arm-netbook

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More Libre Hardware Getting Funded
by Allan Mwenda 06 May '17

06 May '17

https://www.crowdsupply.com/gnubee/personal-cloud-1 Always lovely to see this happening.

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The open risc v idea is good
by zap 05 May '17

05 May '17

I assume that's going to be the third series of libre cards right? you making a lowrisc based processor and graphics, etc, I am sure you can succeed. I look forward to still getting the second revision still though. :)

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libre 64-bit risc-v SoC
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 04 May '17

04 May '17

ok so it would seem that the huge amount of work going into RISC-V means that it's on track to becoming a steamroller that will squash proprietary SoCs, so i'm quite happy to make sure that it's not-so-subtly nudged in the right direction. i've started a page where i am keeping notes: http://rhombus-tech.net/riscv/libre_riscv/ and the general goal is to create a desirable mass-volume low-cost SoC, meaning that it will need to at least do 1080p60 video decode and have 3D graphics capability. oh... and be entirely libre. the plan is: * to create an absolute basic SoC, starting from lowRISC (64-bit), ORGFX (3D graphics) and MIAOW (OpenCL engine), in at least 90nm as a low-cost proof-of-concept where mistakes can be iterated through * provide the end-result to software developers so that they can have actual real silicon to work with * begin a first crowd-funding phase to create a 28nm (or better) multi-core SMP SoC for this first phase the interfaces that i've tracked down so far are almost entirely from opencores.org, meaning that there really should be absolutely no need to license any costly hard macros. that *includes* a DDR3 controller (but does not include a DDR3 PHY, which will need to be designed): * DDR3 controller (not including PHY) * lowRISC contains "minion cores" so can be soft-programmed to do any GPIO * boot and debug through ZipCPU's UART (use an existing EC's on-board FLASH) * OpenCores VGA controller (actually it's an LCD RGB/TTL controller) * OpenCores ULPI USB 2.0 controller * OpenCores USB-OTG 1.1 PHY note that there are NO ANALOG INTERFACES in that. this is *really* important to avoid, because mixed analog and digital is incredibly hard to get right. also note that things like HDMI, SATA, and even ethernet are quite deliberately NOT on the list. Ethernet RMII (which is digital) could be implemented in software using a minion core. the advantage of using the opencores VGA (actually LCD) controller is: i already have the full source for a *complete* linux driver. I2C, SPI, SD/MMC, UART, EINT and GPIO - all of these can be software-programmed as bit-banging in the minion cores. these interfaces, amazingly, are enough to do an SoC that, if put into 40nm, would easily compete with some of TI's offerings, as well as the Allwinner R8 (aka A13). i've also managed to get alliance and coriolis2 compiled on debian/testing (took a while) so it *might* not be necessary even to pay for the ASIC design tooling (the cost of which is insane). coriolis2 includes a reasonable auto-router. i still have yet to go through the tutorials to see how it works. for design rules: 90nm design rules (stacks etc.) are actually publicly available, which would potentially mean that a clock rate of at least 300mhz would be achievable: interestingly 800mhz DDR3 RAM from 2012 used 90nm geometry. 65 down to 40nm would be much more preferable but may be hard to get. graphics: i'm going through the list of people who have done GPUs (or parts of one). MIAOW, Nyuzi, ORGFX. the gplgpu isn't gpl. it's been modified to "the text of the GPL license plus an additional clause which is that if you want to use this for commercial purposes then... you can't". which is *NOT* a GPL license, it's a proprietary commercial license! MIAOW is just an OpenCL engine but a stonking good one that's compatible with AMD's software. nyuzi is an experimental GPU where i hope its developer believes in its potential. ORGFX i am currently evaluating but it looks pretty damn good, and i think it is slightly underestimated. i could really use some help evaluating it properly. my feeling is that a combination of MIAOW to handle shading and ORGFX for the rendering would be a really powerful combination. so. it's basically doable. comments and ideas welcome, please do edit the page to keep track of notes http://rhombus-tech.net/riscv/libre_riscv/ --- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

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lian dong san wei 3d printer
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 01 May '17

01 May '17

http://rhombus-tech.net/3d_printers/lian_dong_san_wei/ starting some build instructions and also noting which parts are missing, what improvements can be made. so far i have the entire frame done and it's reaasonably stable but not as rigid as i was expecting: that's going to be down to the use of "interior" L-shaped brackets that go *inside* the 20x20 runners, as opposed to the use of triangular corner-braces which i know would make the entire thing as stiff as a... stiff thing. i've only made one assembly mistake, which is on the x-axis: the hot-end holder with the linear bearings in it is upside-down, which results in the belt being subtly shifted upwards by about 4mm.. out of true. that means that the belt is pointing at weird angles, being slackest when the print head is in the centre and under high tension *and a different length* at the edges. arse. it means a full disassembly of the z-axes *and* the x-asis sub-assemblies, and recalibration. arse. also... *sigh*... there are certain design decisions made by chris palmer (creator of the mendel90) which, when you look at other reprap-style 3d printers you just... smack your head in dismay. josef prusa, who is unfortunately worshipped for being one of the first to actually sell 3d printers, is not someone who can be said to actually be capable of sound engineering judgement, and this printer is unfortunately "inspired" by his efforts... and therefore has *vertical* x-axis rods (supporting the print-head). what that means is that the weight of the print-head *twists* the rods. i'm holding the end of the nozzle and moving it _gently_ around... and it's wobbling by about TWO millimetres. soo.... yeah. this is undergoing a redesign before committing to 10 more. also i can take the opportunity to reduce the "lever" effect (the printhead being a long way away from the middle point of the 2 x-axis rods). l. --- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

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first prototype microdesktop casework
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 30 Apr '17

30 Apr '17

http://rhombus-tech.net/community_ideas/micro_desktop/news/ --- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

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Another set of EOMA 68 logos
by dumblob 28 Apr '17

28 Apr '17

Hi everybody, few ideas I spotted on the so far submitted logos inpired me to create also some proposals. All logos are carefully designed to meet the following requirements. * Support B/W rendering "out of the box" (just use e.g. the indexing algorithm in Gimp) * Be decently well readable * Be moderately intuitively understandable * Be compact in size, but not overly dense * Stay consistent (all components of the same importance shall have roughly the same visual area, size, color, and "shape kind") * Support future numbers in place of 68 * Favicon shall well resemble the logo (in this case the favicon will be a green character E) * The minimum safety zone does not need to be very big to let the logo be readable All the material I'm attaching is licensed under CC BY 4.0 . Unfortunately I again ran out of my time to contribute to this interesting project. I might find some time later (in few months rather than weeks). So feel free to modify the logos to your needs. There is one more idea from my side - add a leaf of a lime tree (as it looks a bit like a heart) to make it less "technically" looking and more resembling the eco-friendliness. Note, the attached bitmap exports are not perfect as the source SVG files are prepared for easy editing, but not for high-quality bitmap exporting with antialiasing. The source SVG files are Inkscape SVG files, so they are not optimized for viewing. Cheers! -- Jan

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Re: [Arm-netbook] SoC warp soldering risk?
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 28 Apr '17

28 Apr '17

--- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68 On Sat, Apr 22, 2017 at 11:53 AM, <sokolgeo(a)posteo.net> wrote: > Hello. It seems like NEO900 project (http://neo900.org/) is having some > problems with SoC warp soldering memory chips to their PCB: > > http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=1525427&postcount=2850 > > https://irclog.whitequark.org/neo900/2017-03-14#19041338 specific details: http://lists.goldelico.com/pipermail/community/2017-February/001583.html http://lists.goldelico.com/pipermail/community/2017-February/001594.html > Luke - is there similar soldering risk in EOMA manufacturing? fuck no :) whenever i see "PoP" as an option for a processor i run away very very fast :) it's also why i haven't done a smart (or dumb) phone, because *without* that smaller size (due to "stacking") you simply can't make a small enough PCB for it to be socially acceptable, these days. that's why i was so excited when i found the Ingenic M150... and so disappointed when they told me they'd stopped making it. why? because the M150 has 128mb of DDR2 RAM *on board* the same 11x11mm package, as a Multi-Chip-Module. instead i've focussed on EOMA68 as the first modular design, which is *just* big enough to fit processor and RAM and PMICs onto one side of the PCB., and in some cases big enough to fit NAND or eMMC on as well. so no - the primary reason why i avoid PoP RAM is because of the MOQ quantities usually being around 1,000. *sigh* another expensive learning experience for the open / libre hardware community, there. i do wish sometimes that they'd read some of the things that i write. i've *already learned* that you don't try retro-fitting PCBs into pre-existing casework. never mind - sometimes it's better for people to do things they won't listen on and then fail. l.

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SPI-based LCDs, 3D printing, RISC-V
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 28 Apr '17

28 Apr '17

ok so a quick status update: * Frida, in Shenzhen, have a customer currently ordering their 2.8in FRD280J3703D SPI-based LCD. this means it's possible to place an order for less than the normal MOQ of 1,000 so we go with that one for the 15in laptop. * i calculated that for the microdesktop i have an ENTIRE MONTH of 3d-printing to do, and a YEAR for the laptop. there's an update going out about this soon but basically i need help. ideas or actual practical help. * i'm investigating RISC-V *long-term*, i will start a separate thread about this (immediately after writing this) so am reaching out to various people to see who's interested. l. --- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

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Re: [Arm-netbook] System 76 - Entering Phase 3
by Bill Kontos 25 Apr '17

25 Apr '17

No, don't worry. I don't call names on anyone. As RMS said, I'm not glad that he died, but I'm glad that he's gone. I believe in the value of human life above all else. It would be immoral( imo) to apply crude logic to this. I do not celebrate the death of any human being no matter how savage or harmful that person might have been to humanity. And I sure won't celebrate Linus' death because you might hate him but it won't change the fact that we 100% rely on his work and we don't know how his death could affect future development of linux and free drivers in general. I guess it is a matter of how each individual thinks: For me it makes no sense to discuss how something will work if we can't get it to work our way in the first place. In other words: computing will be done and programs will be written, the question is do you want to be a part of the procedure and help do it your way or just sit in the corner waiting for the perfect solution to come up before you commit to it ? Because that solution might not come. Other people are much more idealists than me. That's fine. We need both types of people. But before you decide to completely ignore system76 and their efforts, I need to point out that they have indeed supplied a lot of code and have benefited the libre hardware community in general a lot. I have been looking at their history and various interviews of them and from what I've gathered: 1) They have contributed code both to Ubuntu specific packages( installer, unity) and to the kernel, that is writing DACs( as an example given) and pushing companies for open sourcing drivers. In fact if there is one that takes advantage of their effort it is Dell who according to Daniel Fore( one of their employees) takes advantage of that hardware on their Xps Developer's edition. 2) They do seem to like the cooperative nature of FOSS. At least their blog posts do show so. System76 started as a 2 man business installing linux on clevo laptops. Then they started expanding the range of their activities by working on drivers and paying a lot of attention to the details. The "purists" right now are probably thinking that the main goal is to just get it working in a libre way, but high quality is actually important too. So it might just be that they consider shipping a 100% libre computer that will be useful to their demographic something out of their reach as of right now. And when it comes to laptops it's not like they have many choices, it's intel for the cpus and nvidia for the gpus. Amd is non existent and arm for laptops of the class they are selling is still not a thing. 3) They are the biggest customer of Clevo and as such their word holds a lot of value and they do push towards making a lot of linux friendly decisions. See this comment https://www.reddit.com/r/System76/comments/611zf5/question_how_much_control… And anyway something that is not widely known: when arm netbooks started becoming a thing OEMs were putting linux on them( of course). Microsoft saw a very threatening market emerging and raged hell upon them that if they kept doing this the sales of their other models would suffer due to them removing the OEM discount on the windows license. After that they proceeded to change the model so instead of charging per machine they charge per model. So basically even if you buy e.g. a Dell Lattitude with Ubuntu preinstalled and then wipe it and replace it with an FSF approved distro YOU ARE STILL PAYING THE WINDOWS LICENSE. Now some people might disagree with me, but for me libre software is a war against oppression and is directly competing with microsoft etc( disagree as in that we do not compete but exist to fulfeel our own needs). So just for this reason, if you need to buy an x86 computer and a libreboot model is not an option it is better to buy a system76 instead of e.g. a dell or a thinkpad and then install gnu/linux on it. Anyway I guess there is also another big difference for me: Some people might think it is ok to have a binary blob e.g. on the firmware for their wifi card as long as you don't interact with it via userland and the OS and the applications are libre. I'm on the exact opposite position: I consider blobs and an operating system that limit or obscure my access to hardware to be of the most unethical nature and less so the programs themselves. Because I have paid for the hardware but an application might come for no cost, therefor I do not have any demands from the author of that application. Will I run it if it's not free ? probably not. But at the end of the day you do pay with your wallet and for that reason I am not e.g. buying nvidia hardware, even though it's the only 100% libre gpu with 3d accel. I don't care. I'd much rather support amd in their free driver efforts and instead hope that someone will pick the fact that they do not need to write any gallium3D stuff but just reverse engineer the (small) blobs that still exist, resulting in a much easier way to write a 100% libre driver compared to nuveau. My point is, do I think System76 is perfect ? No. Do I like what they do ? Yes I like it a lot. Do I think they could be more vigilant with their interactions with other companies when it comes to free drivers ? Absolutely. But I think it is a better solution than anything else( or at least has been until purism dropped the ME neutralization bomb on skylake a bit earlier). But at least give some respect to a company that started putting gnu/linux on laptops on freaking 2005 and managed to survive and thrive. Maybe because their choices of including some proprietary software actually made it possible. Heck, even purism which as a company started exactly with the purpose of selling 100% libre computers had to put up with the intel ME for some generations until they finally found a way to disable it. So now you can actually buy a skylake laptop that has the ME neutralized. Maybe if they did not attempt a 'half-assed" effort first they would never get to that point. On Sat, Apr 22, 2017 at 5:32 PM, Lyberta <lyberta(a)lyberta.net> wrote: > Bill Kontos: > > I'm tired of all the purists that will bash every company that does a > > step in the right direction but does not go all the way through, even > when > > that company was started somewhere around 2005 in a guy's basement when > the > > ecosystem was much less mature and they had almost no funding at all( or > > because they call it linux and not GNU/Linux). > > And I'm tired of companies exploiting hard work of the GNU project and > Free Software movement. I'm tired of the Open Source movement. I'm tired > of Linux, I'm tired of Linus Torvalds. He puts blobs in the kernel and > calls it acceptable. In the end we get tons of products that are > completely unusable. Check any Android phone and you'll that it is full > of proprietary blobs for everything, that is completely unusable without > them. > > Every time you call the operating system Linux, you help Open Source > movement. You help Google, you help Linux foundation, you help evil > corporations. Linux was the most damaging thing that happened to the > Free Software movement because people started mixing the terms Free > Software and Open Source. People became unaware of 4 fundamental freedoms. > > I have celebrated the death of Steve Jobs and I'm going to celebrate the > death of Linus Torvalds. And before you start calling me names, let me > tell that I was officially declared mentally disabled. But if there is > one good thing that my mental disability gave me, it's the inability to > accept compromises. I value my 4 fundamental freedoms and I'm not going > to give them away without a fight. > > > _______________________________________________ > arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook(a)lists.phcomp.co.uk > http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook > Send large attachments to arm-netbook(a)files.phcomp.co.uk >

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Certification attempt
by Brandon Ludwig 23 Apr '17

23 Apr '17

Bear with me, because I'm not in any way qualified for this, but a while back I did some work based on previous discussion about certification marks.

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