New Details On System76's Open-Source Hardware Plans Come To Light

[NateHubbard]

Some of the freedom enthusiasts have been stuck on 30-year-old computers for quite some time, so having something fresh would be nice. Watching Stallman interviews is PITA because of them being 144p 5 fps cutting out every 3 seconds. He deserves something better, without having to compromise.

It sounds like he's imprisoned by all that freedom.

[tuxd3v]

It sounds like he's imprisoned by all that freedom.

Well,
If you consider, that Mrs. Stallman was considered by the CIA, a threat to United States, some decades ago, and that he had to ignore tracking devices, like GPS in the cars, and so on, because he was followed, by some Man in Black...

Your comment, could be written differently..
It seems, "he is imprisoned, by some entity, outside prison.."

[pal666]

he was followed, by some Man in Black...

so now he gives his interviews from some middle eastern cave? or everyone knows where he is anyway?

[Venemo]

So what exactly does the daughter board do that the motherboard couldn't do on its own?

[freespirit]

help me to get the point there

the hardware available is closed source, so instead to support or doing a new one open stack, they make a daughter board to connect to a closed source motherboard

it sounds like a free gnu/linux systemd free running on virtual machine inside windows, so it is completly useless for security and freedom
you can connect to your pc all your open hardware but the cpu, the ram and the motherboard will have higher "rank" , they are in a lowest ring, so they can see, manipulate and do all they whant with that data

a stack of imx8 with complete open firmware and driver or a powerpc with comparable x86 costs is more appreciate than what i read about this thelio and about the cost speculation on blackbird

about that i don't wanna go off topic, but if we talk about open hardware is not really an offtopic
i was hoping in a good 2019 with some alternative for average people on open hardware, but now i can delete thelio from that list, and probably also the raptor blackbird because the price speculation seems to be around 700$ for the motherboard, that make a complete setup not affordable for almost everyone who is not a doctor or a lawyer with a lot of money, i can found a 50$ x86 motherboard with the same specs or even better, i understand their costs are different because of sell volume, so i'm fine to buy it a 4x from a x86 let's say 200$ for this motherboard
a completly owner controllable instead or closed source do not grow that costs, so it's about company policies and you can have the confirm just to see their heatsink cost, there is no technology inside are just metal, and it cost 2-3 time more than the close to perfection noctua heatsink and noctua is not cheap, is probably the most expensive

if someone from raptor will read this post, and i hope it, i wanna say that i really appreciate what you do, but not the way you are doing it, because freedom shoud not belong only to people who have a lot of money, and you should also think about an affordable prices help to get more people to buy your product, and more people use ppc more developers will focus on this platform, more programs mean to have a better product to sell, and even your high end solution could benefit from this policy, but the company is not mine, like this choice, what i have is the will to own a completly open hardware pc, and some money to spend on it, but if the price will be confirmed they will be not enough, and i know i'm not the only one

[tuxd3v]

help me to get the point there
(...)
if someone from raptor will read this post, and i hope it, i wanna say that i really appreciate what you do, but not the way you are doing it, because freedom shoud not belong only to people who have a lot of money, and you should also think about an affordable prices help to get more people to buy your product, and more people use ppc more developers will focus on this platform, more programs mean to have a better product to sell, and even your high end solution could benefit from this policy, but the company is not mine, like this choice, what i have is the will to own a completely open hardware pc, and some money to spend on it, but if the price will be confirmed they will be not enough, and i know i'm not the only one

I have same opinion, but were investments come, some companies, try not to put all eggs in same basket..
For example the Chinese people like to gamble( a lot ), and some invests fortunes in some areas, which lead to them succeed in their market..
Some also loose everything..

I was expecting a lot more of it..
But they seems to try an approach that is, building a board in blocks, in "baby steps".. its not a bad tactic, BUT is also doesn't make a product to the market so fast, and because of that, they cannot capitalize, so fast..

In Relation to Raptor, its true that they push too much the prices...if they sell for a third of the actual price, the people would start buying more and more..

[slalomsk8er]

So what exactly does the daughter board do that the motherboard couldn't do on its own?

Hopefully it will do every thing the motherboard does on it's own but do so while being open hard and firmware.

If I read the concept correctly, they use a standard not open motherboard as base and replace functions of the motherboard with open functions on there daughter board.

If I'm right, it is the exact opposite concept of the Purism Librem 5. Where they put "trusted" components behind a "network/interface" with kill switches and treat them like separate not open devices in the same box.

From a security standpoint this is bad, as you have to trust tightly integrated closed hardware and firmware in the core of your "open" product.
This is why I like the open core and closed stuff pushed to the edge and separated by a mote approach a lot better.

[OMTDesign]

Still no word on what processor this computer will use?

Adding daughter cards to circumvent the use of proprietary SATA controllers is a "unique" approach. To me it suggests that they are opting to go for the coreboot/Intel approach, as they are likely not designing their own motherboard.

Also the graphic design of their website is pretty impressive.

https://thel.io/

[ynari]

If Raptor sold for a third of the price they'd sell more, but very probably not enough to survive. You've no idea what their economies of scale are.

There is absolutely no way that even if their prices were slashed it would become a mass market product, it's still bleeding edge and doesn't have an officially supported web browser, never mind lots of other optimised software. I think you should look at the price of other OpenPOWER products to see just how innovative Raptor are being here.

The market for completely open designs is a small one, and limited markets mean increased cost.

Projects such as Coreboot are piggybacking on the extensive design work carried out by other people. It's nice that a Thinkpad X60 can be made mostly open, but that's as a result of it already succeeding in the proprietary marketplace.

Like it or not to help initiatives succeed, you need to provide them with time and money. Often this is more money than you would like, for less (but better) functionality than the mass market alternative.