/prog/ - FOSS netbook

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-17 16:56

I'm looking for a netbook with the following characteristics:
- dirt-cheap (under the 200 USD mark)
- screen size between 7 and 11 inch
- preferably ARM-based CPU (but x86 is fine too)
- computational power at least half of an Intel Atom N450
- at least 128MiB of RAM
- at least 2GiB of nonvolatile storage OR SD-card reader
- over 6 hours battery life
- no binary blobs required for operation (I don't care if 3d and/or video acceleration require binary blobs, I don't use those anyway)
- open source firmware or "BIOS"

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-17 17:00

macbook pro

Name: RMS 2012-03-17 17:24

What hardware are you using?

I am using a Lemote Yeelong, a netbook with a Loongson chip and a 9-inch display. This is my only computer, and I use it all the time. I chose it because I can run it with 100% free software even at the BIOS level.

And what software?

To initialize the machine and boot, it uses PMON. Above that, it uses gNewSense, one of the totally free GNU/Linux distros.

I spend most of my time using Emacs. I run it on a text console, so that I don’t have to worry about accidentally touching the mouse-pad and moving the pointer, which would be a nuisance. I read and send mail with Emacs (mail is what I do most of the time).

I switch to the X console when I need to do something graphical, such as look at an image or a PDF file.

Most of the time I do not have an Internet connection. Once or twice or maybe three times a day I connect and transfer mail in and out. Before sending mail, I always review and revise the outgoing messages. That gives me a chance to catch mistakes and faux pas.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-17 17:46

>>3
- dirt-cheap (under the 200 USD mark)¹
- screen size between 7 and 11 inch
- preferably ARM-based CPU (but x86 is fine too)
- computational power at least half of an Intel Atom N450
- at least 128MiB of RAM
- at least 2GiB of nonvolatile storage OR SD-card reader
- over 6 hours battery life²
- no binary blobs required for operation (I don't care if 3d and/or video acceleration require binary blobs, I don't use those anyway)
- open source firmware or "BIOS"

¹ Despite being designed and made in China and having very low-spec hardware, somehow it manages to be very expensive (over 300$).
² Higher-capacity battery upgrades aren't even available! What the fuck!

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-17 18:47

Google "low_price_mini_7_laptop_cheapest"

- USD $60-90
- 7" 800x480 TFT
- x86 PC compatible
- DMP Vortex86DX @ 800MHz
- 512MB RAM
- 4GB SSD
- 3000mAh battery
- It runs Linux and the CPU docs are fully available on the DMP website.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-17 19:05

>>3
Unfortunately Lemote Yeelong is quite expensive. I'd get one if they were cheaper.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-17 19:10

Are you trying to be more hipster than everyone you've ever met?

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-17 19:11

>>7
Not OP, but it's not about being hipster, it's about freedom.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-17 20:02

There aren't many notebooks that have a free BIOS or booting firmware. The Yeelong is one of the more famous ones because RMS owns one.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-17 20:22

>>5
Whoa, that's actually not bad at all. DMP advertises their CPU as using very little power (<1W) and the fact that it has SSD (as well as supporting an SD card, though they don't say whether it supports SDHC or SDXC) makes it very very attractive from a battery life standpoint. Oh and it's incredibly cheap. Wow.

Just to make sure, you are talking about this url (base64-hidden cause I'm no spammer), right? data:text/plain;base64,aHR0cDovL3d3dy5hbGliYWJhLmNvbS9wcm9kdWN0LWdzLzQ0ODM4OTEyNC9sb3dfcHJpY2VfbWluaV83X2xhcHRvcF9jaGVhcGVzdC5odG1s

If yes, have you already bought from there? What was your experience? If you have this specific model, how long is the battery life? When the battery does go bad, can and where may I find a replacement? How much was the shipping? Should I go ahead and send them a message directly? Does coreboot support that specific model?

Sorry for bombarding you with all these questions; I thank you very kindly, dear stranger, for you have made my ~~day~~ week!

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-17 21:10

>>8
I don't think you understand what that word means.
Freedom is not a synonym for 'limiting my choices due to arbitrary restrictions handed down by a messianic figure'.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-17 21:30

>>11
freedom is choosing your own restrictions.
the opposite is imposed restrictions.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-17 22:11

>>1
stop caring and buy an HP MINI. Normal netbook with a decent keyboard.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-17 22:23

>>13
``Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Typing Comfort, deserve neither Liberty nor Comfort.''

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-18 0:21

tggghy

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-18 1:04

>>11
Freedom in this case means the ability to control your life and your own possessions. This cannot happen when your technology obeys somebody other than the owner of the machine. Case in point, Apple controls all iPod machines despite the fact that people supposedly own these machines.

Name: 10 2012-03-18 1:21

bump so >>5 sees it

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-18 1:51

www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/The-Keyboard-Is-the-Standout-Feature-on-the-HP-Mini-Netbook-373278/

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-18 3:17

>>18
Don’t expect the three-cell lithium-ion battery to last much beyond 2 hours on a single charge, but using a netbook for longer than that taxes the eyes and brain.
Uh, I've been using my netbook sometimes for 12h runs. Maybe you should go see an ophthalmologist.

The keyboard alone is worth the HP Mini’s relatively high price of about $500.
For 30$ I got a separate, very comfortable USB keyboard which I sometimes bring along with me if I need to do lots of typing.

HP
Motherboard's gonna fry, bro. Oh and the BIOS is obviously closed-source, and coreboot incompatible like every other netbook.

I have been told
YHBT

Name: 13 2012-03-18 9:29

>>19
I have a 3 years old HP MINI that came with a 9 cell battery. That article was quite old, so i doubt that now you can buy a 2 cell battery HP MINI.

Is slooooooooow. I can only watch videos in youtube at 360px resolution. 480px is slow.

But i don't use it for stuff like that. Mainly i use text editors and ssh connection to remote machines. Damn, i can even run an XP VMWARE virtual machine at acceptable speed for those strange events where i need stuff i can only do in Windows.

The only problem i had so far is the cpu fan that got dirty once. CPU temp was going so hot that the netbook turned itself off automatically after "heavy" use. After opening the netbook and cleaning it with a wind blower everything has been ok so far.

As for coreboot.. i guess is too old (or too jew) to be compatible for that. After running flashrom on it reported Intel ICH7M. It seems that coreboot supports some MB with ICH7, so maybe there is hope?

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-18 10:03

>>20
\BACK TO /g/ PLEASE\

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-18 10:14

>>21
Back to scrubbing toilets you no talent bitch.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-18 12:57

>>4
Interesting, but does it have free/open source BIOS?

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-18 12:58

>>23
Damn, I meant >>5 not >>4

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-18 13:21

>>5
Is it supported by coreboot?

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-18 17:22

>>11
You might be surprised at the number of people who believe that's exactly what it means.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 1:42

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 3:17

>>10
That's the one.

I didn't buy from there but I picked up something that looked very similar (down to the box art) in Shenzhen for 400RMB. Ask them if you're curious and want to buy one. I get ~6 hours from the battery with light use under XP; I think it's regular 18650 cells inside so it shouldn't be too difficult to replace when it wears out.

>>24
It has an Award BIOS (might be pirated, just like the XP it came with) so I don't know much about coreboot support but it seems there are people working on a vortex86 port for it. As I said the docs are open and the same SoC is used in a lot of embedded SBCs.

It is slow. Performance is comparable to a 300MHz Pentium II. If you want something better get an Atom. Don't even think about gaming on it --- except maybe old DOS stuff.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 7:51

>>14
``Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Typing Comfort, deserve neither Liberty nor Comfort.''
Also applies to statically-typed languages.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 8:31

>>29
I don't understand how that would apply.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 11:50

>>10

Offtopic but, how have you done this conversion to the base64?

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 12:57

>>31
if your UNIX-like system has the program installed, try this in yo'ure shell:
$ echo "delicious dicks" | base64

If you want to prevent it from inserting newlines, use -w0 as a switch to base64.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 13:42

"delicious dubs"

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 14:23

>>32
VGhhbmtzIGEgbG90Lgo=

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 15:03

>>28
It is slow. Performance is comparable to a 300MHz Pentium II.
Well, if I can write software that's fast, responsive and usable on that, then I can really write it for anything.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 15:19

>>35
You haven't written software that runs fast on anything until it runs on a TI-86. I wrote a Pong game in TI-86 BASIC. It was slow as fuck (the ball moved 1 pixel about every 2 seconds), but when I ported it to QBasic on a fucking IBM XT, I needed to add a delay loop. That's how slow TI-86 BASIC is.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 15:21

>>36
why not write it directly in Z80 asm?

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 15:53

>>37
BASIC is all that his little brain can comphrend.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 15:54

>>37
I wanted to, but my Windows computer had no serial port and TI decided to make the USB cable's software not work with a TI-86^*. It's really hard to test a program when after typing thousands of hex digits, one bug or mistyped opcode could lock it up and erase the RAM.

*The Mac version works with TI-86, but not the Windows version so the cable itself is fully capable of connecting to the calculator. I hate it when companies do that kind of shit.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 15:54

>>38
Fuck you

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 15:59

>>39
>expensive calculator
>no reset button
Casio master race.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 16:00

>>39
Did you never understand the concept of backups? Or an assembler for z80?

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 16:15

>>38,42
How am I supposed to make a backup if the cable won't connect to my computer? I bought the cable but it didn't work even though it works on a Mac because TI's Windows software doesn't support the TI-86. There was no third-party software that worked with TI-86 at the time.
I have used an assembler for Z80 (Assembly Studio 8x) and wrote a few small programs with it like a string search and character code to string converter. It produces a hex listing, which is the only way to enter an asm program without a cable or other TI-86.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 17:28

>>35
A 300MHz PII runs 98SE pretty quickly and even XP works well stripped down.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 17:33

>>44
I'm actually writing my own operating system, hence the interest in well-documented open hardware platform. Okay I also have ^paran_oia issues, hence the open source firmware requirement.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 17:43

MacBook Air

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 19:20

>>46
Someone (>>2) already did the joke way before you.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 20:10

>>45
I'd recommend getting a Coreboot supported motherboard. There aren't any notebook computers that are Coreboot compatible because of manufacturing policy.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 20:33

>>45
Just buy the Loongson. You'll be ready for the MIPS Renaissance.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 20:43

>>49
Money doesn't grow on trees. Why the fuck is it so expensive?

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 21:08

>>46
joke

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-19 23:49

>>50
Smaller production runs means smaller scale of economy. If there was more competition in that specific niche, the price will go down.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-20 0:00

>>52
so we need more FOSS netbook manufacturers? couldn't agree more.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-20 1:48

>>53
At the moment, there isn't a big worldwide demand for computers with completely free software. This means the small number of manufacturers who do cater to this market aren't going to be getting much revenue to justify the investment of producing big numbers of machines. This will not change until customers change what they want to buy. One possibility for increasing demand is manufacturing specialised computing devices such as home media players, home networking services, home automation modules etc.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-20 1:56

>>54
...or writing software that refuses to run on non-free hardware for ``security reasons''.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-20 2:13

>>55
If people won't reject DRM hardware today for that reason, they're not likely to do it tomorrow util they understand why freedom is important.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-20 2:27

>>56
DRM is Jewish

Name: 10 2012-03-20 9:57

Oh well, they just replied. Turns out it's been discontinued.

Name: Anonymous 2012-03-20 10:54

Hm, maybe if I found one of those development boards (like beagle/pandaboard except a lot cheaper) and got an LCD panel, battery and keyboard I could make a neetbook myself.

Name: Anonymous 2012-06-20 3:15

LEMOTE YEELOONG-8133 QUAD-CORE MIPS64 FREE-SOFTWARE LAPTOP HAS BEEN RELEASED

http://www.lemote.com/products/computer/yilong/312.html

Name: Anonymous 2012-06-20 3:30

>>60
lol, The Stallman is going to buy that to replace the one the THIEF stole!

Name: Anonymous 2012-06-20 3:46

>>60
I WANT ONE

Name: Anonymous 2012-06-20 3:54

ITT: Freeturds

Name: Anonymous 2012-06-20 4:08

>>63
You must be the Microsoft/C++ spammer. Pleased to ~~meet you~~ fuck you in the ass.

Name: Anonymous 2012-06-20 18:01

>>60
fake. fuck you, i had my hopes up.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-01 22:28

>>60
Still waiting, Lemote.

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 2:08

RIP ★ Quad-core MIPS64 FOSS laptop ★ thread

http://dis.4chan.org/read/prog/1340406644/1-300

We will always remember you

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 2:15

>>67
Still remembering, ★ Quad-core MIPS64 FOSS laptop ★ thread

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Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 4:28

In this spam: freedom hating fagshit

Still remembering, ★ Quad-core MIPS64 FOSS laptop ★ thread

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Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 5:55

Still remembering, ★ Quad-core MIPS64 FOSS laptop ★ thread

Name: Anonymous 2012-09-02 7:50

RIP FOSS netbook
Why do all the good threads die so early?

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Name: Over 1000 Thread 2012-09-02 8:12 Over 1000

This thread has over 1000 replies.
You can't reply anymore.

FOSS netbook

1 Name: Anonymous 2012-03-17 16:56

2 Name: Anonymous 2012-03-17 17:00

3 Name: RMS 2012-03-17 17:24

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