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Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook

pine64.org

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Re: Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook

#91

Post by overkalix »

tedmiston wrote: post #78
roryisok wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did we read the same review? Terrible keyboard and trackpad, 2gb ram?

For $100 I think the expectation is set that there will be some rough edges. At that price point, I'd consider picking one up as a toy… even if it is giving me flashbacks of the netbook era.

I still work with my eight year old notebook and its glorious Intel Atom and 1GB of RAM... It was gifted to me during my second year of college and now that I'm on my PhD I still have a use for it.

The original Windows distribution lasted around one month. Since then it's been running a number of lightweight distributions, currently Lubuntu. It works noticeably better than laptops running Windows with twice the memory. Even compared to more powerful machines I manage to keep it competitive by avoiding bloated crap.

Of course the battery doesn't last like it used to, and I had to replace the keyboard a few years ago.

Re: Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook

#92

Post by raesene9 »

limeblack wrote: post #28

Honest question. Why don't people buy old laptops instead of cheaper new ones? I'm no expert but the cost to performance ratio isn't to far off. I am typing this on T420 Thinkpad laptop. I get desiring to use open hardware but at the detriment of performance doesn't quite make sense.

I'd second this having just tried this yesterday. I picked up a Thinkpad X230 for £150. Battery test (looped windowed youtube video running over wi-fi) lasted 3 hours, so that's fine and the laptop itself all seems to work as expected.

Re: Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook

#93

Post by tonteldoos »

unlimitedbacon wrote: post #88

I have this laptop. The beauty of it is that it is unashamedly bad. It is the humblest of laptops. The body is a direct copy of the 13" MacBook Air. As a computer, it is at least as usable as a Raspberry Pi. The teardown photos are hilarious because the motherboard only takes up about 1/6 the internal space. The rest is empty. https://hackaday.com/2017/04/28/hands-on-with-the-pinebook/ It comes with Ubuntu 16.04, but…

I just added my name to the BTO list. How long did you have to wait before they contacted you (and then before it shipped)? I can't seem to find anything about that on their site...

Re: Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook

#96

Post by zaarn »

unlimitedbacon wrote: post #88

I have this laptop. The beauty of it is that it is unashamedly bad. It is the humblest of laptops. The body is a direct copy of the 13" MacBook Air. As a computer, it is at least as usable as a Raspberry Pi. The teardown photos are hilarious because the motherboard only takes up about 1/6 the internal space. The rest is empty. https://hackaday.com/2017/04/28/hands-on-with-the-pinebook/ It comes with Ubuntu 16.04, but…

What is the actual battery life?

If it has a decent one (atleast 12 hours) I could use it as a travel notebook instead of my hefty thinkpad.

Re: Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook

#97

Post by serf »

c22 wrote: post #23
mikhuang wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment seems hilarious to someone who grew up with 486s that did those things fine. However, I’m inclined to agree that i would find this machine challenging to use as my daily thing.

My Lifebook p7010 has a 1.2ghz processor and I still use it for programming, web browsing (mostly with javascript off), writing, light photo editing in gimp, 2d cad (qCAD and inkscape), and with two batteries I can watch movies for about 11 hours on the plane. It's true that I own other computers for 3d cad and gaming.

I loved that era in laptop design.

The Lifebooks and the VAIOs were both so cool.

Re: Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook

#98

Post by AnnoyingSwede »

limeblack wrote: post #28

Honest question. Why don't people buy old laptops instead of cheaper new ones? I'm no expert but the cost to performance ratio isn't to far off. I am typing this on T420 Thinkpad laptop. I get desiring to use open hardware but at the detriment of performance doesn't quite make sense.

I second this. All laptops i bought lately are 2nd hand thinkpads. You cant get more bang/quality for the buck. A new battery and a large SSD are generally the only things that go into it.

Re: Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook

#99

Post by rwmj »

gaius wrote: post #87
xorcist wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree on the battery part, which is generally what dies first (that or fans), most batteries are available on eBay. I recently bought a new battery for a T60, a laptop which is over ten years old.

Original part or generic clone?

I think a cloned, new battery might even be better in this particular case. An original battery that's been sitting on a shelf for 10 years is e-waste.

There are several articles online about how hard it is to store Li-Ion batteries, eg: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_store_batt...

Re: Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook

#100

Post by simosx »

steve19 wrote: post #11

This looks like the perfect hackable netbook with very little surface area for attacks but sadly it has an Allwiner SoC (A64) which violates the GPL and contains many binary blobs. I have been burnt with them, MediaTek and AMLogic in the past. Never again. http://linux-sunxi.org/A64#Allwinner

Allwinner has done mistakes in the past and posted tarballs of the Linux kernel source with object files for drivers they did not have the right (from others) to post the source. They called these "SDKs" and distributed them to those that asked.

There are ways to get around such issues like distributing those blobs or the object files separately, but they were not savvy in free software. They started getting savvy by posting on github sanitized Linux sources and sources of the bootloader, https://github.com/allwinner-zh

So what do you do if a fabless manufacturer violates the GPL out of cluelessness? Do you follow the path of the core kernel develolpers (https://lwn.net/Articles/698452/) or do you go for the nuclear option?

Well, a certain person on linux-sunxi went for the nuclear option. You can see the `GPL violation` edits on the linux-sunxi Wiki on these obsolete tarballs with object files. You can see the same person on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allwinner_Technology writing about 'GPL violations'.

I admit that the `nuclear option` is a strategy. If it works, it would transform the company by force to become friendly to open-source (/sarcasm). But it is a shitty strategy.

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