[Arm-netbook] Current status

[David Niklas]

On Tue, 21 Jul 2020 04:31:43 +0100
Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton <lkcl at lkcl.net> wrote:
> On Tuesday, July 21, 2020, David Niklas <doark at mail.com> wrote:
> > On Monday, July 20, 2020, George Sokolsky <sokolgeo at posteo.net>
> > wrote:  
> > >  How people are moving forward with their computing needs?  
> >
> > I'm not receiving an EOMA68, rather I'm building my own laptop from a
> > firefly RK3399 SBC. It's more powerful then the EOMA68,  
> 
> 
> correction: EOMA68 is a protocol standard.  an SBC cannot be compared
> to a standard.
> 
> you must mean "an EOMA68-A20 computer card".

Yes. My bad.

> if in the future an EOMA68-RK3399 existed, it would compare directly
> with and have exactly the same speed, capactity and performance as the
> RK3399 Firefly.
> 
> 
> > but its lack of
> > FLOSS SW support is problematic. For example, the firmware flashing
> > didn't flash firmware and did mess up my kernel enough to require a
> > reboot. Grrr!
> > I'm working on and off on the SW and HW.
> >
> > The RK3399 is a real winner of a processor, being sold on a lot of
> > SBCs for as little as $50. It's getting better and better SW support
> > as devs reverse engineer its internal mali GPU and associated
> > interconnect and power controls.  
> 
> 
> this is one thing that really concerns me.  the RK3399 came out nearly 3
> years ago yet you're saying that *only now* is support for it trickling
> through to mainstream? what gives?

You're the one to tell us how open-HW is best and you're asking what
gives? Surely, this is just another example of how much better FLOSS
is!

> AMDs laptop offerings are also very temping and I'm recommending them to
> > normal people who want to purchase a laptop. Linux support is in great
> > shape for the 4000 series AFAIK[1]. Supposedly, AMD is coming out
> > with an APU even more amazing before the end of the year.  
> 
> they're just doing so much better than intel.  you saw the news about
> Apple reporting more QA issues in Skylake during its development than
> Intel engineers?
> 

Yes, but forgot to save the article.

"Acer Swift 3 Narrow Bezel Laptop, 14" IPS Full HD, Ryzen 7 4700U 8-Core
up to 4.10 GHz (beats i7-1065G7), 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, USB-C/DP, Wi-Fi 6,
FP Reader, Backlit, Mytrix Ethernet USB Hub, Win 10"
               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
It's such a bad PR situation that sellers are literally spelling it
out in their advertisements.

> > so that's out of the question.
> > The Epiphany processor was looking like its silicon form would really
> > be a powerful CPU, but then the guys in charge said that there were
> > not enough people who wanted one to manufacture them on silicon.  
> 
> 
> sigh, bless them, they didn't properly "read" their customers' needs.
> my brother understande this extremely well.  it's not the product
> itself that sells itself, it's whether the team can explain to the
> potential customers that they can be trusted to help them fulfil their
> needs.
> 

If you have a link or more to say, please continue. I thought it was a
wonderful project but wanted to wait until they did the silicon vs. the
Xylinx FPGA CPU.
My choice, no doubt also the same as others, made the initial project
appear less successful then it really was.

> > MIPS was looking promising until you read it's "open source"
> > license.  
> 
> 
>  i did try contacting them.  the open website was closed for business.
> oops

lol

> Currently, the folks of the POWER arch are releasing version 9 as
> > open-source (still hacking out the terms AFAIK).  
> 
> 
> that's done.
> 
> long story, here.  a group has been working for a LONG time (like 10
> years) to create the OpenPOWER Foundation.  right in rhe middle of
> that, RISCV started up :)
> 
> the EULA was out in... january i think.  i got "helloworld" running a
> couple of weeks ago in simulation, in the Libre-SOC core.
> 
> if you want to know more then do join one if rhe virtual coffee calls
> 
> https://openpowerfoundation.org/openpower-virtual-coffee-calls/
 
:cry:
Another Zoom conference. Proprietary executable. Known spying company.
Why luke, why do people always have to choose the worst of proprietary
stuff?

https://nypost.com/2020/04/10/chinese-spies-are-trying-to-snoop-on-zoom-chats-experts-say/
https://medium.com/swlh/zoom-are-you-spying-me-7c07feebf85

We have linphone, ekiga, not to mention the myriad of stuff on shareware
sites ( Here's a good one I know from my windowz days
https://www.freewarefiles.com/ ), if it must be proprietary.
We have IRC, Jabber, Argh! So much good stuff!
Conferencing stuff (not all FLOSS, but still a lot there):
https://www.ubuntupit.com/top-20-best-linux-video-conferencing-software/

> > So, if you're looking for Linux kernel rate OSHW releases you're
> > bound to be disappointed. Otherwise I'd wait for OpenPOWER and invest
> > in products from that endeavor -- assuming it doesn't go South too.  
> 
> 
> it won't.   IBM is not going away.
> 
> l.
> 

All 3 projects I listed as failed/failing have problems that are not
technical. I'd love to be excited, but I'm feeling cautious and pensive.

Thanks for your thoughts, luke,
David