Really cool modular and freedom-respecting computer

[pyrat]

thx pyrat. yeah you can - just don't leave it too long otherwise the component batches i order might be too small, you'd have to wait for another production run - just have to see how it goes.

Ah, I see it's now called "pre-order" not "pledge", and the number of requested items is no longer shown. But it's more or less the same.
It also seems some items have changed the shipping date, curiously, some cards ship march 2017 and some april, depending on the OS, although
the hardware is the same.

Btw, $171000 (114%) now. It seems there is margin even if some people canceled or some payments didn't work.

 

[comradekingu]

I really want a small e-ink display laptop. Low power-consumption overall for something that isnt going to be used for very heavy tasks.

There was some talk on the mailing-list about a pro-audio model too. That adds a lot of value to something that is custom anyhow.

 

[rygD]

I really want a small e-ink display laptop. Low power-consumption overall for something that isnt going to be used for very heavy tasks.

I wonder if something like that would work for me.

 

[comradekingu]

To get weight down, and have it be something you can throw in a backpack without it potentially getting very hot, that lasts a long time, makes it a new idea. The more autonomous it gets, the better. A big battery on my phone really helped with range-anxiety.

Taking notes on a phone is a bit daft, the laptop could "when not in use" be a mental noteboard just sitting at a table.

For something that is a laptop, i dont want an almost desktop, i want a good form-factor, and a good keyboard.

Mechanical keys and trackball mouse, things like that.

Just having no fans is huge, number one annoyance on my thinkpad.

 

[vinipsmaker]

I really want a small e-ink display laptop. Low power-consumption overall for something that isnt going to be used for very heavy tasks.

I'd like a tablet housing with an e-ink based display. There are no e-ink readers based on Free Software right now. My current ebook reader is PocketBook Touch Lux 3 (the least non-free I found).

A "normal & boring" tablet would be great to read comics too.

EDIT:

Maybe a two-screen tablet like Yota Phone.

 

[rygD]

To get weight down, and have it be something you can throw in a backpack without it potentially getting very hot, that lasts a long time, makes it a new idea. The more autonomous it gets, the better. A big battery on my phone really helped with range-anxiety.

Taking notes on a phone is a bit daft, the laptop could "when not in use" be a mental noteboard just sitting at a table.

For something that is a laptop, i dont want an almost desktop, i want a good form-factor, and a good keyboard.

Mechanical keys and trackball mouse, things like that.

Just having no fans is huge, number one annoyance on my thinkpad.

This sounds good to me, but that is no surprise. It gave me a few ideas I wish could be thrown together. Since the current trend is to make things slimmer, I think adding mechanical keys and a trackball can take things in the direction they should be going, but aren't. I imagine an improved retro ThinkPad, but not in the way that those blog posts were going. Too bad it can't be powered by AA batteries.

I will come back to this when I have some free time in a couple days.

 

[8bitDev]

Hi

If you are not familiar with the product,please look down below.
https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop

I never used to own arm in miniPC form (except for non usable android phones).I thought that it would be a good idea to switch my off job computing(personal development)to total libre computing platform.
Now i never bought none of RYF laptops provided by GNU.org,simply they are old laptops that corroded long time ago(my opinion at least) and this is first time that we have a chance to have new manufactured RYF certified PC.

I am interested in web development with accent on JS(besides html/html5 and css/css3) and interested in performance of the components inside the board.I done various software in GUI game engines and didn't wanted to make mistake when deciding on code that i will spent most of my time on.I decided to go with web option simply because there are more than 1 runner for the code and more than 1 platform that more than 1 runner can be run on.

If MALI GPU opensource driver is not available in Libre Tea Computer Card how much would i be able to get on the performance?Now my target resolution would be half of the fullHD(960x540)for the JS games running in Canvas2D or WebGL(2D games mainly)with 30FPS.

Also if we do have only microSD card as an option how much would speed be degraded compared to eMMC chip or something similar?

Regards and have a nice day

PS:What do you think how this goes on modularity compared to new Pyra and are those pins capable of pulling its compatibility in the future with the new hardware?

 

[TrashyMG]

https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/earth-friendly-eoma68-computing-devices.77668/
https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/really-cool-modular-and-freedom-respecting-computer.77612/

 

[sulu]

The EOMA68 sports an Allwinner A20 SoC. I have a Cubieboard 2 with the same SoC, and it feels like it has about the same CPU power as an early Intel Atom CPU (e.g. N270). Those "corroded" RYF-certified laptops (Penryn-era Thinkpads) will for sure be faster.
I'm about to compile glibc on the CB2 during the next days. I could do the same just for fun on my netbook (N270), and compare the compile times if you want some numbers.

I have no idea about the graphics performance.

As for storage speeds I believe the SD card itself will be the bottleneck. I have several µSD cards of different sizes and (old) ages and they all reach something like 17-18MB/s during sequential read in different card readers. Now, writing of course is another story (ranging from 4 to 17MB/s) and if you don't have sequential access, then the speeds might drop far below 1MB/s, depending on how fragmented your chunks of data are. In these scenarios nominally slower cards will often be faster than the nominally faster ones, because the nominal numbers refer to sequential access and that is often "optimized" by using tricks like accessing flash cells in parallel, which helps sequential access but hinders random access.

 

[8bitDev]

The EOMA68 sports an Allwinner A20 SoC. I have a Cubieboard 2 with the same SoC, and it feels like it has about the same CPU power as an early Intel Atom CPU (e.g. N270). Those "corroded" RYF-certified laptops (Penryn-era Thinkpads) will for sure be faster.
I'm about to compile glibc on the CB2 during the next days. I could do the same just for fun on my netbook (N270), and compare the compile times if you want some numbers.

I have no idea about the graphics performance.

As for storage speeds I believe the SD card itself will be the bottleneck. I have several µSD cards of different sizes and (old) ages and they all reach something like 17-18MB/s during sequential read in different card readers. Now, writing of course is another story (ranging from 4 to 17MB/s) and if you don't have sequential access, then the speeds might drop far below 1MB/s, depending on how fragmented your chunks of data are. In these scenarios nominally slower cards will often be faster than the nominally faster ones, because the nominal numbers refer to sequential access and that is often "optimized" by using tricks like accessing flash cells in parallel, which helps sequential access but hinders random access.

I never stated that libreboot laptops endorsed by FSF are weak,they are not,but the fact that they are refurbished devices are not something that is attractive for purchase.If i would find some of those Lenovo laptops never opened,i would probably buy one of those,but take a look for example at price of the devices.The one that are endorsed are 3 times expensive that the ones sold on Ebay or Amazon.Now i know that they come upgraded with RAM and SSD/HDD but that does not cover that price.Also i always questioned myself how do they have so much of old laptops left in stock,are they totally false devices(just fixed later on),did lenovo decided to give them sneak peak of the code so they could reverse engineer it in order to sell them or maybe it is something else.I am just not buying it,because take a look at other old laptops and see how much of those are available on the market.

Regards

 

[veloknight]

I never stated that libreboot laptops endorsed by FSF are weak,they are not,but the fact that they are refurbished devices are not something that is attractive for purchase.If i would find some of those Lenovo laptops never opened,i would probably buy one of those,but take a look for example at price of the devices.The one that are endorsed are 3 times expensive that the ones sold on Ebay or Amazon.Now i know that they come upgraded with RAM and SSD/HDD but that does not cover that price.Also i always questioned myself how do they have so much of old laptops left in stock,are they totally false devices(just fixed later on),did lenovo decided to give them sneak peak of the code so they could reverse engineer it in order to sell them or maybe it is something else.I am just not buying it,because take a look at other old laptops and see how much of those are available on the market.

Regards

I'm posting this now on an old ThinkPad I got off of Amazon. I can attest that there's a decent-sized supply out there. ThinkPads from this era have a reputation for robust build quality, and mine's stood up quite well to the extreme abuse I tend to put on my devices. The X200 was a popular laptop for business and developers, so I wouldn't be surprised if some of these resellers were able to snag a bulk purchase from a corporate IT department.

The cost of the LibrePads not only includes the price of the ThinkPad (~$100-150), 1-2 4gb SO-DIMM sticks, and a new HDD/SSD, but also the cost of paying a professional to open it up and physically flash the bios and disable the Intel Management Engine that concerns many freedom and privacy advocates. Having a pro do this work without making mistakes adds overhead. I don't know this for a fact, but I wouldn't be surprised if their refurbishment process also involved checking the quality of the hardware and battery. I personally don't feel the need for that cost, but I think the Libreboot ThinkPads are probably a great product if you're interested in a RYF device. Also, if we really do care about e-waste, as the EOMA68 project clearly does, I think we should tackle our stigma about refurbishing old gadgets.

 

[sulu]

the fact that they are refurbished devices are not something that is attractive for purchase.

Why not? I bought several professionally refurbished laptops (Thinkpads and Latitudes) and if you don't know about current technology, you could think they are new.

but take a look for example at price of the devices.The one that are endorsed are 3 times expensive that the ones sold on Ebay or Amazon.

You don't pay for the hardware. You pay for the service of "freeing" it. Now if that service is worth the money is worth debating, but I won't go there with you unless we put some serious numbers on the table concerning British wages and working hours. Ebay and Amazon is certainly no fair comparison.

Also i always questioned myself how do they have so much of old laptops left in stock,

They are not left in stock, they came back to stock. Business laptops are leased by big companies just like cars. after usually three years the leasing period of a device is over and it's being returned for a newer model. Now these old models all hit the 2nd-hand market, often in pristine condition because they were barely used.

 

[Grench]

Has nothing to do with Pyra - this is clearly an advert to drive traffic to another project. Nothing against the project or the conversation, but can it get moved to 'Everything Else'?

 

[TrashyMG]

Has nothing to do with Pyra - this is clearly an advert to drive traffic to another project. Nothing against the project or the conversation, but can it get moved to 'Everything Else'?

Merged all three threads I found into one large messy one.

 

[ible]

thank goodness.

i can appreciate what libre laptop sellers are doing, but i haven't bought one yet (or probably ever). i can live with a few binary blobs, but would rather not, though not for the price of e.g. https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/talos-ibm-power8-based-cpu-less-blobs.78414/

 

[8bitDev]

Has nothing to do with Pyra - this is clearly an advert to drive traffic to another project. Nothing against the project or the conversation, but can it get moved to 'Everything Else'?

Not an advert,i am simply trying to unveil the mystery behind all of this.
[doublepost=1479779380,1479779149][/doublepost]

Why not? I bought several professionally refurbished laptops (Thinkpads and Latitudes) and if you don't know about current technology, you could think they are new.

You don't pay for the hardware. You pay for the service of "freeing" it. Now if that service is worth the money is worth debating, but I won't go there with you unless we put some serious numbers on the table concerning British wages and working hours. Ebay and Amazon is certainly no fair comparison.

They are not left in stock, they came back to stock. Business laptops are leased by big companies just like cars. after usually three years the leasing period of a device is over and it's being returned for a newer model. Now these old models all hit the 2nd-hand market, often in pristine condition because they were barely used.

Maybe it is my mistake,but i didn't had good experience with refurbished devices that are (1to3)years old.Now regarding the libreboot page i like that they have more devices over there and i seen Asus C201 chromebook which is only few years old.There is still new one to get and i am thinking on buying one.
I think i read somewhere that they would upload more than 1 laptop(add more in the future)so i hope that i will get more info once i contact them.
https://libreboot.org/docs/hcl/#supported_list
Regards

 

[veloknight]

Not an advert,i am simply trying to unveil the mystery behind all of this.
[doublepost=1479779380,1479779149][/doublepost]
Maybe it is my mistake,but i didn't had good experience with refurbished devices that are (1to3)years old.Now regarding the libreboot page i like that they have more devices over there and i seen Asus C201 chromebook which is only few years old.There is still new one to get and i am thinking on buying one.
I think i read somewhere that they would upload more than 1 laptop(add more in the future)so i hope that i will get more info once i contact them.
https://libreboot.org/docs/hcl/#supported_list
Regards

There's a lot of variety in the laptop market, so quality of used and refurbished devices definitely varies. I don't blame you for having concerns. As has been said, the X200 line used by the various libre vendors was both a popular business laptop (meaning many used and refurbished devices may be in higher quality condition than your typical used device), and is well known for having a rugged, high-quality build. Even considering the cost of repairs, I've found used ThinkPads to be a good deal.

 

[ClockworkCoder]

I'm still looking forward to the EOMA68, but it's now looking highly likely that I'll (hopefully) receive a Pyra first:

Again, to reiterate: we do not know what will need to be solved next. Therefore, a production date simply cannot be provided, and that really is the end of the matter. Or, the answer is: the production date is “the production time plus the unknown time to solve unknown and unknowable future issues.”

Source: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/report-back-from-factory-on-hdmi

 

[diligentcircle]

I'm pessimistic about EOMA68 these days, to be honest, and I kinda feel like a bit of an idiot for throwing so much support behind it. The main problem, I think, is that Lkcl has good intentions and a nice dream, but no reasonable plan for how to get there. He seems to just expect other people to pick up on the standard he designs and make and sell actual products. I don't think he's malicious, but I think he's naive and it's going to lead to something (which he continually insists isn't a product) that ships (years late), but fizzles away from anyone's consciousness real quick because there's just not enough thought given to where to go next.

Of course I could be wrong though.

 

[ClockworkCoder]

You may be correct there @Julie.chan (re naive), although I'm happy even if it was to support the idea behind it. I'm just glad that he's trying, and hopefully when all production issues are sorted the possibilities will start to reveal themselves (yes, I'm an optimist too).