Progress On the Open Laptop 57
An anonymous reader writes "Last October, we discussed Andrew 'bunnie' Huang's effort to build a complete open hardware laptop, called the Novena. bunnie has now posted a progress report on the laptop's design and construction, showing the latest revision of the board, the display, and a hack to use it as a secure router. bunnie says, 'At the end of the day, we're having fun building the laptop we always wanted — it's now somewhere between a python-scriptable oscilloscope, logic analyzer, and a laptop. I think it will be an indispensable tool for hacking, particularly for doing signal analysis which requires coordination across multiple protocol layers, complex trigger conditions and/or feedback stimulus loops. As for the inevitable question about if these will be sold, and for how muchonce we're done building the system (and, "done" is a moving target — really, the whole idea is this is continuously under development and improving) I'll make it available to qualified buyers. Because it's open-source and a bit quirky, I'm shy on the idea of just selling it to anyone who comes along wanting a laptop. I'm worried about buyers who don't understand that "open" also means a bit of DIY hacking to get things working, and that things are continuously under development."
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Great - now go there and stay.
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"The sites cannot be directly compared. Reddit is a pure message board, Slashdot a news aggregator."
For sites that can't be directly compared, you sure did a rather direct job.
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I like the long posts on there. Before finding Reddit, it had been a while since I spent a whole evening reading people's comments, something I used
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Well, it's still nice that you bothered to sign up so you could tell this to us.
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The one that richard stallman used? Or was it like custom made or something?
This one has a fairly decent display at 2560x1700 (should that be 1600?), unlike the crappy 1024x600 that Stallman finds acceptable.
does it have the GPU power for that size? (Score:2)
and video ram for it?
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Did you bother to RTFA?
It says: "We’re now using an LG LP129QE: 12.85, 2560 x 1700 pixels (239ppi), with a 24-bit color depth. It looks gorgeous."
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but what video chip??
The GMA chips in some apple systems can't really keep with the retina displays.
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It uses an ARM SoC with a Vivante GPU.
Re:Wasn't there already a free laptop (Score:5, Interesting)
No, I think Stallman's laptop just happened to have a free BIOS. IIRC Stallman does not think that free hardware is nearly as important as free software. This is a an open/free source hardware design meaning that anyone could theoretically grab the design files, do whatever changes they want and then start producing the board.
The integrated circuits are for the most part closed designs of course. If you want to design a completely and utterly open laptop you must first design an open universe...
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True, you can get a lot more open in terms of intellectual content or intellectual property by using FPGA:s.
You are still writing ones and zeros to memories with an FPGA and you are still dependent on a proprietary part, but those ones and zeroes can have a much more radical impact on how the machine works if it is based around an FPGA than if it is based around a hard CPU.
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If you've written the FPGA logic in a standard language like Verilog, then there's not much keeping you from moving the code between different FPGA chips, or even chips from different vendors.
Of course, the idea of using FPGAs in a laptop seems rather silly to me; the whole point of having a laptop is to have something small which can be powered by a battery for a reasonable length of time. Using FPGAs instead of real ASICs and CPUs would drastically lower your run time. You might as well give up on the l
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The FPGA is intended to make this a good hacking tool, rather then a replacement for basic common components.
The idea here seems to be most definitely to make the kind of laptop we always wish we had from the movies - got some wires, want to see what's going on? A few twisted splices and you're looking at signal traces directly.
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There is the Open RISC platform, which is under GPL. It's essentially the HDL code of a MIPS variant that can be used on FPGAs. So if one built a computer - probably not a laptop - using that, then the hardware would be open as well if all the chips on the PCB were programmable i.e. either FPGA or Flash.
Although I do wonder whether anybody, no matter how good at Verilog or VHDL, would try to reprogram the FPGAs on the card and redefine the interfaces b/w the parts? That would be the underlying point to
Is this actually a laptop? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure this meets the standard criteria for a laptop these days. That doesn't mean it isn't a valid, useful device, but if you think about the things most people buy a laptop to *do*, they're going to be secondary to the function of this machine. When you say "Laptop" people think "Sophisticated operating system, wide range of available software, media player, useful for software development, gaming machine (maybe), interfaces with wide range of modern portable devices, etc).
This sounds like it's got a rather different set of capabilities in mind. Apple probably wouldn't like "HackBook", but it seems to fit better.
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it's more like a general arm board with fpga than a "laptop".
I can see quite a bit of usability for it. just not any as a laptop.
Qualified Buyer (Score:1)
What an outrageous notion! The only qualification is that one is willing to trade for it; who are you to determine that for someone else?
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"one is willing to trade for it"
It takes two to trade, no? As the one currently holding the object, he can decide whether or not he is willing to trade. If he isn't, it doesn't much matter if you are...
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It sounds like it is more about making sure that the buyer is absolutely clear about what she/he is getting. Qualifying buyers means you can at least have a conversation where the purchaser says 'I know there are going to be a *lot* of rough edges and I'm okay with major functionality possibly not working'. Otherwise, you end up with buyers who see the word open and rush to buy it perhaps without realizing what they were getting.
Maybe this fear is founded, maybe it isn't. But I don't see it as being comp
Strange definition of open (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm shy on the idea of just selling it to anyone who comes along wanting a laptop. I'm worried about buyers who don't understand that "open" also means a bit of DIY hacking to get things working, and that things are continuously under development.
I use "open" software all the time and I certainly don't do any DIY hacking to get it running and keep it running. So why does this "open" hardware have such a different interpretation? I can only surmise that "open" is actually being used as a synonym of "incomplete".
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I use "open" software all the time and I certainly don't do any DIY hacking to get it running and keep it running. So why does this "open" hardware have such a different interpretation? I can only surmise that "open" is actually being used as a synonym of "incomplete".
The primary difference being, people have different expectations when it comes to something they laid done a decent some of money for. If you download a project that doesn't work and don't know how to diagnose it, you move on. Drop a $1000+ on some hardware and don't possess the skills to work it out , you may feel quite differently. No amount of initial expectation setting can change that when it involves someones hard earned money. We've seen that with Kickstarter, you are told upfront that you are invest
Amy Wong! (Score:2)
Did anyone else notice that the screen in the router case photo has a partially obscured Futurama video playing?
A Python Scripted Oscilloscope? (Score:3)
I couldn't help notice the line calling this (among other things) a python-scripted oscilloscope.
As an engineer, let me say, "To heck with the laptop bit, where do I sign up and buy one?"
Daughter boards. WiFi (if you must), Bluetooth (if you must), and Analog Channels, Bay-Bee!
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Mhmm... Hands above the covers!
If the analog performance of this thing can be made halfway decent this guy may have the beginnings of a small business.
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Most modern digital oscilloscopes have USB interfaces and are controllable with C or a python api. For example, Rigol scopes have python drivers since some years ago.
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As an engineer, let me say, "I'll make my own laptop! With blackjack and hookers! In fact, forget the laptop."
FTFY.
I'll need to sleep w/ my hands above the blankets (Score:2)
Lemote? (Score:1)
Cool (Score:2)
So when you want a generic shitty OEM laptop that just isn't shitty enough, go open source with it.
Professional web design & development service (Score:1)
laptop (Score:1)