds' version of Linux), some of which are really used in some Android devices. Android platforms use other non-free firmware, too, and non-free libraries. Aside from those, the source code of Android versions 1 and 2, as released by Google, is free software – but this code is insufficient to run the device. Some of the applications that generally come with Android are non-free, too.
Android is very different from the GNU/Linux operating system because it contains very little of GNU.
Richard Stallman,Guardian [guardian.co.uk]
Also, Google deliberately delays in publishing source code, and with all of these, it is shameful for Google to call Android "free software".
Not Android's problem (Score:2)
According to RMS, Android is NOT free software, and this is because of nasty policies of google to misuse free software.
Read your quote. The problem is not Android it self, the problems are BLOBs (binary large ojects) - big pieces of non-free software that is installed on some machine and is required to run them.
Android it self is open-source. You can get 3rd party modified builds (like CyanogenMod), a sure sign that the freedom to tinker (FSF's and RMS's goals in life) are respected. BUT...
Several ARM chipsets (including the one used in the TFA's motherboard) need a proprietary binary driver for the graphic core. (Some othe
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Even if he only uses Windows, he has visited websites running on open-source software, so he benefited from RMS' work.
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http://news.netcraft.com/archives/category/web-server-survey/ [netcraft.com]
Dec 2012, 55% of web servers run Apache.
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Amazingly low figure.
I guess it translates as "45% of web servers are slow and prone to crash, or insanely overdimensioned".
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Should I mention nginx again?
Somehow a whole load of /.'ers don't seem to know about it.
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Interesting.
Less than 15% usage according to http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/ws-nginx/all/all [w3techs.com], but creeping up on IIS and serving more high-usage sites.
(w3techs.com gives Apache 64% of websites rather than 55% from netcraft).
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Even if he only uses Windows, he has visited websites running on open-source software, so he benefited from RMS' work.
[Citation needed]
Google is Linux based. If you use google from a windows client you still benefit from Linux systems that were no doubt compiled with GCC.
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RMS created the free software movement.
No, he popularized "his" version of "free" which really isn't free depending on your perspective.
He also did it after Berkeley had already been distributing their software, for free.
And, there was software distributed freely long before BSD too.
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No, he popularized "his" version of "free" which really isn't free depending on your perspective. He also did it after Berkeley had already been distributing their software, for free. And, there was software distributed freely long before BSD too.
Duh, the RMS "free" doesn't mean "no cost". Of course there was no-cost software before RMS, like the shareware I bought in the late '80s and early '90s, but "free" in this context means "free" as in "you have the right to use this." It ensures that the software re
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But ultimately you could say that closed source is the most free, as it frees you to distribute your programs as binaries if you want to.
Public Domain is the most free, by that definition. Then licences like BSD and Apache.
But they make it possible to make a non-free derived work, which many authors of free software find undesirable.
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You sir, are an idiot.
maybe a troll - yes
disagrees with your views - yes
an idiot and an AC - no
free & open-source software existed before RMS and would have existed without him ... and he is clearly politically driven more by a philosophy than practical considerations ... and is somewhat of a nut-job !
ignorant of what the world was like without RMS's free software movement.
what was it like? i seem to recall that we got by just fine ... like we did before "Steve jobs invented the iPod" or "Bill Gates invented DOS/Windows"
Just because someone was the front-runner or the biggest fanatic in an area D
Re:that will make RMS happy? (Score:4, Insightful)
free & open-source software existed before RMS
No. Please at least try to educate yourself on the basics.
Before RMS there was no Free Software. There was open source. In fact most software was open. The Free Software movement was started in response to the closing of software. Specifically when a company took a printer driver written by RMS, tweaked it and refused to give him the source.
Free Software as a mechanism to protect user freedom certainly did not exist before RMS created it.
i seem to recall that we got by just fine ...
Yeah, the unix wars were great. I enjoyed them.
Shitty fucking awful terrible proprietary embedded venduh compilers were lovely too.
Of course humans survive. It would be very, very hard to wipeout th human race.
But the world is certainly a better place because of RMS.
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> Free Software as a mechanism to protect user freedom certainly did not exist before RMS created it.
As a license only, but people already cared about licensing and did work to ensure that code could be freely redistributable for example the "Networking Release 1" of the BSD software distribution.
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free & open-source software existed before RMS and would have existed without him
That is much less likely than you might think. (Perhaps you confuse free software with public domain software.)
Richard Stallman founded the FSF and without the FSF and the accompanying, carefully designed GPL free software would have very likely vanished from the earth already in the 90s when the first anti-free-software lawsuits came up. RMS frequently makes the case that many other people were just as important, though. For example, the fact that Eben Moglen got involved quite early with the FSF w
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A few wrong points there:
RMS did not create the free software movement, it already existed.
RMS did not create emacs, it already existed. He just refused to learn VI.
People on windows have benefited from related projects.
GCC was wonderful in its time but it's due to be eaten by LLVM/CLANG around about now. Good on RMS for writing it though. GCC wasn't the only free compiler but it was by far the most useful.
RMS is an outspoken advocate and that's a wonderful thing, sadly he is a bit of a looney too.
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> World needs more dedicated folks like RMS (in all fields).
Since he sees no problems with Child Pornography or pedophilia maybe folks like RMS shouldn't be in fields caring for children.
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Making RMS happy. (Score:1)
RMS won't be happy until the entire planet lives in hippie communes. You can't satisfy a person like that.
Of course you can satisfy RMS.
As long as you don't have cats, or dogs that bark, but net access with ssh-connection, and maybe a parrot to talk to, he might even find your house an acceptable place to stay [mysociety.org]
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But for christ's sake don't buy a parrot just because he's visiting, dude would not be cool with that.
Except that it's not (Score:1)
Binary blobs required for 3D acceleration and many Wifi drivers. Nothing to see here.
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Not necessarily [bunniestudios.com]. It depends on what your needs are and how much money are you willing to invest.
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"401 Authorization Required" - The irony...
Actually closed-blob free? Re:Except that it's not (Score:3)
bunnie says: December 16, 2012 at 3:20 am
Clarification: Wifi does not require a closed-source blob, if you use an Atheros 9k mPCI-x version. An example card is linked under the mPCIx feature bullet.
The USB card is provided as an option just in case you want to put something else in the mini PCI slot, or you wanted a second wifi interface for some reason. Also, the USB card is much cheaper than the mPCIx card, so it’s a cost-down option for those who don’t care as much about a small blob in the system. Basically, if you care about having no blob for wifi, you can pay for an option that is open source.
GPU, on the other hand, is probably out of reach. nvdia and ATI have set a pretty strong precedent for closed source drivers to use those elements, and the IP vendors for integrated GPUs (like Vivante) are following suit. However, GPU is non-essential IMO for a large application space.
An interesting project, I wish them luck. Even if it is never widely popular in the marketplace, who knows what spinoff projects this might launch?
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"The bunnie" says otherwise (from The Fine Article's comment section):
bunnie says:
December 16, 2012 at 3:20 am
Clarification: Wifi does not require a closed-source blob, if you use an Atheros 9k mPCI-x version
The USB card is provided as an option just in case you want to put something else in the mini PCI slot, or you wanted a second wifi interface for some reason. Also, the USB card is much cheaper than the mPCIx card, so it’s a cost-down option for those who don’t care as much about a small blob in the system. Basically, if you care about having no blob for wifi, you can pay for an option that is open source.
GPU, on the other hand, is probably out of reach. nvdia and ATI have set a pretty strong precedent for closed source drivers to use those elements, and the IP vendors for integrated GPUs (like Vivante) are following suit. However, GPU is non-essential IMO for a large application space.
An interesting project, I wish them luck. Even if it is never widely popular in the marketplace, who knows what spinoff projects this might launch?
Yeah, for Wifi IF you use one specific mPCI-x version, but he also ammends GPUs are "out of reach", as in "binary blobs required". So, from a purist point of view, no different than the myriad of ARM netbooks/tablets/convertibles/whatnot.
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Atheros ath9k and ath5k mini-PCIe cards are not exactly exotic hardware...
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I'm not saying this is not a cool device. As cool as the Raspberry Pi for instance, but you can't say it's really "open hardware" if if needs binary blobs. Open is open, and this is not.
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horseshit.... how many netbooks/tablets/convertibles/whatnot have a RPi header + many servo/motor PWM capable controllers?
I can count them on no fingers.
So you're going to do what with this, put your entire laptop onto an RC Plane? No, for that you'd use a Pi, Arduino, or any more appropriate form factors. Same on a RPi shield - are you going to cut a hole in your keyboard for the shield to stick out?
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FSF is happy with binary blobs as long as they are burned into a ROM.
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/task2-openmoko [fsf.org]
The openmoko did not see any benefit from the course of action, and so kept the blob on the filesystem in the hope that one day it can be replaced.
(Also i have huge respect and am very grateful for the great code that has come from the GNU project)
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The difference is also what we give the future: "Greek Fire" in ancient times won them many battles, only we have no idea how they made it today.
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Would you trust a network card with a Chinese binary blob to run it? My strawman could have a much bigger backdoor than the average blob'ed SSD.
What do you think those Chinese-manufactured chips are if not binary blobs? The fact that the logic isn't loaded by the OS doesn't make a whit of difference.
resolution resolution resolution... (Score:1)
And a matte screen. (Score:2)
None of that glossy shit.
need more usb ports 2 is way to few (Score:2)
need more usb ports 2 is way to few
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need more usb ports 2 is way to few
Pah, USB hubs are cheap.
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USB hub? Bluetooth? WiFi?
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USB hub?
We're talking laptops, the less junk to lug around, the better.
Bluetooth?
Bluetooth in my notebook is a USB dongle.
WiFi?
You have a wifi keyboard and mouse? Your camera has wifi? Your printer has wifi? Your scanner?
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You have a wifi keyboard and mouse? Your camera has wifi? Your printer has wifi? Your scanner?
No I don't. But it could be used for say storage by using a wireless NAS.
And there's cameras with WiFi.
And there's phones with WiFi.
And there's printers with WiFi.
And who knows maybe there's those multi-functionality devices with scanners with WiFi to.
The suggestion wasn't to use either. I brought up options. For instance there exist keyboards and mice with bluetooth and if the device got bluetooth support then you wouldn't need USB for those. Whatever it have bluetooth or not I have no idea, I didn't looke
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need more usb ports 2 is way to few
They can get rid of one of the ethernet ports, 2 on a laptop is not needed.
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This is so it can act as a filter/router he says. There is a use case someone wanted something like this just recently on /.
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What for? Moderns motherboards have about 10, and I don't think most people use them for anything else than keyboard+mouse. And since this is a laptop, it unlikely even a usb keyboard would be used.
Just because they're cheap and everybody give you more than you use doesn't mean they're needed.
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3 is the magic number, at least for laptops, that permits most reasonable combinations of commonly used devices for most common scenarios.
6 is also nice.
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But 5 is right out.
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I don't think most users use all three of those things at the same time.
In parcitular, you won't plug your digital camera if you're using a card reader (wouldn't you just use the card reader).
I understand we can list more than 3 usb devices, my point is that most people won't use more than two USB ports on laptops, even if 3 to 5 ports is quite common.
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Or better yet, stick a powered USB hub into the power brick like Lenovo does with one of their power supplies (http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-57Y4600-ThinkPad-65W-Adapter/dp/B0044KR91U) . Sigh. Dammit Lenovo, can you PLEASE make this in 95-watt size? (for those who don't know, 65W is enough to run a Thinkpad OR charge its battery, but not both at once. To charge AND run simultaneously, you need 95w).
Combine a USB3 hub with beefy power brick big enough to supply the laptop itself with 95w so we can use it to p
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^^^ Not quite. Kensington's is just a power supply with a few USB-shaped 5v receptacles. Lenovo's is a real, honest-to-god powered USB hub. HUGE difference.
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it's a laptop. I don't think I've ever used more than 1 USB at a time on my laptop, because the keyboard and mouse are already there.
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wish my laptop had a build in mouse instead of a crappy trackpad.
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it's a laptop. I don't think I've ever used more than 1 USB at a time on my laptop
I have. One for the bluetooth dongle, one for the memory stick (we don't have floppies any more, you know) and one for the terabyte drive. That's all three on my box. I could plug the drive into the tower and use wifi to get the data there, but it's easier just to plug it straight into the notebook.
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The laptop described has provision for built-in bluetooth. Every laptop I've bought for the last 5 years has had bult-in bluetooth, even when I had to pay an extra $20 to get it, because I was expecting to need it in the future. To date, the only bluetooth I actually *use* is my cell phone pairing with my car's hands free system, but I am still ready for it if I ever buy a BT keyboard or such.
As to the memory stick and the external hard drive, you could invest in something like this [newegg.ca] (there's many alternativ
Obligatory (Score:2)
From everyone here on Slashdot: http://cdn.spyparty.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Shut_up_and_take_my_money.jpg [spyparty.com]
USB 2.0 (Score:2)
But why not USB 3.0?
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Most likely there's not a sufficiently Free USB3 implementation to make it into the design.
Re:USB 2.0 (Score:5, Funny)
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My USB goes to 11.
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Be careful, I tried USB 3:16 and it literally crucified my data!
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USB 3.0? It's an ARM based design that uses a SD card for storage... how are you going to saturate even USB 2.0?
And here I was, all excited, thinking someone had designed their own *laptop* and not an oversized clamshell smartphone... :(
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What I consider a usable laptop? At bare minimum, Core i3 level horsepower backed up by at least 4 gigs of RAM and a real SATA(3) SSD. Which is, in terms of perceived speed, about 100x the power of the proposed design, even for basic internet and office use.
scratching an itch that may not exist (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:scratching an itch that may not exist (Score:5, Informative)
RTFA. This guy is making the laptop he wants, the way he wants it.
One of the features: dual ethernet jacks, so he can use the laptop as a packet filter or firewall.
Another one of the features: an analog meter. He's setting it up for software control so it can display battery life, audio peak loudness, or silly things like time of day represented as the position of a single needle.
He doesn't claim anyone else wants one. He did say that if, after he does all the work, there is sufficient interest, that he might do a kickstarter.
I presume this meets with your approval?
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Dual ethernet jacks are kind of silly, just because USB ethernet jacks now cost about $10, and are now almost smaller than a PCMCIA ethernet jack dongle ALONE used to be 15 years ago.
On the other hand, a real sliding switch to physically cut the connection to the speakers, so you can safely boot up someplace where you CAN NOT have it making noise... well, that's another matter entirely, because that's NOT something an end user can go graft onto the system himself after purchase (at least, not without comple
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USB won't do things the same way as two hard Ethernet devices would. It'd be close for light-duty things, but at 100Mbit speeds things start faltering because the devices can only sort-of keep up because of USB overheads, etc.
You honestly want both a handful of USB's and two hard NICs if you can get them.
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Well, ok... you have a point. I'm kicking myself right now for forgetting the best example of all -- the near-impossibility of getting host/AP/master mode to work properly with ANY USB-based wifi adapter due to timing requirements. You have to either move 99% of the active AP logic to the "interface" end of the USB cable, or wantonly abuse the way USB is supposed to work by firehosing a nonstop stream of nonstop isochronous USB data (with error-correction) in both directions (regardless of actual activity)
Re:scratching an itch that may not exist (Score:4, Insightful)
signed compiler (Score:1)
>> Having a verifiable design with 100% of the source of any code running on any chip inside is actually an interesting goal
We still cannot be sure that this is the code that really runs on the target.
Who will invent signed/verifiable compilation / code distribution???
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No. The resources obviously don't allow that. (can't wait days for a system to compile itself)
Furthermore, you can't be sure the compiler you use is not infected with a malware compromising it's output (there's an old paper on that)
There are crypto solutions to these problems, but it's not an easy path, that's sure....
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I guess you don't know how complex hardware interacts with the BIOS. The hardware has code stored in a ROM that the BIOS reads and executes to set it up. It is usually x86 code, with non-x86 BIOSs having an emulator built in, although now it can also use generic bytecode with the advent of EFI.
So unless you want to develop your own chips as well there is no way to run 100% verifiable code.
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What exact benefit does this supposedly 'open' laptop have over just buying something
*snip*
I see there being little to gain but much to lose from this approach.
Oh great. Now we are not allowed to create a personal hobby electronics project that does not meet your approval, or that of the market?
What next, I am not allowed to use my gcc compiler to write a program just because I want to write a program for myself, unless it meets your approval and is marketable?
Did you *read* the article? (Score:5, Informative)
This motherboard has a built-in FPGA, multiple channels of analog/digital I/O, PWM output, Rasp-Pi compatible header (to allow use of R-Pi accessory boards), builtin speaker amp (for small speakers, but still), 3 UARTs, and a USB-OTG port.
This is a hardware hacker's *dream* system.
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On the other hand, the standardization would also limit designs and prevent some cutting edge innovations from being utilized.
No, I strongly disagree with this sentiment.
Standardization sets the baseline. Take HTML for instance. What if there was no openly accepted standard in the early days? It'd have taken a lot longer for things to take off; the improvements, variations, and deviations (MS HTML, VRML, HTML 4.0, etc.) would not have occurred. Everyone would've been attempting to (more or less) completely one-up the other person (see: Flash) and nobody would benefit until a monopoly were established, forcing everyone else out.
In
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Because all thinkpads came with a portable fpga and cpu Ports...
RhombusTech? (Score:3)
Yet another open hardware project?
Might he combine resources with Luke Leighton, who as recently as last week was interviewed about a FSF endorsable arch, in addition to his eoma-68 project?
Diversity is good but with economies of scale there's a KDE tablet, Golden Delicious openmoko successor, replicant.us and geeksphone all promising varying degrees of openness but failing to develop much of a market up against the big boys...
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lkcl has already been talking about the possibility of teaming with Bunnie on the arm-netbook mailing list.
I would buy this... (Score:2)
And if it goes onto Kickstarter I probably will. Why? I had ARM desktops back in the 1990s, they're really nice chips for a range of reasons. If you program close to the metal they're really nice chips with a very clean instruction set; they're very low power and run cool, so battery life is good and noise level should be low. An ARM laptop - particularly if it could dual boot RISC OS [riscosopen.org] and Linux - would be a very nice machine. Also, I believe in the value of open source hardware; it keeps us - the users - in
Still suffers for being ARM, not Intel (Score:2)
Perhaps if it had some horsepower to it (versus just being another ARM knockoff), there might be some value to it. Until then, the Thinkpad is about the closest thing you can get.
But then you'll probably respond with the thought-terminating cliche of "not the target market". Be more original than that (or more original than modbombing).
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WTH, Slashdot? (Score:3)
I have read several pages of comments and so far there have been only a very small handful of positive comments, while I think this is one of the coolest and most exciting things I've seen in a while. If this goes to a Kickstarter campaign then I for one am all over it. The very idea of building a laptop with everything I want and nothing I don't (including R-Pi headers and some really freaking cool ports on the board for getting down-and-dirty with the hardware) just excites me. I want one, and I will not be dissuaded from that opinion. Come on; an integrated FPGA that you can turn to any task you like? How many laptops have that? The PWM headers mean that you can take one of these motherboards and make it the brain of your own robot... an incredibly powerful one compared to most of the hobbyist kit that's out there.
I would ask what happened to the Slashdot that I used to love, but I think I already have a pretty good idea.
reply (Score:1)