TERES-I DIY ARM 64-Bit Linux Laptop Released For 240 EUR

[willmore]

Is memory soldered or has SO-DIMM?

Soldered. SO-DIMMS are almost impossible to support by SoCs like this.

[andreano]

What SoC would you have them use that has mainline support and reversed \ open graphics?

Anything with Adreno, Vivante or Broadcom GPU obviously (though I agree that AMD would have stole the show).

To ARM's Mali division: Get your act together, as Broadcom did, and hire (another) Eric Anholt!

[andreano]

Selling points:

☑ Working display support (not bad for an Allwinner)
☑ Battery support
☑ FPGA usable as oscilloscope
☑ Ctrl-key in the right place
☑ Tux-key
☑ Price

Obstacles to world domination:

☒ SO-DIMM
☒ GPU with prospects of support
☒ M.2
☒ the "big" part in big.LITTLE
☒ USB3

[caligula]

if you sell it with an Opensource badge I expect it to not be only half-supported crap.

I had the impression that Allwinner (mainline) support was among the best compared to many other ARM chips. Raspberries still use their own non-mainline kernels and the open bootloader can't boot Linux, some ODROIDs don't have an open bootloader (require blobs) and some more recent ones don't support multiple cores (SMP) and SD/eMMC/USB mass storage support will be coming with next Linux releases. Some other brands don't have any kind of community support. A quick look at http://linux-sunxi.org/Linux_mainlin...#Status_Matrix shows that most features except for GPU/VE/camera port are supported on most chips. It's not so bad. Well, it could be a lot better, but there's plenty of stuff done already..

[starshipeleven]

I had the impression that Allwinner (mainline) support was among the best compared to many other ARM chips.

No, the best is raspi and iMX6-based stuff. Wandboards for example https://www.wandboard.org/ or things from Solidrun

Allwinner lack decent support for GPU and video acceleration, and this is kinda bad on an embedded system. Then the Allwinner stuff is crappy in general (I've seen enough Allwinner stuff with hardware bugs, like for example in sata controller).

Raspberries still use their own non-mainline kernels

"non-mainline kernels" is outdated information https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Raspber...ainline_Kernel

the open bootloader can't boot Linux, some ODROIDs don't have an open bootloader (require blobs)

Who the fuck cares about the bootloader anyway. It's not BIOS/UEFI that linger around, it's just code that initializes the board, loads Linux and disappears.

I care about blobs that run in the OS, that limit the updates I can do on the system, the bootloader or static firmwares are not an issue.

[caligula]

No, the best is raspi and iMX6-based stuff. Wandboards for example https://www.wandboard.org/ or things from Solidrun

Allwinner lack decent support for GPU and video acceleration, and this is kinda bad on an embedded system. Then the Allwinner stuff is crappy in general (I've seen enough Allwinner stuff with hardware bugs, like for example in sata controller).

But you're comparing > $100 products with $10 to $20 products? How does that make any sense? I could also argue that $500 PC is a lot worse than a $5000 workstation. Wandboard's marketing and supply chains suck.

[speculatrix]

I just bought a Jumper ezbook 3 pro. Quad core Apollo Lake, 6 GB RAM, 64G of Samsung eMMC (hs400 mode), fullHD IPS, 11ac WI-FI, in a really nice chassis.
only $230.
I used linuxium's Ubuntu installer image, no problems

[starshipeleven]

But you're comparing > $100 products with $10 to $20 products? How does that make any sense?

Here the main goal is good opensource support, because on a laptop you will want to keep stuff updated.

If you only need cheap half-supported crap you can buy cheap half-supported crap, but this isn't the case.

I mean, if I was building simple embedded stuff that isn't going to be used outside of a LAN, I would go with Allwinner crap, and use blobs and all that is needed (and never update it again).


If I'm making a goddamn "opensource laptop" I'd man up and get true opensource-supported chips, and pay the 100$ more (and they are also better in general, it's not just opensource).

[speculatrix]

I think the best open-source combination would be a khadas vim with the r-pi laptop shell.

[grok]

Why nobody makes cheap laptop with decent keyboard and two digital video outputs, but without nvidia gpu? All laptops matching such requirements are either ugly looking gaming laptops for $600+ or business class laptops for $800+.

What about VGA + HDMI outputs? Seen that on an Atom PowerVR netbook (which runs its original Windows 7 Starter for obvious reason)
VGA is not digital but is good nonetheless (in particular there are many VGA-only LCD monitors!, while TV often accept VGA as well as HDMI)

On the other hand I doubt an old Atom can do three displays : internal, VGA and HDMI.
I'm pretty sure a Skylake laptop (for example) will drive internal, VGA and HDMI at once on the Intel graphics. If you find such a laptop, VGA is presumably provided through an internal Displayport to VGA converter..

Now you may be asking, why the hell not have Displayport + HDMI instead. But plugging into VGA monitor (1366x768 19", 1280x1024, 1680x1050..) or projector is a real business case.

Sometimes a super high res monitor (21:9, 4K) will have a VGA input, you'll be stuck at 1920x1080 or something but at least it works at all. (Maybe tricking your PC to output 2560x1080 VGA can be attempted)
Maybe there will be Zen APU laptops with HDMI + VGA (sorry again if that's backwards, I think we can't dismiss it. VGA is even common on AM4 motherboards)