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Show HN: I made an open-source laptop from scratch

byran.ee

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Re: Show HN: I made an open-source laptop from scratch

#201

Post by barrkel »

chrismorgan wrote: post #136

> A highly integrated, high end, open source laptop. Not sure what’s meant by “high end” here. Performance is a rather important aspect, and the RK3588 this uses will make it slower than almost every laptop on the market. Practically all are twice as fast (both single- and multi-core), most are 3–5× multi-core, and the best approach 7× (paired with 2.5× single-core). Looking at Lenovo India, they sell three laptops t…

There's a way to phrase this comment better, which reflects sadness on the facts of the market, and isn't a kind of attack on the author.

Re: Show HN: I made an open-source laptop from scratch

#203

Post by ValdikSS »

By the way, you can tune boot times further. My print server board boots in 8 seconds to Debian 12 (bootloader + kernel + userspace).

    1. Make sure the bootloader (u-boot) loads the kernel as fast as possible.
        - Disable automatic Ethernet/USB/other subsystems initialization (you can keep them enabled, just don't activate unless requested in the shell manually by the user)
        - Tune `distro_bootcmd` command
        - Make sure that MicroSD/eMMC/SSD works full-speed (with proper clocks and speed protocol)
    2. Use fast decompression algorithm for the kernel and initramfs
        - It's either zstd or gzip
    3. Collect boot file access data and sort the files on the filesystem
        - The benefit in near-linear access & read-ahead
I'm pretty sure that the current 20 seconds could be shrunk down to 14 or so.

Re: Show HN: I made an open-source laptop from scratch

#205

Post by t4TLLLSZ185x »

k8sToGo wrote: post #200
t4TLLLSZ185x wrote: post #150

For those that missed it, this Engineer is in _high school_. Byran, I have been a professional engineer longer than you have been alive, I can tell you right now that I have met very, very few people that would have the motivation, skill and sticktoitivness to pull this off.

This guy is in high school yet has been CEO and what not according to his LinkedIn? What makes you think he is in high school

The words "senior project". Which, fair enough, might mean different things in different parts of the world.

Re: Show HN: I made an open-source laptop from scratch

#207

Post by [deleted] »

cbmamolo wrote: post #65
rafram wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more possible than you'd think! The options are basically: - Go to a fancy private school like Phillips Exeter - Really luck out and get into a great public STEM magnet school - Homeschool and take private classes / have very smart parents

All I did was provide him the space and time to work on the project ... his parents funded the entire project, but will get reimbursement soon. It's the great minds, and the desire to have meaningful projects that make Exeter such an awesome place. Byran is one of a kind!!!!

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: I made an open-source laptop from scratch

#208

Post by ericjmorey »

rafram wrote: post #69
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't tell if this is sarcasm.

The community college option is available to anyone who’s willing to spend a couple evenings a week taking classes, so I don’t think it’s really that out of reach. Most countries don’t offer their high school students any opportunity to study material that advanced.

Community college course options often won't include quantum mechanics.

Re: Show HN: I made an open-source laptop from scratch

#209

Post by lobsterthief »

rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote: post #177
httpz wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sometimes wonder how many talented engineers top colleges are rejecting because they were busy working on real engineering projects like this than academics and test scores.

Probably not a lot, kids who have the grit to work on projects like this are the ones most likely to succeed academically

I disagree; I did similar projects like this in high school (not exactly like this; his is a true achievement). I did very well grade-wise and had a high GPA but I bombed the SAT because I didn’t understand that you didn’t lose the same number of points for questions you skipped. So the ones I didn’t have time to answer I just randomly selected, which resulted in a poor score.

I found out later:

1. How SAT scoring works 2. That you shouldn’t take the last SAT of the year since then you cannot retake it 3. I probably should’ve taken the ACT instead

I wish they’d prepared us in school for this, but they were too busy training us for standardized state testing since that determined their own budget.

Could I have gotten into MIT? Unsure; back at 18 I didn’t know MIT existed and this was early Internet times. It would have been nice if my high school mentioned it as an option.

In my case at least, doing projects like this and getting good grades didn’t automatically turn into attending any college I wanted. Either way, I ended up with a great career.

Anyways, kudos to the person who made this project!

Re: Show HN: I made an open-source laptop from scratch

#210

Post by teleforce »

paines wrote: post #175
teleforce wrote: post #148

Anyone know the amount of RAM available for the laptop? Personally I'm a bit disappointed that it's based on Rockchip. If someone can come up with low cost open source laptop with RPi compute module 5 with 16GB RAM I think it will selling like hot cakes given the software and hardware eco-system that exist round RPi [1]. It just that the compute module has yet to come with 16GB RAM unlike the normal RPi 5 but it will…

> Personally I'm a bit disappointed that it's based on Rockchip. Why would you? You mentioned Raspberry where, compared to the competition, you pay more for the name while they deliver even the same capabilities or more bang for the buck... Don't get me wrong. Huge Raspi fan here. I have 3 models laying around here, because they are the easiest to purchase. But the competition is not to be overlooked. Also, aren't th…

Because it's the eco-system for software, hardware, firmware, drivers, books, documentation, blogs, papers, training modules, etc. It's the same reasons Nvidia thriving for ML/AI while the rest are playing catch up.
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