[Arm-netbook] Good netbook based on Cortex-A9

[Gordan Bobic]

On 07/31/2012 03:34 PM, Pierre-Hugues Husson wrote:
> 2012/7/31 Gordan Bobic <gordan at bobich.net <mailto:gordan at bobich.net>>
>
>     On 07/31/2012 12:34 PM, Roman Mamedov wrote:
>      > I went back to the article I read (in Russian, [1] ). Basically
>     the author
>      > very colorfully described his disgust as he had to deal with the
>     outdated,
>      > half-broken, proprietary, Android-targetted nVidia "software
>     stack" (nvrm_gpu,
>      > nvrm_daemon etc), to even have the most basic hardware working, like
>      > backlight brightness, audio and suspend.
>      >
>      > Okay, the article is from October 2010, maybe some things have
>     improved since
>      > then.
>      >
>      > [1] http://habrahabr.ru/post/107304/
>
>     Things have changed _massively_ since then. All the nvrm stuff is long,
>     long gone and forgotten by everyone who actualy has an AC100. Those were
>     dark times. ;)
>
>      >> I think it's important to strike a reasonable balance between
>     idealism
>      >> and pragmatism. Otherwise your only option is to get a Yeeloong.
>      >
>      > I have an impression that openness-wise the AC100 is especially
>     bad, worse than
>      > e.g. Efika MX, certainly worse than an A10-based netbook, and
>     MUCH worse than
>      > even a random x86 netbook.
>
>     Not really. GPU is the only thing that hasn't got full open source
>     support. But if you are happy with the open source simple frame buffer
>     support for graphics, it's fine. As I said, the only thing that requires
>     any proprietary drivers is the accelerated GPU. And there are reasons to
>     use the simple frame buffer even if the nvidia drivers worked properly
>     (extra 62MB of RAM).
>
>     Seriously, AC100s are pretty damned _awesome_. Nothing else comes close,
>     especially if you are prepared to take a screwdriver into your hands and
>     do the upgrades I wrote up (screen, cooling for 40% overclock, internal
>     SSD).
>
> Only problem is the 512MB of RAM :(

Well, with the binary drivers, that's actually 448MB due to the 64MB GPU 
allocation. But with the bare frame buffer you can get over 510MB out of 
it, which makes a reasonable difference. :)

And with a decent SSD like the RC8, the performance is pretty decent - 
even with it starts to swap a bit, it's not a particulary noticeable 
difference unless you really grind it to a halt with hundreds of tabs 
open in Firefox. It's amazing how much the lack of flash reduces the 
memory footpring of Firefox. ;)

> But I agree, if you can live with it, the ac100 is really good, and
> still good enough without your mods.

Indeed, but the mods take it from "good" to "amazing".

Gordan