If you have ever programmed something in Android you'll know what a !@#$%^&*? platform it is. That's why a "3rd party frameworks layer" are so popular (e.g. Xamarin - now owned by Microsoft, or PhoneGap, etc)
In addition, a device that you don't have full control over, is not your device. I personally won't touch these devices with a 10-feet pole if they don't give me a secure way to grant root access, out of the box. Can you imagine having to install an exploit to gain administrative access to your own computer? That's what these Android PCs are. The end game is very obvious.
Even with root access, these devices are very often *NOT* upgradeable. This forum is full of people who run Puppies on PC used to run Win95/Win98/WinXP/WinVista whatever. Some even runs Puppies on Macs. I just want to highlight that the devices listed in this particular thread, in general, are Puppy-killer. You *can't* run Puppy there, ever.
My house is now littered with "practically-dead" Android tablets. Oh they still power up and work fine, the problem is the Android version in them is "too old" that many apps no longer supports them. This is excerbated by Google Play Store where you can only get the latest version of the apps. What good is a computer without the applications?
You can't upgrade the OS because they are practically OEM devices with OEM version of Android, you depend on the OEM to provide the update for you. But most cheap OEMs don't bother to provide any updates at all. But Android is open source you say! Open-source my a**, I would say. The base Android *is* open source, but most OEMs customise things on top of AOSP to the point that basic AOSP won't work for your system. And you can't get the source for these customised builds, so no cake for you. Even if you can, you may not be able to install it because the bootloader is locked "for your own protection" (haha surprise surprise! - if you think UEFI is bad, wait until you meet locked Android bootloader).
Even major brand-name devices are only supported for 3 years. After that 3 years, even if your devices are still perfectly fine, you're supposed to toss it to the bin and get a new one. Planned obsolence to the very finest. Hey, if the customer is not spending, economy will stop, no?
These devices are the very opposite of Puppy spirit.
You want to support Linux? Don't support Android PCs. Support one of these: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/. Disclaimer: not affiliated with these guys. Just happen to like the concept.
Another disclaimer: this post is not meant to shoot at anyone. I just want people to know the truth about these products. If you know what you're going to get and can live with the restrictions, by all means get one of these.
Jide tries again, Remix Mini does Android PC
Hey, james --> http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=107369
...I contributed some hardware work to them
glad they're getting publicity and a shoutout from you. I know you're a cool guy around these here parts.
I've linked to your post here, on the EOMA-68 mailing list. Luke, the leader of our little project, is Puppy member 'lkcl' -- let me know if you have questions or comments for him, and if he doesn't respond directly, I'll quite happily forward them on.
By the way -- you've got the one Puppy in your hand, that can potentially do EOMA-68. Fancy a little (more?) porting work on FatDogARM...?
...I contributed some hardware work to them
glad they're getting publicity and a shoutout from you. I know you're a cool guy around these here parts.I've linked to your post here, on the EOMA-68 mailing list. Luke, the leader of our little project, is Puppy member 'lkcl' -- let me know if you have questions or comments for him, and if he doesn't respond directly, I'll quite happily forward them on.
By the way -- you've got the one Puppy in your hand, that can potentially do EOMA-68. Fancy a little (more?) porting work on FatDogARM...?
This {https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/ } is a very interesting development. No doubt ARM is the future. However, in my long (& bitter!) experience it's not the laptop PC that fails, it's the screen!!! [& sometimes the connectors]. Replacement or s/h screens cost more than an entire used, complete working unit. Moreover, if you've got a very old laptop with a working screen, chances are that it's incompatible and/or doesn't have the card slot.
Maybe things are different in the world's primary disposable nation? But, if they're dumping old laptops in dumpsters (you won't find them in skips in Blighty!) you need to find one that has been carefully placed therein, not heaved.
Frankly, I've always found all laptops an expensive waste of time & dosh.
Maybe things are different in the world's primary disposable nation? But, if they're dumping old laptops in dumpsters (you won't find them in skips in Blighty!) you need to find one that has been carefully placed therein, not heaved.
Frankly, I've always found all laptops an expensive waste of time & dosh.
Sage wrote:This https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/ } is a very interesting development. No doubt ARM is the future. However, in my long (& bitter!) experience it's not the laptop PC that fails, it's the screen!!! [& sometimes the connectors]. Replacement or s/h screens cost more than an entire used, complete working unit. Moreover, if you've got a very old laptop with a working screen, chances are that it's incompatible and/or doesn't have the card slot.
Maybe things are different in the world's primary disposable nation? But, if they're dumping old laptops in dumpsters (you won't find them in skips in Blighty!) you need to find one that has been carefully placed therein, not heaved.
Frankly, I've always found all laptops an expensive waste of time & dosh.
Agree with you about the laptops, I've got a couple that I never use.Sage wrote:Thanks, James! I rewrote it several times and cut and pasted twice - still got something wrong...
PS: but you missed the curly bracket at the front of the URL - possibly the troublemaker?!
More to the point, how about the content?!
The EOMA68 in the link is interesting as a desktop alternative to experiment with. I'll pass on the laptop concept though.
My thought is it's similar to a modular Raspberry Pi, plug into a case and you have a desktop or a laptop.Anything low priced that will run linux is worth consideration I guess.
that's why we deliberately picked an LCD with an extremely common and hugely-widely-used size. make and model.Sage wrote:Replacement or s/h screens cost more than an entire used, complete working unit.
the 1366x768 15.6in LVDS LCDs from LG - the LP156WH-TLN2 - look them up on ebay. then look them up on panelook.com. $49 on ebay from china, with *free international shipping* - wow! that's not going to break the bank, is it? panelook.com: you can find 100,000 or 1,000,000 for around $25.
the reason why they're that low cost is because they're used *right* across the board in *huge* volumes in a dozen different $300 laptops that are sold in walmart, best buy, asda's, aldi's, tesco's, pc-world...
i could say more but i feel you probably get the point.
... because you've given up, because you *know* you can't upgrade them any further than their capacity? RAM, CPU, all maxed out and too old for current software?James C wrote: Agree with you about the laptops, I've got a couple that I never use.
huh... how about that. wouldn't it be cool if there was a laptop where you could literally pop out the *entire computer* and put in a replacement CPU, RAM and boot storage, all in one really easy credit-card-sized 5mm form-factor?
funny if that actually existed today on a crowd-funding site, that would be, huh?
*I* can answer that one.
Totally different chip. ARM is not like x86, where there's a very broad base set of safe expectations amongst modern chips. Some ARM chips are microcontrollers, like an Arduino but slightly (and only slightly) more powerful. NXP's LPC1114 is notable for being in a 28-pin DIP package. It's... not the most powerful of ARM microcontrollers, but you can breadboard it. Some other ARM chips are suitable for controlling a phone or tablet (we know). Some are... in between. Usually those are higher-end router chips. All of those families are ARM, and all are reasonably modern.
It's more... it's like you have everything from 386 to say a high-end Core2Quad or the like, capability-wise, but they're all roughly the same age and design era. There's a massive spectrum there.
The Pi uses a somewhat custom Broadcom chip, and from everything I've heard it's mostly GPU with a little token processor stuff thrown in for good measure. I have a Pi Gen1 Model B like that. I have no use for the bloody thing, honestly more because of the lack of a proper power management setup over than anything else.
The Allwinner A20 is a completely different SoC from anything Broadcom, except for the fact that the two have an ARM-licensed CPU core in them somewhere.
Besides. Web-browsing is mostly what people do these days, and last I heard that was a single-core activity. It's not like you're going to need all that to fire up Firefox!
Totally different chip. ARM is not like x86, where there's a very broad base set of safe expectations amongst modern chips. Some ARM chips are microcontrollers, like an Arduino but slightly (and only slightly) more powerful. NXP's LPC1114 is notable for being in a 28-pin DIP package. It's... not the most powerful of ARM microcontrollers, but you can breadboard it. Some other ARM chips are suitable for controlling a phone or tablet (we know). Some are... in between. Usually those are higher-end router chips. All of those families are ARM, and all are reasonably modern.
It's more... it's like you have everything from 386 to say a high-end Core2Quad or the like, capability-wise, but they're all roughly the same age and design era. There's a massive spectrum there.
The Pi uses a somewhat custom Broadcom chip, and from everything I've heard it's mostly GPU with a little token processor stuff thrown in for good measure. I have a Pi Gen1 Model B like that. I have no use for the bloody thing, honestly more because of the lack of a proper power management setup over than anything else.
The Allwinner A20 is a completely different SoC from anything Broadcom, except for the fact that the two have an ARM-licensed CPU core in them somewhere.
Besides. Web-browsing is mostly what people do these days, and last I heard that was a single-core activity. It's not like you're going to need all that to fire up Firefox!
Quite so! And, sadly, all those activities under the heading of 'gaming', notably, presently, encompassing 'VR'. Remember, the Chinese invented (heavier-than-air) flight but spent a century or so engaging in kite battles. The Germans devised gliders, but it took another century to get a person into the cockpit (apart from a couple of indoor tethered experiments in the UK mid C19th.)Web-browsing is mostly what people do these days, and last I heard that was a single-core activity. It's not like you're going to need all that to fire up Firefox!
The point about RPi and BBC Bit is a concerted attempt in GB to get kids interested in control systems and programming which is the real future. Uphill task - wrong country(ies). Capitalism is only interested in £££$$$, not advancement of rational, equitable and efficient societies. The world is riven with useless politicians seeking world domination & co. It' all going to take a very long time....
There's also this initiative, which, before anyone starts, will also be available without Windows 10. That is of course, if they ever meet their Kickstarter goal.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13 ... -pocket-pc
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13 ... -pocket-pc
you don't - you *can't* have an EOMA68, you can't *have* a concept, it's not a physical item that you can hold in your hand. EOMA68 is a standard.smokey01 wrote:The EOMA68 concept is great but they are a little under powered for my liking.
you *may* be referring to the pass-through card which turns e.g. the Laptop Housing into a NexDock (see update https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micr ... rough-card )
you are probably referring to the EOMA68-A20 which is a computer card based *around* and compilant *with* the EOMA68 standard.
it is the first in the series.
you will get faster EOMA68 Computer Cards in the future.
you will be able to sell the older ones on ebay.
people will want to buy them.
they'll buy them and put them into rack-mounted co-located server hosting and make $3/month
they'll buy them and put them in tablets for the kids.
they'll buy them and put them into routers or freedomboxes.
surprise. i have 5 {insert SBC name here} that i don't use. it's why i designed EOMA68, so that the resale and reuse value due to interoperability would be greatly increased.I have a Pi2 and it works fine but it was a toy for about a week, now it sits in the draw collecting dust
think "memory card" - think of all the benefits with "memory card".... now extend that to "computer card".
@ solo -- haha, um. Intel is discontinuing the SoC Atom chips -- including the one they're trying to use there. I've heard this now from several people I trust.
I hope, for their sake, that Ockel has a 'plan b'... otherwise they're just contributing to the already-immense pile of Kickstarter failures... not to mention that it basically forces perpetual vaporware status on their product.
I hope, for their sake, that Ockel has a 'plan b'... otherwise they're just contributing to the already-immense pile of Kickstarter failures... not to mention that it basically forces perpetual vaporware status on their product.
I would like to tell them this, it's just that they all look so nice and chipper and downright positive in their team presentation shots on Kickstarter, that I just don't have the nerve.starhawk wrote:@ solo -- haha, um. Intel is discontinuing the SoC Atom chips -- including the one they're trying to use there. I've heard this now from several people I trust.
I hope, for their sake, that Ockel has a 'plan b'... otherwise they're just contributing to the already-immense pile of Kickstarter failures... not to mention that it basically forces perpetual vaporware status on their product.
JIDE removes Google Apps from Mini
Has anyone else noticed this? I switched my Mini on for the first time in months and the upgraded OS has lost Google Apps.
There are workarounds (which I haven't tried yet) but this does rather take the shine off a nice little gadget.
I hadn't used it for a while as I needed access to an HDMI monitor and the rest of the household were reluctant to relinquish the telly.
Fixed that problem by buying a flatscreen TV with an HDMI input at a charity shop/warehouse. Plugged in the Mini and half an hour later it's all gone pear-shaped!
What fun.
There are workarounds (which I haven't tried yet) but this does rather take the shine off a nice little gadget.
I hadn't used it for a while as I needed access to an HDMI monitor and the rest of the household were reluctant to relinquish the telly.
Fixed that problem by buying a flatscreen TV with an HDMI input at a charity shop/warehouse. Plugged in the Mini and half an hour later it's all gone pear-shaped!
What fun.
Re: JIDE removes Google Apps from Mini
Happened a few months ago, luckily the workaround is really easy.drongo wrote:Has anyone else noticed this? I switched my Mini on for the first time in months and the upgraded OS has lost Google Apps.
There are workarounds (which I haven't tried yet) but this does rather take the shine off a nice little gadget.
I hadn't used it for a while as I needed access to an HDMI monitor and the rest of the household were reluctant to relinquish the telly.
Fixed that problem by buying a flatscreen TV with an HDMI input at a charity shop/warehouse. Plugged in the Mini and half an hour later it's all gone pear-shaped!
What fun.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/remix-mini ... ay-access/
http://forum.xda-developers.com/remix/r ... e-t3432029