[Arm-netbook] fosdem2016

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68


On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 6:33 PM, Wookey <wookey at wookware.org> wrote:
> +++ Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton [2016-02-02 20:10 +0000]:
>> > Thing is, that project is stalled because a) Andy is working on both
>> > another project and deisgning/building a new house and b) they have
>> > failed to get AMD to commit to chip supply. So currently your design
>> > is looking a lot more like it might actually happen than theirs.
>>
>> *sigh* yeahh, it's quite likely that AMD hasn't actually got *anyone*
>> who's committed to it...
>
> Softiron is selling hardware based on the AMD seattle,

 ok great!

>>  yeah you too - it's been a bit weird focussing so heavily on this
>> stuff for such a long time.
>>
>>  1.1kg - it's peanuts.  i'm kinda confused as to why 15.6in laptops
>> are 2.3kg and above.
>
> More performance, bigger batteries, fans, heatsinks, ABS cases, metal
> frame in decent ones (the PItop shows how much heavier an ABS
> injection-moulded case is - A brick in comparison). Yours feels too
> light to be very robust, but I guess we'll see. The lightness helps
> itself to some degree, in the way of insects being unaffected by
> falls.

 i kinda intuitively / subconsciously must have thought of that, i did
know of the concept of "mass decompounding" as applied to cars.  the
hinge part is my main concern - but i guess that one part could always
be either cast in aluminium (look up julia longtin's work - phil
mentioned her to me a while back) or just done in either the
high-temperature ABS from proto-pasta or perhaps the 300C
polycarbonate used for plastic bottles... lots of experimenting,
plenty of time.

> I'm used to a solid lenovo X-series...
>
>> > It was nice :-) I feel inspired to update my eoma card and print some
>> > parts...
>>
>>  awesome.  well, the rev 1.1 card that you have should work with a bit
>> of modification - there's a couple of jumper leads you need to run,
>> i've modded one here - you'll only be able to run the LCD at 100%
>> brightness unless you compile up a software-PCM linux kernel module
>> and do a few other tricks.... just running 3.3v to the pin that's now
>> allocated as "PWM0" is the easiest temporary solution.
>
> I had a quick look but failed to find details of the screen, keyboard,
> boards and 3D parts online, other than scattered through many mailing
> list-messages. Never mind info like the above. Is there a page that
> actually has the info someone keen would need to get started?

 eek - sorry :)  i usually maintain a page that has them but haven't
put it together yet - give me a mo and it'll be at
http://rhombus-tech.net/community_ideas/laptop_15in/

 the boards i want to do another run in the next few weeks, wookey, so
if you'd like to buy some you'd be most welcome.  i don't want to get
too many done in case they need modifications.  they're only
single-sided 2-layer 1.5mm thick so are "bog standard" i.e. dirt
cheap.  i think this time i'll get them made up rather than do the
component assembly myself.

>>  but, it would only be needed for a few months: i need to do another
>> production run (rev 2.5) of the EOMA68-A20 PCB so there are more on
>> the way.  ethernet is going, so you need to be prepared for that, and
>> have a USB-ETH dongle kicking around.
>
> Boo. But yes OK, that's do-able.

 (i put USB 3.1 which is 10gbit/sec in place instead - 8 wires for
only GbE or 8 wires for a general-purpose 10gbit/sec bus.... no
contest)

> What I really want is either an A64 EOMA68 board, or a baseboard
> that'll take the pine64...(as discussed, subject to heat
> limits). Still, that's all 'just hardware' (ha ha).

 yeh the EOMA68-A64 is on the cards.... i even have a pine64 on order
so i can check GPL compliance... *but* i just learned from someone at
fosdem2016 that f*****g allwinner have done it *again* - this time
something related to DDR3 RAM initialisation.  i can't recall the
exact details (was a bit of a mad rush) but i am *not* going to waste
my time any more on pursuing GPL violations.

 so if someone can confirm whether this is true or not, i'll
re-prioritise the allwinner A64 board back to the top of the TODO
list.

l.