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Building an Open Source Laptop

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1–10 of 55 posts

Re: Building an Open Source Laptop

#4
Yes, it's Bunnie's laptop. And:

The positive response has encouraged us to plan a crowd funding campaign around a substantially simplified (think “all in one PC” with a battery) case design...

It looks like all the positive feedback may result in a production run!

Re: Building an Open Source Laptop

#5
Awesome. I wish he used an open-source circuit design tool, but at the same time, I understand why he didn't.

I honestly think that might be one of the biggest impediments to open hardware; open-source circuit design software is not good right now. I try to force myself to use KiCad over EAGLE, but it's such a relative pain in the ass.

Re: Building an Open Source Laptop

#7
post #5

Awesome. I wish he used an open-source circuit design tool, but at the same time, I understand why he didn't. I honestly think that might be one of the biggest impediments to open hardware; open-source circuit design software is not good right now. I try to force myself to use KiCad over EAGLE, but it's such a relative pain in the ass.

gEDA (gschem and friends) has a fairly steep learning curve, but once you spend a few days getting in the zone it's a very solid schematic capture and PCB layout tool. Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to try KiCad for anything serious, so I can't really make a comparison. I'm told it's now the better option vs. gEDA.

http://www.geda-project.org/

Re: Building an Open Source Laptop

#8
post #6

"Open source laptop"? Physical objects don't have a source, either open or close. It is rather a laptop capable of running on only "free software" for full functionality.

They do have design plans they are built from, so why not call it source?

Re: Building an Open Source Laptop

#10
post #6

"Open source laptop"? Physical objects don't have a source, either open or close. It is rather a laptop capable of running on only "free software" for full functionality.

One of the stated goals was being able to build the firmware from source. As firmware can be considered an integral part of the physical objects that constitute the hardware, I'd say that qualifies it as being an open source laptop.
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