Discussion:
[Arm-netbook] EOMA68 libre laptop and microdesktop, soon to launch
Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
2016-05-23 15:18:13 UTC
Permalink
hi folks very busy here, also packing up as we're leaving holland, and
been ill for several days *and* getting the portable 3d printer up and
running - it's all happening. we're due to launch soon, and are
applying for RYF Certification to cover the average end-user. spoke
to josh gay about that, he confirmed that the FSF is in no way
concerned about the average technical user (which all of us are here
on arm-netbooks), it's when proprietary software is available and
installed via an easy click-point interface with absolutely no
warnings whatsoever. so we've worked out the procedures for applying
for and then including a RYF-Certified product on the same launch page
as the rest. it's very specific but we'll manage fine.

nearly there, thank you to everyone for being so patient. EOMA68 is a
long-term standard that has to be right first time it goes out.
there's no possibility for correcting mistakes, as it would cause
confusion. confusion automatically means failure so that can't
happen. which is why i've had to bite the bullet, update the
standard, and start again with the prototypes three times now, costing
around $USD 10k each time. it is what it is. but i'm finally happy
with the standard, the proof-of-concept, whilst in bits, works 100%,
the modifications required are minor, so we launch.

l.

---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68

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Christopher Havel
2016-05-23 15:21:30 UTC
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Well done, Luke! :) This sounds exciting...

Sorry to hear you've been sick, though. Get well soon, if you're not
already there...
Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
2016-05-23 18:29:33 UTC
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On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 4:21 PM, Christopher Havel
Post by Christopher Havel
Well done, Luke! :) This sounds exciting...
thanks chris. yeah it is.
Post by Christopher Havel
Sorry to hear you've been sick, though. Get well soon, if you're not already
there...
just pushed too hard for about 4-5 months, 14-16 hours a day, and
reduced outgoings for my sponsor by cutting out sports and high-energy
food... had to have an effect some time. but ehh the main bulk of the
work's done for now.

next phase is doing promotion and talks, then prepare the PCB designs
for when the crowdfunding's in. i'll be over to the far east by then,
so that i'm in place to keep an eye on things at the factories.
learned that one already, it's completely insane to have such an
important set of tasks without direct supervision when it takes a
48-hour round trip for email, and there are *three* different
timezones involved - GMT-8, GMT and GMT+8.

l.

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Christopher Havel
2016-05-23 19:18:47 UTC
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Just FYI, Luke, I've sent you an email off-list to your Gmail account.
Nothing urgent, just a small favor -- if I'm allowed to ask ;) (...if I'm
not, let me know and I won't ask again.)

C
Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
2016-05-23 19:41:27 UTC
Permalink
On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 8:18 PM, Christopher Havel
Post by Christopher Havel
Just FYI, Luke, I've sent you an email off-list to your Gmail account.
Nothing urgent, just a small favor -- if I'm allowed to ask ;) (...if I'm
not, let me know and I won't ask again.)
no problem

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Paul Boddie
2016-05-26 21:08:28 UTC
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Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
hi folks very busy here, also packing up as we're leaving holland, and
been ill for several days *and* getting the portable 3d printer up and
running - it's all happening. we're due to launch soon, and are
applying for RYF Certification to cover the average end-user.
Good to hear that big things are finally happening! Not good to hear that
you'd been unwell, however. Pace yourself, Luke! ;-)
Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
spoke to josh gay about that, he confirmed that the FSF is in no way
concerned about the average technical user (which all of us are here
on arm-netbooks), it's when proprietary software is available and
installed via an easy click-point interface with absolutely no
warnings whatsoever. so we've worked out the procedures for applying
for and then including a RYF-Certified product on the same launch page
as the rest. it's very specific but we'll manage fine.
I look forward to seeing what has been decided here.

And will both the A20 and the jz4775 CPU cards be offered? Any others that
might sneak in at the last moment, too?

Paul

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Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
2016-05-26 21:42:33 UTC
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Post by Paul Boddie
Good to hear that big things are finally happening! Not good to hear that
you'd been unwell, however. Pace yourself, Luke! ;-)
:)
Post by Paul Boddie
Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
spoke to josh gay about that, he confirmed that the FSF is in no way
concerned about the average technical user (which all of us are here
on arm-netbooks), it's when proprietary software is available and
installed via an easy click-point interface with absolutely no
warnings whatsoever. so we've worked out the procedures for applying
for and then including a RYF-Certified product on the same launch page
as the rest. it's very specific but we'll manage fine.
I look forward to seeing what has been decided here.
this is for the A20. we have to apply for two exemptions, for the
MALI 3D GPU and for the CEDARX VPU, but what works in our favour -
bear in mind this is *only* for the "average end-user", absolutely in
no way is anyone who is competent to follow "command-line"
instructions included in the assessment, it really really is just the
"point-click" users - is that when you run "lspci" you get nothing.
when you run "lsusb" you get nothing. in fact, unless you've
preinstalled certain software and compiled in certain modules (which
we won't do), it's *literally* impossible to even find out that the
GPU and the VPU are even there.

also working in our favour is the reverse-engineered version of
libcedarx actually works. normally if an exemption is applied for, if
the only available library is a proprietary one, it's a "strong
minus". we still might get a "No, Sorry" based on the GPU alone.
Post by Paul Boddie
And will both the A20 and the jz4775 CPU cards be offered? Any others that
might sneak in at the last moment, too?
_maybe_. that's down to allwinner. if they can get me the DDR
initialisation code that they linked into u-boot and so are required
to provide it, then i'll try a rush-job creating an A64 card. but
it'll be tough.

the jz4775 one i just haven't had time to investigate, i'll try to
get to it, but we haven't even an OS for that one yet. the leemote
OS is old but would be a proof-of-concept if nothing else

l.

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Paul Boddie
2016-05-26 22:35:46 UTC
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Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
_maybe_. that's down to allwinner. if they can get me the DDR
initialisation code that they linked into u-boot and so are required
to provide it, then i'll try a rush-job creating an A64 card. but
it'll be tough.
I'm sure it'll happen eventually. With the recent bad publicity around their
kernel code, perhaps they'll see the benefits of cooperating a bit more with
other people.
Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
the jz4775 one i just haven't had time to investigate, i'll try to
get to it, but we haven't even an OS for that one yet. the leemote
OS is old but would be a proof-of-concept if nothing else
I guess this is with regard to FSF certification and whether you could offer
the jz4775 within a RYF-branded campaign. And I guess that Debian is still out
of the picture, which I think is the distro of choice for the MIPS Creator
CI20 and CI40, those being perhaps the closest products to what you'd be
offering.

Of course, offering no bundled operating system would also be an option.

Paul

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Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
2016-05-26 23:08:19 UTC
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---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
Post by Paul Boddie
Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
_maybe_. that's down to allwinner. if they can get me the DDR
initialisation code that they linked into u-boot and so are required
to provide it, then i'll try a rush-job creating an A64 card. but
it'll be tough.
I'm sure it'll happen eventually. With the recent bad publicity around their
kernel code, perhaps they'll see the benefits of cooperating a bit more with
other people.
interesting - what happened? been too busy - any links?
Post by Paul Boddie
Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
the jz4775 one i just haven't had time to investigate, i'll try to
get to it, but we haven't even an OS for that one yet. the leemote
OS is old but would be a proof-of-concept if nothing else
I guess this is with regard to FSF certification and whether you could offer
the jz4775 within a RYF-branded campaign. And I guess that Debian is still out
of the picture, which I think is the distro of choice for the MIPS Creator
CI20 and CI40, those being perhaps the closest products to what you'd be
offering.
a modern kernel would be needed, the one i'm starting with is 3.0.8
(because that's what ingenic have that works) - any dependencies on
udev tied to later versions and it's game over for a recent OS without
a lot of extra work.
Post by Paul Boddie
Of course, offering no bundled operating system would also be an option.
true.,, not ideal

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Paul Boddie
2016-05-27 10:35:45 UTC
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Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
Post by Paul Boddie
I'm sure it'll happen eventually. With the recent bad publicity around
their kernel code, perhaps they'll see the benefits of cooperating a bit
more with other people.
interesting - what happened? been too busy - any links?
Sorry for the long links...

http://forum.armbian.com/index.php/topic/1108-security-alert-for-allwinner-
sun8i-h3a83th8/

https://olimex.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/how-to-root-any-allwinner-device-
running-android-and-most-of-the-chinese-pi-clones-which-bet-on-allwinner-
android-linux-kernel/

It got quite a bit of wider coverage, too.

[...]
Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
Post by Paul Boddie
I guess this is with regard to FSF certification and whether you could
offer the jz4775 within a RYF-branded campaign. And I guess that Debian
is still out of the picture, which I think is the distro of choice for
the MIPS Creator CI20 and CI40, those being perhaps the closest products
to what you'd be offering.
a modern kernel would be needed, the one i'm starting with is 3.0.8
(because that's what ingenic have that works) - any dependencies on
udev tied to later versions and it's game over for a recent OS without
a lot of extra work.
Did you not get various people doing Linux stuff for MIPS/Ingenic-based
products involved at some point? The GCW-Zero uses the jz4770 and the
developers appear to maintain a much more recent kernel:

https://github.com/gcwnow/linux

The MIPS Creator stuff should also be using more recent kernels, too, although
the following probably isn't where the most recent work has been taking place:

https://github.com/MIPS/CI20_linux

Incidentally, it looks like the CI40 will run OpenWrt, not Debian:

https://community.imgtec.com/platforms/creator-ci40/

You might have more luck with the following:

https://git.linux-mips.org/cgit/linux-mti.git

Even the Ben NanoNote uses a more recent kernel than 3.0.8 - mine runs Debian
Wheezy on a somewhat newer kernel - but I accept that you'd have to assess
whether the jz4775 would really be supported properly in any non-Ingenic work.

I can't say that I've been tracking the state of Linux for a while. I did try
to get a device-tree-capable kernel working on the NanoNote, but the kernel
support for various devices wasn't there, and I'm not familiar enough with the
different mechanisms to troubleshoot the various deficiencies. Of course, it
doesn't help that Linux documentation is in general lacking and/or awful.

Paul

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Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
2016-05-27 10:55:51 UTC
Permalink
---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
Post by Paul Boddie
Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
Post by Paul Boddie
I'm sure it'll happen eventually. With the recent bad publicity around
their kernel code, perhaps they'll see the benefits of cooperating a bit
more with other people.
interesting - what happened? been too busy - any links?
Sorry for the long links...
http://forum.armbian.com/index.php/topic/1108-security-alert-for-allwinner-
sun8i-h3a83th8/
https://olimex.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/how-to-root-any-allwinner-device-
running-android-and-most-of-the-chinese-pi-clones-which-bet-on-allwinner-
android-linux-kernel/
It got quite a bit of wider coverage, too.
ok just a way to debug devices bearing in mind that convenience and
supporting companies to be able to sell as many products as they can
is more important than security *sigh*. ok so that can always be
commented out.
Post by Paul Boddie
[...]
Post by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
Post by Paul Boddie
I guess this is with regard to FSF certification and whether you could
offer the jz4775 within a RYF-branded campaign. And I guess that Debian
is still out of the picture, which I think is the distro of choice for
the MIPS Creator CI20 and CI40, those being perhaps the closest products
to what you'd be offering.
a modern kernel would be needed, the one i'm starting with is 3.0.8
(because that's what ingenic have that works) - any dependencies on
udev tied to later versions and it's game over for a recent OS without
a lot of extra work.
Did you not get various people doing Linux stuff for MIPS/Ingenic-based
products involved at some point? The GCW-Zero uses the jz4770 and the
https://github.com/gcwnow/linux
The MIPS Creator stuff should also be using more recent kernels, too, although
https://github.com/MIPS/CI20_linux
https://community.imgtec.com/platforms/creator-ci40/
https://git.linux-mips.org/cgit/linux-mti.git
thanks.
Post by Paul Boddie
Even the Ben NanoNote uses a more recent kernel than 3.0.8 - mine runs Debian
Wheezy on a somewhat newer kernel - but I accept that you'd have to assess
whether the jz4775 would really be supported properly in any non-Ingenic work.
i can bootstrap up using known-good to known-good and/or at least get
boards into people's hands once hardware's proven to work.
Post by Paul Boddie
I can't say that I've been tracking the state of Linux for a while. I did try
to get a device-tree-capable kernel working on the NanoNote, but the kernel
support for various devices wasn't there, and I'm not familiar enough with the
different mechanisms to troubleshoot the various deficiencies. Of course, it
doesn't help that Linux documentation is in general lacking and/or awful.
i don't mind, as long as there's source.
Post by Paul Boddie
Paul
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Hans-Christian Jehg
2016-05-27 18:24:58 UTC
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Just to chime in :-)

As usual this mailing list is super interesting to follow.

Can't wait for this revolution in the marked of laptops/embedded systems...

I am always reading immediately, even if the e-mail arrives on Christmas
eve during just before the big dinner :-D

hcjehg
Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
2016-05-27 18:46:36 UTC
Permalink
---
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
Post by Hans-Christian Jehg
Just to chime in :-)
As usual this mailing list is super interesting to follow.
Can't wait for this revolution in the marked of laptops/embedded systems...
do help out by talking to friends about it when the campaign's
underway, that's how we'll get past the MOQ 250. if it goes above
that i will do two phases (especially if it's like 1,000 or 2,500),
first 250 then the remainder, as i would like to make sure we ramp up
to catch any potential issues.
Post by Hans-Christian Jehg
I am always reading immediately, even if the e-mail arrives on Christmas eve
during just before the big dinner :-D
haha been there... :)

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