... on Legacy ISA.
I'd rather a RISC-V Pinetab-V, based on the same JH7110 as VisionFive 2.
StarLite 12.5-inch Linux tablet
221–230 of 347 posts
Re: StarLite 12.5-inch Linux tablet
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who just this week tried to put Linux on a Surface (laptop 4), I can categorically say I'm not going to try that again. Totally broken, not even booting properly.
To be fair...Windows 11 on the Surface Laptop line is janky as shit. I'd be far more interested in what experiences people are having with Linux on a proper Surface Tablet.
I remember working at an IT desk and trying to help a poor college student with their Surface Tablet, it would immediately thermal throttle just opening Microsoft Word, the whole unit slowed to a crawl. I helped them remove the bundled antivirus trial crapware and turn off a bunch of startup junk, but between the performance and the uncomfortable keyboard and trackpad it seemed like a miserable device to use for any serious purpose.
Re: StarLite 12.5-inch Linux tablet
#2231st class Linux support tablet, coreboot firmware, & decent specs for ~$500? I consider that a great deal. I'm very keen on this.
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Re: StarLite 12.5-inch Linux tablet
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
The DE itself, yes. This is true of GNOME as well once the hidden setting is enabled. Unfortunately there's still individual programs which don't behave correctly, which for now means that 1x or 2x displays are still best if a trouble-free, low-tinkering experience is the goal.
The GNOME setting is not hidden anymore, fractional scaling seems to be a first class citizen now.
My experience is that it makes a lot of things visibly blurry. Has that improved at all?
Re: StarLite 12.5-inch Linux tablet
#225... on Legacy ISA. I'd rather a RISC-V Pinetab-V, based on the same JH7110 as VisionFive 2.
> ... on Legacy ISA.
Since when is x86 legacy?
> I'd rather a RISC-V Pinetab-V, based on the same JH7110 as VisionFive 2.
Have you actually used one of those? They are excruciatingly slow. Less performance than most Raspberry Pi. Maybe it works for your niche workflow, but for StarLite to succeed they'll have to build a _usable_ product.
Also competitive ARM based alternatives (such as Snapdragon) require many closed source blobs to function.
Re: StarLite 12.5-inch Linux tablet
#226Just received notification and went to order. Shipping to my location (Nordic region) turned out to be expensive enough that I’ll have to pass on this for now and live with older hardware for a while yet. Too bad!
Re: StarLite 12.5-inch Linux tablet
#227Why not a Ryzen APU?
Can you have that fanless in this form factor?
Re: StarLite 12.5-inch Linux tablet
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
Star Labs is trustworthy (typing this on a Star Labs StarLike Mk IV right now), but small hardware brand. They're based in the UK.
What’s your experience with StarLite IV? I’m thinking about buying it for heavy note taking - neovim/obsidian/browser (Google docs and excalidraw). What battery life I can expect? Is keyboard nice to type? Is stuff like sleep, Wi-Fi auto connect and bluetooth headphones really solved?
Not the parent but I have a StarLite IV as well.
The keyboard is very nice. Short travel for keys but pleasant to use. I use iwd as the wireless deamon and wifi autoconnect works just fine. I do not have bluetooth headphones so cannot comment on that, but my bluetooth mouse works as expected.
Battery life depends largely on how you use it. I have a minimal setup with alpine linux/i3 and just typing in a terminal with screen at 33% brightness results in battery-reported power consumption of just under 2W which is great. Obviously a browser like firefox will impact it quite a bit. Hardware-accelerated video playback works fine.
There are a few minor downsides: the built-in speaker is quite awful (not a consideration for me), the webcam is not great and the microsd card reader is usb 2.0. UEFI secure boot is currently not supported on the coreboot fw. The documentation is sparse.
One weird gotcha is that the power button is one of the keys on the keyboard, so to avoid suspending your device accidentally it will only fire an interrupt after you hold it for a couple seconds. Took me a while to figure out.
Re: StarLite 12.5-inch Linux tablet
#229Just received notification and went to order. Shipping to my location (Nordic region) turned out to be expensive enough that I’ll have to pass on this for now and live with older hardware for a while yet. Too bad!
Odd - shipping to Central Europe starts at 32 euro
Re: StarLite 12.5-inch Linux tablet
#230Just received notification and went to order. Shipping to my location (Nordic region) turned out to be expensive enough that I’ll have to pass on this for now and live with older hardware for a while yet. Too bad!
The keyboard is also extra, which bumps the price up to more than I originally thought.
Biggest downside is a 3-4 month lead time though, I'm too impatient for that unfortunately, especially given this would be a bit of a punt for me.