[Arm-netbook] Two Questions: MEB/Card/Case and VGA Proto

[Christopher Havel]

On 11/4/2013 12:19 PM, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> On Monday, November 4, 2013 11:07:38 Christopher Havel wrote:
>> "Need" is a bit of a strong word... but I really really really really
>> want one ;)
> first, what Luke says about poverty is completely true. and i feel you: i’ve
> experienced poverty myself.
>
> that all said, something i’ve learned with hardware is that if you give it
> away 99% of people don’t do anything with it. i say that as someone who has
> been involved with giving away more than a few devices in the past, 100s at a
> single event even :)
>
> we want these devices to be *used*, and by having people pay for them not only
> do we help support production and development but it gives people a pretty
> good reason to actually *use* them.
>
> so that’s the “why i don’t plan on just giving these things away”.
>
> however, i am very open to the idea of putting aside a limited # of these
> devices for people who demonstrate not just need, but also a plan, and sending
> earmarked devices to those people at our expense.
>
> what i’d look for is:
>
> * a short, written plan of what you are going to use the device for. it
> wouldn’t have to be ground breaking / earth shattering in amazingness, just a
> “here’s what i’ll be doin’ with it”. this will help us prioritize between
> different kinds of projects
>
> * a commitment to post regular updates (e.g. 1-3 times / month) online so
> others can follow your progress. believe it or not, this is a *really* nice
> way to give something back to the community and would be a way of supporting
> the project with your time rather than your money.
>
> for me, such a program would have to:
>
> * be able to produce results everyone would identify with as “good”; put
> another way: no losers, only winners
>
> * be respectful to everyone involved; i would not want to initiate a
> beg’n’grovel fest, for instance, so the application process should be focused
> on positives: a description of my project(s), how i plan to document my
> progress so the community can join in on my successes, etc.
>
> would that work for you, or would you tweak something in there?
>
> i can’t promise we’d have this program ready for launch, but i’d be willing to
> make it happen in the mid-term.
>
...maybe...

What I want to do with it is run FatDogARM, which is a version of Puppy 
Linux made for ARM processors and an offshoot of another community 
version (more on that in a minute) of Puppy Linux called FatDog 
(speaking as a member of the Puppy Community, FatDog is one of our two 
64bit offerings; the other is Lighthouse 64). FatDogARM is in Alpha 
stage right now, and is being done by a fellow on the Puppy Linux forum 
(well, the official one -- there's an official, a backup-official, and 
one or two unofficials).

Getting FatDogARM to run on an EOMA68 platform would contribute both to 
EOMA68 and to FatDogARM, in providing an additional Linux OS supporting 
EOMA68, and providing additional hardware compatible with FatDogARM.

FatDogARM can be made (at present) to run on all A10/A20 systems with at 
least 512mb RAM (I'm told 1gb is hugely better -- at 512mb the compiler 
memory-thrashes IIRC) with some gentle futzing.

Regarding Puppy Linux itself (for x86 systems here)... Puppy is a little 
different from most Linuces (as I like to say the word). Puppy is a 
single root user Linux distro (it's safe to run Puppy as root -- the 
distro is well built against any threats it might otherwise be 
vulnerable to). The best way to install Puppy is also different -- us 
Puppians call it a "frugal install" (we call a conventional Linux 
install a "full install") -- basically it's a process of copying over 
the vmlinuz, initrd.gz, and SquashFS file (with the actual filesystem 
inside, along with optional additional *.sfs's for additional programs 
and sometimes drivers), and tacking a bootloader on top (I'm used to 
grub4dos, it's *almost* idiotproof). It's also a community-oriented 
distro, and as a result is more of a "distro family" than one single OS. 
There are a tremendous number of Puppies and Puplets (a "Puplet" is a 
community-created version of Puppy); we have a forum member who collects 
as many versions as possible for archive purposes (and has an account 
with archive[dot]org for that) -- and I've been told by that member that 
the collection is well over 1000 Pups.

The official Puppy Linux forum is at 
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/index.php 
<http://murga-linux.com/puppy/index.php>, and the forum member 
developing FatDogARM has the handle there of 'jamesbond' (w/o quotes). 
Current thread (for FatDogARM Alpha-4) is at 
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=89998 . I've spoken with 
jamesbond about EOMA68, briefly, in the FatDogARM Alpha-3 thread (linked 
in the first post of the Alpha-4 thread). I can post a link to the page 
with that discussion if needed, but the general gist is that jamesbond 
thinks it'll be a cakewalk. I'm not 100% sure, mostly because of that 
EEPROM and the fact that I can't compile.
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