Voting with our Dollars on Computing Future that Respects our Freedom.
There is a common refrain on this list, "Vote with your Dollars". We'll I'm going to put my money where my mouth is. The EOMA-68 effort is something I've spoken on before. It's a real earnest attempt to put together a hardware project that meets the ideals of the free software community. It's matter of principle, much like recycling is matter or principle (recycling is not cheaper then new materials). https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop I've been watching Luke, the project lead, fail and succeed in various ways for nearly 5 years now. He's had hardware prototypes built, small productions runs of the A20 card done. This is a early adopter scenario, it's going to be rough around the edges, and it's not going to be the fastest hardware. But it's got the heart. Spend sometime reading into the details. https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/fsf-ryf-background In Five years, I've not seen Luke give up. He's finally found a partner company with a good track record (Think Penguin). And the design is done and tested. It just has to be built in mass. I'm not asking that folks go for the laptop. But maybe just a Card, and a Cable Set for Standalone Operation. The costs of Hardware won't come down until we show that we are willing to put a down payment on future we've been asking for. I'm backing this project, not because its the cheapest, or the fastest. But because I want to see more projects like in the future that will be faster and possibly cost competitive in the market. -- Scott Sullivan
On Thu, Aug 25, 2016 at 12:47:55AM -0400, Scott Sullivan via talk wrote:
There is a common refrain on this list, "Vote with your Dollars". We'll I'm going to put my money where my mouth is.
The EOMA-68 effort is something I've spoken on before. It's a real earnest attempt to put together a hardware project that meets the ideals of the free software community. It's matter of principle, much like recycling is matter or principle (recycling is not cheaper then new materials).
https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop
I've been watching Luke, the project lead, fail and succeed in various ways for nearly 5 years now. He's had hardware prototypes built, small productions runs of the A20 card done.
I must admit that having read his longwinded rants, he is among the few people I have considered teaching my email program to flag as "Warning: Potential troll" so I have a warning before reading it. His ideas are rather far fetched, he manages to really piss people off with his demands for them to do things to solve his problems, and I am not convinced the problems he is trying to solve are really worth the bother.
This is a early adopter scenario, it's going to be rough around the edges, and it's not going to be the fastest hardware. But it's got the heart.
Spend sometime reading into the details.
https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/fsf-ryf-background
In Five years, I've not seen Luke give up. He's finally found a partner company with a good track record (Think Penguin). And the design is done and tested. It just has to be built in mass.
I'm not asking that folks go for the laptop. But maybe just a Card, and a Cable Set for Standalone Operation. The costs of Hardware won't come down until we show that we are willing to put a down payment on future we've been asking for.
I'm backing this project, not because its the cheapest, or the fastest. But because I want to see more projects like in the future that will be faster and possibly cost competitive in the market.
I certainly won't be bothering. There are much more interesting bits of hardware I could get. -- len Sorensen
On 08/25/2016 12:47 AM, Scott Sullivan via talk wrote:
There is a common refrain on this list, "Vote with your Dollars". We'll I'm going to put my money where my mouth is.
The EOMA-68 effort is something I've spoken on before. It's a real earnest attempt to put together a hardware project that meets the ideals of the free software community. It's matter of principle, much like recycling is matter or principle (recycling is not cheaper then new materials).
https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop
I've been watching Luke, the project lead, fail and succeed in various ways for nearly 5 years now. He's had hardware prototypes built, small productions runs of the A20 card done. I remember having discussions about this all those 5 years ago. My argument is largely the same. First off I like the idea of readability because there is lots of hardware out there that is perfectly serviceable but is setting on shelves doing nothing or taking up space in landfills.
This is basically a raspberry pi without the ability to access the features. For things like custom controllers I can go and buy a pi and a few add-ons then plug it into a box and I have my little music player to put in a corner or my led light controller to make fancy designs on my walls but with the EOMA-68 I need a breakout carrier and some extra hardware before I am in the same place. For laptop's the memory, speed and heat generated by a usable laptop make the EOMA-68 a very difficult design choice. The reason for laptop upgrades is often needing more memory or disk space but by the time you get there 2-3 years down the road the keyboard has food bits under it and the touch pad is wearing out so getting a new laptop is the way to go. The EOMA-68 will do very little to alleviate those problems.
This is a early adopter scenario, it's going to be rough around the edges, and it's not going to be the fastest hardware. But it's got the heart.
Spend sometime reading into the details.
https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/fsf-ryf-background
In Five years, I've not seen Luke give up. He's finally found a partner company with a good track record (Think Penguin). And the design is done and tested. It just has to be built in mass.
I'm not asking that folks go for the laptop. But maybe just a Card, and a Cable Set for Standalone Operation. The costs of Hardware won't come down until we show that we are willing to put a down payment on future we've been asking for.
I'm backing this project, not because its the cheapest, or the fastest. But because I want to see more projects like in the future that will be faster and possibly cost competitive in the market.
If a project needs people to go out and buy items in the hopes of getting the price down then its in real trouble. The raspberry pi did not take 5 years of uphill fighting to make it possible and now there are literally millions of them out there. The pi was a product that filled a unique need and because of that it took off. If you want a reuse project to back then take a look at Project ARA from google(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Ara). Its the same kind of idea but a scope limited to a cell phone. It is also the right idea in that its taking something I use and finding a way to expand it and make it more functional as oppose to EOMA-68 where the idea is to take replace something I have with something less functional in the hopes that someday there will be the demand to make the less functional product cheap. The plug and play idea and re-use angles are nice but that is not enough to build a technology ecosystem on its own. -- Alvin Starr || voice: (905)513-7688 Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133 alvin@netvel.net ||
On Fri, Aug 26, 2016 at 08:55:25AM -0400, Alvin Starr via talk wrote:
I remember having discussions about this all those 5 years ago. My argument is largely the same. First off I like the idea of readability because there is lots of hardware out there that is perfectly serviceable but is setting on shelves doing nothing or taking up space in landfills.
This is basically a raspberry pi without the ability to access the features.
For things like custom controllers I can go and buy a pi and a few add-ons then plug it into a box and I have my little music player to put in a corner or my led light controller to make fancy designs on my walls but with the EOMA-68 I need a breakout carrier and some extra hardware before I am in the same place.
For laptop's the memory, speed and heat generated by a usable laptop make the EOMA-68 a very difficult design choice. The reason for laptop upgrades is often needing more memory or disk space but by the time you get there 2-3 years down the road the keyboard has food bits under it and the touch pad is wearing out so getting a new laptop is the way to go. The EOMA-68 will do very little to alleviate those problems.
The interface as currently designed is very pin limited, and because of choices made 5 years ago, 1/3 of the pins are used for an LCD interface that I suspect is becoming a dead end very soon. eDP and such are taking over and using a lot less pins. So while the idea of having a standard interface is nice, it always ends up not fitting the needs of the future. I have dealt with CPU boards from Compulab (based in Israel, and makers of things like the utilite mini computers), and they tried to make an interface that could be common between multiple CPUs and had a bit of success with some of them, but it was never very many boards before something had to change. PCI changed to PCIe, some boards had 2 UARTs, some had 4, some had 5, some had LPC, some did not, some had IDE, some did not, etc. And unlike EOMA-68, they really did try to give you access to most of the features, hence they usually had 180+ pins, and of course you had to screw the module to the mainboard, not just plug it in. Certainly to me, a laptop without support for SATA makes very little sense, and so few USB ports makes no sense, and the screen resolutions supported is rather sad by todays standards, the power limits are very restrictive in terms of what can be used, and saying the CPU module maker is responsible for cooling considerations while being put in a pcmcia form factor does not make sense. As for the idea on the website that someone would want to move a CPU module between a tablet, phone, laptop, TV, etc all the time, that's just silly. Why would I want to do that, espcially with the pathetically slow CPUs that are going to be in these modules? Dual core A7? No thanks. My current dual core phone is sluggish enough and it is much faster than those. Had it been finished and released 5 years ago, it might have been slightly interesting, but at this point the design is obviously completely out of date and no longer fits with anything modern you might want to use it for. -- Len Sorensen
Alvin Starr via talk wrote:
The reason for laptop upgrades is often needing more memory or disk space but by the time you get there 2-3 years down the road the keyboard has food bits under it and the touch pad is wearing out so getting a new laptop is the way to go.
I had a Thinkpad from around 2000 that lasted more than a decade; it was solid hardware and I didn't abuse it. And ultimately Moore's Law caught up with it, even though I'd maxed out RAM once that got cheap and upgraded the hard drive. I could probably haul it out today and get it booted, but why bother? Lesson from that is buy it to use it not coddle it, and plan to upgrade in not more than five years. Though maybe Moore's Law is levelling out? -- Anthony de Boer
On 27/08/16 11:34 AM, Anthony de Boer via talk wrote:
Alvin Starr via talk wrote:
The reason for laptop upgrades is often needing more memory or disk space but by the time you get there 2-3 years down the road the keyboard has food bits under it and the touch pad is wearing out so getting a new laptop is the way to go.
I had a Thinkpad from around 2000 that lasted more than a decade; it was solid hardware and I didn't abuse it. And ultimately Moore's Law caught up with it, even though I'd maxed out RAM once that got cheap and upgraded the hard drive.
I could probably haul it out today and get it booted, but why bother?
Lesson from that is buy it to use it not coddle it, and plan to upgrade in not more than five years. Though maybe Moore's Law is levelling out?
I'm still using a ThinkPad X60 (2006) bought in July 2007 and a ThinkPad T61 (2007) from Nov 2007 as my primary machines... My X60 has a SSD. Both had RAM maxed. The T61 has been shelved for the past year though, hard drive died and I haven't replaced it yet because the keyboard/fan need some attention if I'm going to continue to use it. I've used both these machines heavily... I've been seriously considering a new machine on and off for about 3 years... that is, I've been wondering whether or not to buy a new machine for the entire lifespan of many other people's machines! Not quite 10 years of use, but the X60 is into its 9th year. (I feel like there's a bit of a difference between a machine from 2000 in 2010 versus a machine from 2006 in 2016 though... Moore's Law has been applied in a different way over the last 5-10 years, in that my refurbished X60 might still be competitive in some ways with some lower-end netbooks sold today, but I the same wouldn't be true of a laptop from 2000 in 2010.)
| From: Blaise Alleyne via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | (I feel like there's a bit of a difference between a machine from 2000 in 2010 | versus a machine from 2006 in 2016 though... Moore's Law has been applied in a | different way over the last 5-10 years, in that my refurbished X60 might still | be competitive in some ways with some lower-end netbooks sold today, but I the | same wouldn't be true of a laptop from 2000 in 2010.) I have a ThinkPad X61t (tablet) which is quite a machine. I've upgunned it to 4G of RAM and an SSD. I ordered it with the 1400x1050 screen. But I don't use it much any longer. I compare this with my Lenovo Yoga 2 pro or the Asus ZenBook UX305ca. Here's what has improved (earlier ones matter more to me): - no fan or quiet fan - longer battery life - better display - lighter - SSD (but this can be retrofitted) - USB 3 - better touchpads (still not great) - more RAM capacity - faster CPU (low on my list) Things that I find less good: - much harder to service - much harder to upgrade - not as well-made - no middle mouse button and the buttons are not old-fashioned physical buttons. (I think that there may be driver fiddles to achieve a middle soft button.) - no TrackPoint (I am not an addict) - keyboard feel isn't as good (subjective) - sometimes I would prefer the x61t's smaller screen with the squarer aspect ratio I didn't actually use the X661t's stylus and I don't use the newer computers' touch screen. I almost never use the x61t or Yoga folded up in tablet mode. This could be because Linux/GNOME doesn't make these features very useful. I know that you can buy a new ThinkPad without these disadvantages but it would miss out on many of the advantages of newer notebooks. PS: the X60 is of the last generation of thinkpad on which you can install 3rd party open-source ROMs and be kind of sure that your firmware isn't traitorous.
On 08/27/2016 11:34 AM, Anthony de Boer via talk wrote:
Alvin Starr via talk wrote:
The reason for laptop upgrades is often needing more memory or disk space but by the time you get there 2-3 years down the road the keyboard has food bits under it and the touch pad is wearing out so getting a new laptop is the way to go. I had a Thinkpad from around 2000 that lasted more than a decade; it was solid hardware and I didn't abuse it. And ultimately Moore's Law caught up with it, even though I'd maxed out RAM once that got cheap and upgraded the hard drive.
I could probably haul it out today and get it booted, but why bother?
Lesson from that is buy it to use it not coddle it, and plan to upgrade in not more than five years. Though maybe Moore's Law is levelling out?
I do not burn through my laptops all that fast either my current one is about 5 years old. But when I upgrade I expect more(ram,cpu,disk). In either case it will not be upgrading to something like a raspberry pi in a nice package. Hence my original problem with the original post. -- Alvin Starr || voice: (905)513-7688 Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133 alvin@netvel.net ||
On 08/27/2016 11:34 AM, Anthony de Boer via talk wrote:
Alvin Starr via talk wrote:
The reason for laptop upgrades is often needing more memory or disk space but by the time you get there 2-3 years down the road the keyboard has food bits under it and the touch pad is wearing out so getting a new laptop is the way to go. I had a Thinkpad from around 2000 that lasted more than a decade; it was solid hardware and I didn't abuse it. And ultimately Moore's Law caught up with it, even though I'd maxed out RAM once that got cheap and upgraded the hard drive.
I could probably haul it out today and get it booted, but why bother?
Lesson from that is buy it to use it not coddle it, and plan to upgrade in not more than five years. Though maybe Moore's Law is levelling out?
I also had a ThinkPad from that vintage, an R31, IIRC. It worked well, but I eventually bought a new E520, as the R31, while still usable wasn't keeping up with the software.
On 08/27/2016 02:36 PM, James Knott via talk wrote:
On 08/27/2016 11:34 AM, Anthony de Boer via talk wrote:
Alvin Starr via talk wrote:
The reason for laptop upgrades is often needing more memory or disk space but by the time you get there 2-3 years down the road the keyboard has food bits under it and the touch pad is wearing out so getting a new laptop is the way to go. I had a Thinkpad from around 2000 that lasted more than a decade; it was solid hardware and I didn't abuse it. And ultimately Moore's Law caught up with it, even though I'd maxed out RAM once that got cheap and upgraded the hard drive.
I could probably haul it out today and get it booted, but why bother?
Lesson from that is buy it to use it not coddle it, and plan to upgrade in not more than five years. Though maybe Moore's Law is levelling out?
I also had a ThinkPad from that vintage, an R31, IIRC. It worked well, but I eventually bought a new E520, as the R31, while still usable wasn't keeping up with the software.
If we are into playing mine is bigger ^h^h^h^h^h older then yours... I have a multibus NS16032 in my basement with an ST-506 multibus interface. -- Alvin Starr || voice: (905)513-7688 Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133 alvin@netvel.net ||
On 2016-08-27 07:30 PM, Alvin Starr via talk wrote:
If we are into playing mine is bigger ^h^h^h^h^h older then yours... I have a multibus NS16032 in my basement with an ST-506 multibus interface.
Uh, this isn't a game you want to play with Hugh around ... I'm pleasantly surprised that the EOMA68 was funded, as it looked mighty shaky going into the last few hours. I wish the future owners all the happiness a new computer can bring. Marketing a computer as entirely open, however, is going to be a tough sell. It's very hard to get people to care about abstractions like climate change or software freedom. What people do respond to is quality of life changes. If the EOMA68 is truly a computer that will never die because a manufacturer stopped updating a driver, that needs to be in big letters in the first line of their pitch. I'm unconvinced entirely on the argument that because (in theory) you can repair an EOMA68, it's a “green” computer. Unless you can repair multi-layer boards and SMT chips, it's so much e-waste if a component fails. To be green, it would also need to prove: * that it had best-in-class MIPS/mW rating; * that the manufacturer has a full Extended Producer Responsibility plan for cradle-to-cradle recycling built into the purchase price; and * that all components have been ethically sourced, so no “blood capacitors”* allowed. cheers, Stewart *: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltan_mining_and_ethics
participants (8)
-
Alvin Starr -
Anthony de Boer -
Blaise Alleyne -
D. Hugh Redelmeier -
James Knott -
lsorense＠csclub.uwaterloo.ca -
Scott Sullivan -
Stewart C. Russell