Remember The EOMA68 Computer Card Project? It Hopes To Ship This Year

[jacob]

ARM SoCs are not exactly open source hardware, are they?

[boltronics]

What laptop is that? I'm in the market looking for a laptop, and yours sounds ideal for what I want.

A HP Spectre X360 13". It's got Thunderbolt too so in theory I could run an external dGPU. Oh, and one full size USB port so no need for dongles just to connect a mouse or USB drive, black lit keys, etc. But as johanb says, not cheap.

[bibaheu]

A HP Spectre X360 13". It's got Thunderbolt too so in theory I could run an external dGPU. Oh, and one full size USB port so no need for dongles just to connect a mouse or USB drive, black lit keys, etc. But as johanb says, not cheap.

Oh yeah, it's not cheap at all (1800€ here in Finland). But looks nice.

Thanks!

[Michael_S]

Your 3 yo smartphone is probably a high end model, a20 is not. Your phone also has accelerated graphics. It won't be nearly as fast.

a20: http://browser.geekbench.com/geekbench3/2990651
3 yo middle range phone: https://browser.geekbench.com/geekbench3/8518684

I did know that, thanks. But I meant that 'bottom end' computing parts get faster over time. If someone - whether it's the original EOMA68 guy or some other person or company - releases a compatible EOMA68 in 2025 with a dirt cheap CPU/GPU, at that point $5 in junk parts will probably buy you something faster than a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 from 2015 (which is what I have).

ARM SoCs are not exactly open source hardware, are they?

No, but they're easy to get and cheap, and you can use them without proprietary blobs - though your graphics performance sucks without a proprietary driver.

[Michael_S]

I've ordered one as well, with the desktop dock and laptop (self assembly option). Sadly, I agree that it's probably going to be too slow to be practical for much when it arrives. Maybe fine for just running Emacs in a framebuffer terminal, but all my existing machines can do that better. I hate to think how slow it'll be after full disk encryption, since I consider that essential - especially for something so portable.

I've since purchased a 13" laptop that has a 4K screen and 1Tb M.2 SSD and boots almost as quickly as I can type the passphrase to unlock the HDD and type my login passwords. It's got a working touchscreen (I run GNU/Linux on it obviously) and the screen can fold back to switch it to tablet mode - no need to swap a card to a different device. It charges over USB Type-C (just like my phone and Nintendo Switch) so no need for a dedicated laptop charger (although maybe there will be a USB Type-C to USB Mini adapter for the EOMA68), great battery life, etc. Using the EOMA68 will likely be painful at this point.

Hopefully the specs are opened and some more powerful alternatives come to market much more quickly.

it won't be as difficult for me to adjust, my current machines are antiques next to the laptop beast you just bought. The secret to happiness is low standards. That's what I keep telling my wife.

[caligula]

I did know that, thanks. But I meant that 'bottom end' computing parts get faster over time. If someone - whether it's the original EOMA68 guy or some other person or company - releases a compatible EOMA68 in 2025 with a dirt cheap CPU/GPU, at that point $5 in junk parts will probably buy you something faster than a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 from 2015 (which is what I have).

I read the card interface isn't that future proof. Fast bus connectors missing. Does it support gigabit lan or usb3?

[danwood76]

Wow, this guy has wasted some serious money on this project and has gone about the hardware design completely the wrong way and the end result is a nearly functioning board with a 6 year old ARM processor.

Maybe he should speak to the Raspberry Pi foundation and see how to launch an open embedded board properly?

[Michael_S]

danwood76
The Raspberry Pi is open? So any company can freely manufacture it and sell under the same name? Awesome, I didn't know that.

Oh wait, I didn't know that because it's not true.

And please clarify what is wrong with the design and design process. To repeat, I don't know enough about this to judge. The guy might well be wildly wrong, I don't know. He has a religious hatred for systemd, which does disappoint me - it's fine to think it's a bad idea, but when you sprinkle misinformed nonsense among your logical criticisms I tend to think it's too much useless tribalism and not enough rational thought.

[danwood76]

@Michael_S

The original Pi had full schematics and board layouts available, but looking at it now the latest appears completely closed off. That wasn't the point though, there are lots of companies in the UK that have very successful ARM boards and developed them in much shorter timescales. He could have approached many of them for some help (especially with the money he has spent on this design).

Unfortunately he seems to have made the common mistake in thinking that getting something made in China is cheaper (hint: it usually is if you are making millions and speak the language but it appears this guy is not doing either).

[Michael_S]

Thanks for the response, and good points.

Again, I give credit for being genuinely committed to an open design - I suspect most of the UK companies or maybe all would not have collaborated on a fully open design. But your criticisms stand.