arm-netbook March 2015

arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk

13 participants
10 discussions

FSF-Endorseable Hardware companies
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 10 Apr '15

10 Apr '15

hi folks, ok - does anyone know of any companies that sell Libre or FSF-Endorseable hardware? i have thinkpenguin, laclinux, hardware-libre.fr and inatux.com on the list already, i am looking to contact companies that would like to help sponsor these projects, it is very close so i would like to keep going full-time on them now. also, can i ask people a huge favour: would people be willing to write some testimonials in support of the work that i am doing, so that they can be published on the rhombus-tech.net web site, as that would help enormously. many many thanks, l.

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found a decent contract usa contract manufacturer, yaay
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 03 Apr '15

03 Apr '15

i've been introduced to a really good team, who are definitely on the ball, we're going through parts-sourcing for them with their favourite suppliers, already, i've only just met them 1/2 a day ago. this in contrast to "um we'll get back to you" and 4 months later still waiting. so *finally* we should have results (quotes), that means being able to move on the crowd-funding for the micro-desktop. l.

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User Replaceable Sockets?
by Alexander Stephen Thomas Ross 01 Apr '15

01 Apr '15

i was wondering about how things like usb sockets and audio and power barrow jacks could be replaced by users or if not then at least not so hard to replace? as they do seam to get knackered due to accidents that happen (partly due to risky living but even then mistakes can and do happen -it only takes one hard tug of a cable to damage the socket.-). would it be possible for rhombus-tech products to have a feature like this sooner than later? or to do it really nicely does it need more ££££ to pay for fancy plastic to click n' replace and therefore with the challenge of just getting products out there and waiting and seeing how things go with the first products it's a feature that if it's going to be implemented, it's one that would be put off for future products? btw you can get magnet usb plug cables: http://www.conrad.de/ce/de/product/1008652/magneticUSB-20-Kabel-USB-20-Micr…

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update mar 2015
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 25 Mar '15

25 Mar '15

ok apologies i haven't been keeping people up-to-date recently as much as i used to. lots still going on. first thing: i learned that the rule "plan to do 3 revisions" applies equally as well to 3D CAD/CAM as it does to software. so with the 15.6in laptop casework i've started again - it's still an Open Hardware project - the 2nd version is simpler and also will be only around 17mm high. the simplicity comes in part from fitting the PCB connectors to protrude from the left hand side instead of from the back, and secondly from having a bit more of a clue about how to put parts together! in the redesign, top-facing parts of the base mostly go front-to-back, whilst underside parts of the base go left-to-right and interlock (overlap) with the top parts. it... also looks better :) also i'm kinda mulling over the idea of filling in the middle parts with bamboo (or other wood / recyclable) laminates, then using very thin stickers to cover the top and bottom to give a smooth surface. second: i was lucky enough (thank you to the shenzen hackerspace member for the introduction) to be referred to factoryforall, which it turns out is run by tully (he worked on the openmoko years ago). tully has set up shop, now, in shenzen, and has a pick-and-place robot, 2 and 4 layer PCB manufacturing facilities, PCB oven, has the contacts for component sourcing, plastic and metal casework... awesome stuff. anyway i've asked him if he can quote for making the EOMA68-JZ4775 CPU Card samples - it's much smaller and more compact than he's used to, but that's just what makes it more exciting :) hampoo will make the 6-layer PCB (they're very very good... just very busy at the moment). later on i will ask tully if he can handle the prototypes for the base units (laptop and so on) as he can do 4 layer in-house no problem. thirdly: thank you to alexander and others who have offered to write up testimonials, as well as the gratipay [1] donations - the idea is to reach lots of people for whom even something like $1 to $10 a week is well within a reasonable budget for them. your help finding people willing to support what i'm doing very gratefully received. l. [1] turns out that gratipay is software libre! https://github.com/gratipay/gratipay.com

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Arietta G25
by joem 25 Mar '15

25 Mar '15

Arietta G25 http://www.acmesystems.it/arietta Cute - 30 euros - plays Doom on touch TFT 400MHz ARM running Linux 3.16.1 kernel.

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libreplanet 2015 is tomorrow, live chat available.
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 20 Mar '15

20 Mar '15

https://libreplanet.org/2015/ which i encountered via this: https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:Hardware/Freest

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Allwinner's LGPL violation
by Lauri Kasanen 20 Mar '15

20 Mar '15

Hi, There's bit of a stink over Allwinner using LGPL'd code in their binary-only media lib, and then a few days later they try to conceal it by changing function names. Luke, what is your take on that? - Lauri [1] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Allwinner-Obfuscating-Co… [2] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/linux-sunxi/NKyOR4gxYgY

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gratipay
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 19 Mar '15

19 Mar '15

ok i was kindly referred to gratipay, earlier today, as a way to help sustain living expenses whilst these projects are being expanded and completed. i set up a profile here, if anyone would like to help: https://gratipay.com/luke.leighton/ also, this is why those testimonials are important, as i can place a link on that profile page, and anyone reading it can then check that i am actually doing what i say that i am committed to achieving. ... have another go, alexander :) l.

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fsf-endorseable ingenic jz4775 cpu card can go ahead
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 12 Mar '15

12 Mar '15

good news: after being very patient and persistent, my contact at ingenic put me in touch with a support engineer who confirmed that the limitation on the jz4775's reported maximum resolution (1280x720) is for the *video decoder* not the actual LCD output capabilities. the actual LCD output may go as high as something like 1700x1700 (not at 60fps obviously) but that things like 1280x800 @ 60hz (the crucial limit of the eoma68 spec) are fine, as is even 1366x768@60hz. however he did kindly point out that if 720p video decoding [for which the full source is apparently available, which is also great] is attempted to be displayed on a 1366x768 LCD (or greater), there is a bandwidth memory limitation between the video decoder and the lcd buffer which would prooobably end up stalling slightly so that 30fps would be hard to achieve, at full-screen. honestly, i really don't see this as being a huge show-stopper enough to warrant exclusion of a low-cost SoC that could be the first FSF-Endorseable candidate to run GNU/Linux OSes with a decent amount of RAM (2Gbytes). as i've had the first revision PCB done nearly 4 months ago, that just leaves financing of the first revision jz4775 CPU Card to arrange. i have one potential sponsor: if anyone else would like to help out that would be great. we're likely looking at around $USD 1,500 for 5 PCBs. l.

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Any news?
by Paul Boddie 02 Mar '15

02 Mar '15

Hello again, I keep checking the recent changes page on the Rhombus Tech site [1] for progress, but it seems a bit dormant at the moment. Has Chinese New Year (and other seasonal pitfalls) served to keep the pace of development a bit more modest than us impatient onlookers might have liked? ;-) Paul [1] http://rhombus-tech.net/recentchanges/

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arm-netbook March 2015