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So... it turns out that the user has to type some things at first boot before the SSH host keys are generated. The timing of keyboard interrupts, and/or by moving the nubs, probably are a source of entropy the kernel can already use, and that may be good enough. The volume control and readings...

Yeah I just guessed, but as it turns out "Vantablack surface is easily damaged by any direct impact or abrasion" https://www.surreynanosystems.com/vantablack/faqs They seem to also produce a spray-on substance which is a little more durable but much less black because the nanotubes aren't...

In short (resulting from a much more complex calculation), I interpreted that ED is basically aiming for 950 preorders to produce the first batch, not 750, putting it at 75%... would be great to see more detail on your page though. Maybe it could take a month to get there. But it leaves time...

Venta's blackness seems to come from the arrangement of tiny nanotubes. So then I doubt it should radiate any more heat than a 'normal' black surface does. In fact the tubes may trap heat (convection), the way that hair or insulation fibers do, so it is likely even worse at dissipating heat...

Off-black, rough texture... it really is turning out to be like an old Thinkpad, and I like it.

Well, some people said they wouldn't preorder if it's the red colour shown; some said they'd refuse to preorder unless it comes in black. Not sure these people really would have pre-ordered anyway if it was the colour they wanted, but... FWIW: my favourite black rendering...

It seems odd, black is the only colour we know *definitely* will be available... and that's like the only colour rendering not shown on the home/shop pages. Maybe should have done a study, showing random colours to different people, and see what percentage of people complete a preorder...

I assumed that was because of ED's announcement it will definitely come in black...

What might be ideal then, are backported *cross* gcc-5, binutils etc. packaged up in a jessie chroot, so that ":armhf" versions of build dependencies (the same versions as those on the Pyra) can be installed using multiarch. I'll have some free time in a couple of weeks to attempt this and will...

That would be nice, and bring a Pyra if you have one! I wonder why TI are sponsoring it this year; maybe since they ship Debian on BeagleBoard/Bone and other things (and obviously, it will be on the Pyra, and maybe GolDeliCo's OMAP5 eval boards).

It likely wouldn't be an issue if you installed another OS, or just reinstalled Windows with disk encryption, then the BIOS couldn't inject files in there. Makes you wonder what other nasty things could be hidden in UEFI BIOS though, especially by someone with (more) malicious intent.

That seems like an incredibly quick turnaround. Maybe for some parts like the LTE chips there could be longer lead times though? It would be extremely cool if the first batch shipped in time for DebConf16... ;) I see that TI are sponsoring it this year so maybe some of their engineers will be...

That's amazing and terrifying. Look at what the recovery/cleanup process involves there; and compare that to the Pyra where holding START+POWER buttons allows to fully erase/rewrite the boot code and/or OS with all your own. (That makes it very easy for someone to infect it too, but just as...

Brilliant! That's the simplest and best thing that I could hope for. The Pyra has incredible security properties then, if used the right way. New question: what entropy sources are in the Pyra, that Linux will be able to use? Especially on first boot, when it needs to generate SSH host keys...

That particular question's been answered already and someone wrote it up in the Wiki: https://www.pyra-handheld.com/wiki/index.php?title=Storage#SD_Card_Slots

Cool! That's close enough, I guess. Maybe the shoulder buttons stick out by exactly the needed 1.1 mm? The display is 1280x720 square pixels to suit HD video, so about 1.78:1; but if you put 56 or 64px-wide toolbars at both sides, that leaves the middle part very close to the golden ratio...

¡609! That means we have rotational symmetry of order 2, and the US to EU mobile orders are almost back to a 1:3 ratio again. Because everything is math (https://xkcd.com/435/).

Right, baked into the SoC must be some microcode that can access various boot devices, understand MS-DOS partitioning, and FAT just well enough to load the MLO. The MLO probably implements the same functionality to load uBoot, which does all the rest - the files autoboot.txt/boot.scr are...

Maybe black anodized aluminium is easier to laser-cut as well... what with regular aluminium being mirror-shiny?

This picture is missing from the image gallery and Wiki, but you can see the elliptic cutout in the lid around the RGB LEDs: http://cdn.liliputing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/pyra_03.jpg I wondered how the LEDs would be able to shine through matte colour plastics, but there you go. The...