Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

VIA launches $49 Android PC

geek.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 112 posts

Re: VIA launches $49 Android PC

#71

Post by angusgr »

EwanToo wrote: post #46
haberman wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it reliably boot headless? If it does I'll order one before the ink dries on this comment.

Yes, it's been very reliable for me. It ships with angstrom Linux, but it's trivial to install Ubuntu. I've got it hosted in a collocation rack now, so it had better stay reliable :-) I've written a short blog post about it http://www.ewanleith.com/blog/956/my-60-arm-server

Out of interest, what does it cost to host one of these in a colo rack? I was thinking about it as an alternative to my VPS.

(Apologies if you said this in blog post already, it's currently unavailable.)

Re: VIA launches $49 Android PC

#72

Post by jerf »

iRobot wrote: post #28
nextparadigms wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather pay more for a high-end Cortex A15-based ChromeBox. Browsing will be very slow on an ARM11 chip, especially if you use it in "desktop mode", which will make it feel even slower compared to using it in a mobile phone. Also, it better have a good GPU, otherwise it won't even support resolutions higher than 800x480 (this one might). But I do think ChromeOS devices should be somewhere in the $200 price range (…

In 1989 I ran a Unix system with 1000 users on hardware less powerful than this, why this kind of horse power cannot run something as simple as a web browser says more about the inefficiencies inherent in current operating systems and programming methods than they do about the hardware.

"why this kind of horse power cannot run something as simple as a web browser"

Web browsers aren't simple. Every web page is a complicated nest of sizing constraints and it seems like hardly a CSS property is added without making that worse. And then IE4 had to come along and make all of these sizing constraints dynamically changeable. And then we wanted fancier font rendering, so glyphs weren't free or even cheap anymore.

And I'm just talking text & tags here, not even remotely about anything like OpenGL or video, just core browser stuff.

You can render web pages on mere dribbles of power with Links/Lynx, but it's not some sort of mere coincidence that the result is a much degraded experience, it's actually fundamental to what a web browser is nowadays. I mean, look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTnIxIA5KGw And that's a simple webpage.

Re: VIA launches $49 Android PC

#73

Post by planckscnst »

haberman wrote: post #39

I just want an ARM box that I can run headless in my closet and keep on all the time to use as a build bot. First I bought a SheevaPlug ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SheevaPlug ) but that fried itself before long. Next I bought an Efika MX Smarttop ( https://www.genesi-usa.com/store/details/11 ), which works ok, but doesn't always boot reliably (I boot it headless most of the time, so can never get to the bottom of…

Check out Aboriginal. It's Linux in an ARM VM specifically for compiling to an ARM target.

http://landley.net/aboriginal

Re: VIA launches $49 Android PC

#74

Post by thereason »

rogerbinns wrote: post #21

You should always be wary if any binary blobs are required (often the case with video drivers). They will limit what you can do in terms of upgrading the kernel and hence the rest of the OS. Sadly VIA have a history of not quite getting this whole "open" thing: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=via_o...

My vision for these boards is not to display graphics, but to send/receive data from the internet and a local network. I'm not going to use a Pi to watch movies or some other resource-intensive task. I'd just as soon use the power of GPU that comes with Pi for some other task besides video.

What would be interesting is if one of these boards would be designed such that, by pure coincidence, it could fit into an Apple form factor (cheap/old/maybe used). I've read that in, e.g., Vietnam, people with soldering irons do all sorts of hackish things to iPhones.

Or maybe a market for curved edge form factor casings develops. Maybe it already exists. But I never saw any Apple-like form factors in the mini-ITX offerings. Whenever you see something with a cool form factor, it seems it's always a proprietary package, hermetically sealed, not easy to tinker with.

Re: VIA launches $49 Android PC

#75

Post by polshaw »

EwanToo wrote: post #42
haberman wrote: post #39

I just want an ARM box that I can run headless in my closet and keep on all the time to use as a build bot. First I bought a SheevaPlug ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SheevaPlug ) but that fried itself before long. Next I bought an Efika MX Smarttop ( https://www.genesi-usa.com/store/details/11 ), which works ok, but doesn't always boot reliably (I boot it headless most of the time, so can never get to the bottom of…

I'm using a beaglebone running Ubuntu, it's a brilliant little box, cost £55. There's the pandaboard too, which is more powerful with hdmi output

Where on earth do you get a beaglebone for £55? Haven't seen it for < £70.

Re: VIA launches $49 Android PC

#76

Post by hysan »

angusgr wrote: post #71
EwanToo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's been very reliable for me. It ships with angstrom Linux, but it's trivial to install Ubuntu. I've got it hosted in a collocation rack now, so it had better stay reliable :-) I've written a short blog post about it http://www.ewanleith.com/blog/956/my-60-arm-server

Out of interest, what does it cost to host one of these in a colo rack? I was thinking about it as an alternative to my VPS. (Apologies if you said this in blog post already, it's currently unavailable.)

Used Google cache to read the blog. This is what was written in the blog:

So, now it’s time to take it to the next level – I’ve paid for the beaglebone to go into a colocation rack in Telehouse North, with a friendly colocation company called Jump Networks who were happy to help out with the experiment, and who only charge for £50 + VAT for installation and a very low monthly cost for hosting the equipment, as little as £5 per month – perfect for an ARM server.

Re: VIA launches $49 Android PC

#77

Post by polshaw »

nl wrote: post #63
icefox wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side I can pick up a VGA monitor off the curb (i.e. free) while the cheapest HDMI monitor is still expensive.

the cheapest HDMI monitor is still expensive Everyone has different levels for what "expensive" means. You can get new HDMI monitors for well under $150, and new DVI monitors for well under $100, and DVI HDMI adaptors are under $10.

Sure but it is worth baring in mind the context-- that this is a $50 PC.

Re: VIA launches $49 Android PC

#78

Post by haberman »

planckscnst wrote: post #73
haberman wrote: post #39

I just want an ARM box that I can run headless in my closet and keep on all the time to use as a build bot. First I bought a SheevaPlug ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SheevaPlug ) but that fried itself before long. Next I bought an Efika MX Smarttop ( https://www.genesi-usa.com/store/details/11 ), which works ok, but doesn't always boot reliably (I boot it headless most of the time, so can never get to the bottom of…

Check out Aboriginal. It's Linux in an ARM VM specifically for compiling to an ARM target. http://landley.net/aboriginal

Thanks for the pointer, but I'd also like to track performance numbers over time.

Re: VIA launches $49 Android PC

#79

Post by sciurus »

mjb wrote: post #37
iRobot wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 1989 I ran a Unix system with 1000 users on hardware less powerful than this, why this kind of horse power cannot run something as simple as a web browser says more about the inefficiencies inherent in current operating systems and programming methods than they do about the hardware.

> as simple as a web browser says more about the inefficiencies inherent in current operating systems and programming methods than they do about the hardware. No. This is simply not true, at least at the extreme you are suggesting. What I have open on my quad-core 8GB RAM desktop right now: two Eclipse sessions; One emacs server, with about 20 client windows; Firefox, with 30+ tabs; 20 or so console sessions; five PD…

You can still run a lot of users on "modest" hardware. Dave Richards posts regularly about his terminal server work for Largo, Florida. 250 users running GNOME, firefox, libreoffice, etc. on one server with 64GB of RAM may not be up to 1989 standards, but it isn't shabby.

http://davelargo.blogspot.com/2012/02/250-concurrent-users-t...

Re: VIA launches $49 Android PC

#80

Post by rbanffy »

DanBC wrote: post #49
rbanffy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on what you intend to do with it. My mom's computer is due for an upgrade and she would probably be happy with a beefier version of this machine. Swapping the motherboard should be trivial enough and the PC would continue to look familiar, at least. She's used to Ubuntu and she couldn't care less about the ISA the machine is running. Moving to Android could prove an interesting experience, but I suspect ma…

Yes, these machines are nearly ready. They need a little bit more stuff, and some nice cloud stuff set up. Put them in a little box, bolt them to the back of a nice monitor and they're great for most people.

Oracle will claim a patent infringement because the thing looks too much like a Sparcstation SLC...
Post reply on HN