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posted by martyb on Sunday August 30 2020, @01:32PM   Printer-friendly
from the of-course-it-is-impossible-to-get-online-using-a-desktop dept.

US Laptop Shortage Could Derail Remote Learning:

As students and teachers prepare for a return to in-person learning for at least some of the time this fall, many of the nation's schools are facing shortages and delays for laptops and tablets needed for online learning, an Associated Press investigation revealed.

Lenovo, HP and Dell, the nation's largest computer companies, have informed school districts that they are short nearly five million laptops.

[...] Last month, at the request of President Donald Trump, the U.S. Department of Commerce imposed sanctions on 11 Chinese companies, including Lenovo, AP reported. School administrators have asked the Trump administration to devise a solution because remote learning without laptops is impossible.

Lenovo has informed school districts of the supply chain delays and the trade controls set by the Commerce Department, which would cause another slowdown. Lenovo declined to respond to an inquiry from AP.

Have any Soylentils run into this?


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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday August 30 2020, @10:09PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday August 30 2020, @10:09PM (#1044363) Journal

    but... it's on the weak side, particularly if you're not religious about closing browser tabs.

    Making the CPU hit 100% and lag is easy with video in the mix, but:

    1. Consider an overclock. With a heatsink case or fan and the latest firmware updates, you should be able to easily hit 2.0 GHz CPU and 700 MHz GPU, which is what mine is at. That would be +33% CPU and +40% GPU clocks, which is substantial. The maximums are 2.147 GHz and 750 MHz, which I'm choosing not to run at.

    In fact, I think RPi Trading is deliberately leaving performance on the table since their baseline clocks are intended to be used with the plastic case and no fan. Even that was a problem at launch, but months of updates brought down power consumption by 12-27% [raspberrypi.org], nearly in line with the 3B+.

    2. There's the 8 GB RAM model, which should allow lots of "browser tabs". It's not going to solve the issue of video + any 1-2 tasks eating up CPU usage, but it should prevent the need for tab reloads.

    I haven't gotten one. 4 GB RAM is enough most of the time, and it would leave me with more Pi4s than I want. It's too bad they didn't launch with 8 GB, because I would have gotten it instead. I might try to get an RK3588 board in the interim, if they make one with 8 GB RAM at around $100.

    3. If x86 + Ubuntu is working out, stick with that. But consider #1 for making it feel a lot faster. Running x86 programs on Pi4 is possible, see Box86 and Twister OS for example (but it still needs a lot of work).

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