[Arm-netbook] System 76 - Entering Phase 3

[Mike Leimon]

Lyberta:
> Couple of points that got my attention. They say Linux instead of
> GNU/Linux. Open source instead of Free/Libre Software. They also
> mentioned Ubuntu. This was enough to me to stop having any respect for
> them. At least based on that post.

While I understand what you are saying I don't see how having one of
the most Linux friendly laptop manufacturers making a laptop based on
the EOMA68 standard would be a bad idea. Let's say hypothetically, they
decided to make the most awesome modular EOMA68 laptop possible, dual usb-c
3.1 and the works. Even if they did ship the system with a CPU card that
was running Ubuntu on it, the whole EOMA68 standard works on the premise
that if you can plug it in, it will work. Therefore, couldn't you just
swap out out the CPU card and put any other compatible EOMA68 CPU card in
there to enjoy the benefits of a well designed laptop and run your preferred
distro instead?

I understand that Ubuntu isn't your distro of choice (it isn't mine either)
however, I think that there aren't many Linux friendly computing companies
out there, let alone those that don't sell computers running anything other
than Linux. I think that it is certainly important to have principles and to
stick to them when possible however, when there seems to be as much common
ground between what we want to accomplish and what they want to accomplish
I am thinking it might be better to at least try working together than to
hunt around for reasons to be divisive.


Allan Mwenda:
> Well i dunno, system76 would want to make the fastest card not necessarily the freest.

I'm not so sure about this. I get the impression from reading some of their
blogs and whatnot that they spend quite a bit of time and effort vetting the
particular components they are putting into their systems to guarantee
compatibility with their Linux distribution of choice. So while I do think
they put some degree of importance into making sure that their systems have
good performance, I do think they are aware of what having upstream driver
support means for system components. I would agree that they would probably
want to get the best performance out of a CPU card that they could however,
I don't think that they would be too keen to do so at the cost of selecting
a chip that didn't have some degree of upstream support.


l:
> i sort-of thought about this overnight, and i think you're right,
> allan.  the hardware they're selling is typically mid to high-end x86
> hardware [plus yes they talk about ubuntu]  something like EOMA200
> would be a much better bet... but then so would many of the other
> (industrial) modular standards for their needs.
I suppose I still don't see the harm in bringing the EOMA68 concept up to
them. The worst they could say is that they aren't interested. However,
they could potentially be a pretty good ally. Also, I did notice that in
the past few months they added a 96 core arm server to their lineup:

https://system76.com/servers/starling

Which means to me that they aren't completely wedded to solely x86
hardware. Even with their tendency to build higher end laptops and systems
I think that an EOMA68 based laptop could easily exist within their line-up
as an upgradable chromebook alternative (something priced in the $250-500
range). That would allow them to test the EOMA68 waters while at the same
time allow them to build on and expand their higher-end line of x86 systems
as well.

I guess all I am trying to say is, that we won't know what a person or a
company will do until we ask the question.
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