[Arm-netbook] Mysteries of Lemote Yeeloong MIPS netbook

[Gordan Bobic]

On 10/22/2012 11:50 PM, freebirds at fastmail.fm wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 20, 2012, at 08:58 PM, luke.leighton wrote:
>> much as i hate to say this, many of the questions you're asking aren't
>> entirely appropriate for the target audience here: basic linux
>> sysadmin analysis for example.
>> I apologize. It was not my intention to ask basic questions, including
>> basic linux sysadmin questions. If there were a MIPS forum, I would
>> have posted my thread there. I appreciate the patience and advice and
>> will follow through.

I'm pretty sure there are MIPS lists for various Linux distributions, 
but the issue here isn't MIPS, it seems to be generic Linux stuff.

>> I chose the Yeeloong because MIPS does not have hardware assisted
>> virtualization and because linux is preinstalled. I had not planned to
>> upgrade the OS. I wrongly assumed Yeeloong would be fully functional
>> out of the box and that the box being open hardware could be fully and
>> easily opened.

What exactly isn't functional?

"Open hardware" is in no way incompatible with torx screws. Many 
computers use torx screws. Compaq machines use then quite a lot, and 
most hard disks seem to have torx screws holding the PCB on. They aren't 
all that uncommon.

>> Today, an employee at my local hardware store tried to unscrew the
>> screws with their allen wrenches. He stated the screws were not hex
>> screws. They are star screws.

Technical term for those is "torx", rather than "star".

>> The hardware store's smallest star
>> screwdriver was too large. I will ask larger hardware stores if they
>> sell small star screwdrivers. Star screws are rarely used in the
>> United States which could explain why the three people, including a
>> computer repair shop, who tried to unscrew my Yeeloong failed to
>> recognize the screws as star screws.

I'm sure this has been mentioned before, but competent people in IT 
don't end up working at computer repair shops unless they are either 15 
and it's their first job and they don't really know anything yet, or 
they are pathologically unambitious. I'm sure there are exceptions, but 
by and large what may seem like an "expert" to you - isn't.

>> Or are they really star screws?
>> Perhaps an unique screw from China with no available screwdriver in
>> the USA? Open hardware should not require very hard to find screwdrivers.

Now you're just scaremongering and making a big deal out of nothing. 
Torx screwdrivers of all sizes are readily available.

[...]

>> Lemote discontinued support of its preinstalled OS by discontinuing
>> its server. Lemote lacks honesty as it continues to sell Yeeloong and
>> Fuloong.

You have to consider who is the target market for these machines. Joe 
Average user will go buy an x86 Windows machine. This laptop is really 
aimed at hardcore geeks who have the skill and ability to put a distro 
of their choice on the machine themselves.

>> Though Synaptic Package Manager does not require root access, the
>> terminal does. The terminal won't chmod -x /etc/init.d/ssh nor fdisk
>> to format my flashdrive to ext2 which is required for installation of
>> a new OS. Unfortunately, no gparted preinstalled. I cannot get root
>> access. I think my computer has been rooted.

You cannot open a terminal and "su" to root ("su -") or use sudo ("sudo 
-s") ?

>> I am still alarmed that my files could be rsynced via a ssh OpenBSD
>> server. Yes, most linux distributions have ssh and remote desktop
>> preinstalled. Yet, they do not have them preconfigured and ready to act.

I'm pretty sure sshd starts by default on most distributions.

>> I would love to give the feedback that I took your advice and
>> installed a new OS. I can't. I am capable to researching which
>> distributions have new releases, find the tutorial and find the
>> download page. Following the tutorial, no. MIPS is far more
>> complicated than ARM. See Debian Wheezy's tutorial at
>> http://wiki.debian.org/DebianYeeloong/HowTo/Install including Roman's
>> tutorial at http://romanrm.ru/en/loongson/debian.

Again - it's not really an issue of MIPS vs. ARM, it's more to do with 
how the boot process works.

>> GNewSense initially was based on Ubuntu. GNewSense switched to being
>> based on Debian because Debian supports MIPS. GNewSense tutorial on
>> installing their September 2012 release is just as complicated and
>> perhaps more so. See http://www.gnewsense.org/Projects/GNewSenseToMIPS
>>
>> I did not expect that MIPS requires knowing command line. Up to now, I
>> have been getting along with graphical packages installed on my
>> netbooks and graphical packages in live CDs.

Nothing to do with MIPS. If you have managed to use ARM machines so far 
without having to do anything on the command line, it is beyond me how. 
As I said before - non-technical people use x86 and Windows. Ambitious 
non-technical people use x86 and Ubuntu. Anything else requires 
additional education - but most Linux communities are pretty good at 
helping out newbies if you demonstrate willingness to learn and 
inclination to at least try to solve the problem yourself and google the 
problem before you ask the questions.

>> I posted an ad in computer gigs in craigslist.org for help upgrading
>> debian on Yeeloong. Only two replies.

I'm surprised you got that many. It's a pretty obsucre machine.

>> In the last several years, I have tried to hire computer security
>> experts and rarely finding that, even just plain geeks who know linux
>> to help me. I have posted numerous ads in computer gigs on
>> craigslist.org in the large cities I have lived this year: New York
>> City, Washington, DC, Baltimore and New Brunswick, New Jersey. While I
>> would not expect much of a response from towns, I did expect a good
>> response from large cities. Instead, the responses were few and
>> approximately one third of the responses were from other states. Yes,
>> I hired several out of town respondents. That did not work. I would go
>> into details but this is lengthy as it is. Linux is not popular in the
>> United States.

The problem here is a compound one:

1) You have a very obscure machine.
2) Your requirements are extremely specific, and sufficiently narrow 
that there's a total of 1 model of computer on the planet that can meet 
them.
3) This limits the number of people familiar with the machine to the 
level you are seeing.
4) Getting Linux onto proprietary hardware with patchy documentation is 
something that only hardcore geeks do for their own amusement.
4.1) Those hardcore geeks typically have highly paid jobs and don't look 
for freelance gigs on craigslist.
5) For the sort of out-of-the-box "just works" experience that you 
require, it requires the software to make the leap from "project" to 
"product". Things are moving in the right direction, but Linux 
distributions for most non-x86 platforms aren't really there yet. They 
certainly aren't a matter of inserting a CD and rebooting.

>> Derek recommended IRC which is one more thing for me to learn how to use.
>>
>> I will speak for the American masses. This is in reference to earlier
>> threads on the "masses." Americans prefer status toys: large SUVs
>> (previously large trucks), ipads, etc. Regardless of their impact on
>> the environment. The cost savings that a EOMA would bring is trivial.

EOMA is not going to be aimed at the masses for a long time - not until 
it makes that leap I mentioned from "project" to "product". The gap 
between those is huge. There is an old saying in the software 
development industry: "Doing 90% of the work, takes 90% of the time. 
Doing the remaining 10% of the work takes another 90% of the time."

>> The EO needs different marketing. Advertise that the upgrade of the
>> cpu includes an upgrade of the OS. For example, I would have preferred
>> to pay the manufacturer $100 more for the Yeelong if it had an
>> upgraded OS with a functional server capable of working with Synaptic
>> Package Manager than to try to find a competent debian geek and pay
>> him unknown amount of hours to teach me how to upgrade.
>>
>> Though linux is less complicated to install on ARM than MIPS, it is
>> still complicated. Americans do not want to think, hack and tinker.
>> They want to have fun. They want everything working out of the box.

You seem to be totally missing the point of who the target audience for 
any of these products is at the moment and is likely to be at any point 
in the near future. It is for people with extremely specific 
requirements who have enough knowledge (typically do this sort of thing 
for a living at a very high level sort of knowledge) to be able to 
handle having such specific requirements.

Gordan