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posted by martyb on Tuesday July 10 2018, @06:19AM   Printer-friendly
from the making-things-takes-money dept.

The GNU/Linux PowerPC notebook project has the goal of producing a PowerPC-based notebook which is as FOSS-friendly as possible and plans to eventually get the hardware declared to be "Open Source Hardware" as certified by the Open Source Hardware Association. The project has now reached phase One donation campaign Goal Reached!. The motherboard has now been designed and specced out by a professional electronic engineer.

After reaching the amount of 12600€, the electrical schematics will be delivered to us in a month by ACube Systems. The final design resulting from this phase will be made public as soon as possible.

After that, the next step will be to deliver the electrical schematics for the printed Circuit Board (PCB) in Gerber format. Then there will be production and delivery of five working prototypes, followed by hardware testing using software provided by the producer (ACube), and then finally pre- CE certification.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @07:26AM (16 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @07:26AM (#704968)

    I loved the powerPC, but why not give everyone a rPi?

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by ledow on Tuesday July 10 2018, @08:09AM (5 children)

      by ledow (5567) on Tuesday July 10 2018, @08:09AM (#704978) Homepage

      RPi is based on a closed ARM processor, incorporating a 3D functionality that's firmware-driven and not available on open-source.

      (Literally, the RPi GPU code is just a shim to convert OpenGL calls to something "very similar to the OpenGL call" that gets sent to the firmware... the header file is almost just macro translation from OpenGL to an internal library call with slightly altered parameters.)

      It's no more open than an iPhone, to be honest.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @08:16AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @08:16AM (#704981)

        It's no more open than an iPhone, to be honest.

        Hyperbole at best.

        • (Score: 4, Interesting) by ledow on Tuesday July 10 2018, @09:54AM

          by ledow (5567) on Tuesday July 10 2018, @09:54AM (#704996) Homepage

          A closed-design processor running an ARM instruction set and a custom unknown GPU, bouyed up by closed-source firmware without which you can't access the GPU, with an integrated Ethernet/Bluetooth/Wifi/SD interface that also is closed-firmware-blob-driven?

          An iPhone might be more "closed" in terms of software, but in terms of "open" hardware they are basically the same thing.

          Quotes about the RPi 3B+ in particular (the newest model, but most of these also apply to the earlier equivalents):

          "The 900MHz 32-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU complex has been replaced by a custom-hardened 1.2GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A5"

          BCM43438 wireless “combo” chip (which includes FM, but that doesn't seem to be exposed to the RPi):
          "The brcmfmac driver drives the BCM43438. Note that some low-level functionality is provided by a closed-source (even to us) firmware blob."

          "start*.elf, fixup*.dat and bootcode.bin are the GPU firmwares and bootloade"

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @08:30AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @08:30AM (#704984)
        You cannot have true open source until you have the means to create open source hardware for it. This processor may be better defined that some other, but in the end you have no control over it, no guarantee that it does what the manual says it should do (ask Intel, AMD) - and the CPU is a major block, cannot be easily replaced. The nearly true F/OSS computer can be created from an FPGA with your bitstream in it. The FPGAs are generic by definition, their supply (modulo the part numbers) is not going to come to end any time soon, as FPGAs power Important Things. It is relatively easily to port the code from one part to another. FPGAs are far from open source themselves, but it's not likely that common F/OSS products can descend lower, and the lower density parts are disappearing from the market.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @09:25AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @09:25AM (#704992)

          but it's not likely that common F/OSS products can descend lower, and the lower density parts are disappearing from the market.

          I don't understand your choice of words. Do you mean that F/OSS hardware can not be built with smaller transistors, or can't get any worse than they already are?

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @07:09PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @07:09PM (#705318)
            The F/OSS (or any, to that matter) hardware cannot use less integrated ICs than FPGAs because the continued existence of SN74 and the like is not guaranteed outside of last time buys. All modern chipsets are ASICs, they need very little glue logic, and even that glue logic can be highly specialized. This means that, unless F/OSS groups start making their own, certified free, processors on Taiwanese production lines, the only realistic way to have a 100% free and open source processor and I/O is by implementing it in an FPGA. As a side effect, any and all [inevitable] security holes can be patched by reloading the FPGA, possibly even without stopping the computer. This design won't be a custom speed demon, but it will be a reasonably secure and sufficiently fast system for communication.
    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday July 10 2018, @09:57AM (1 child)

      by Bot (3902) on Tuesday July 10 2018, @09:57AM (#704999) Journal

      because a 667mhz single core powerbook from 2001 runs circles around it esp. wrt networking?

      --
      Account abandoned.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @12:44PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @12:44PM (#705022)

        I bought a PowerBook circa 2001 which didn't run circles around anything on account of it overheated and the case split wide open.

        I'll be overjoyed to hear the PowerPC isn't still an overpowered monstrosity that has no place in a notebook computer. Oh wait. It still is an overheating monstrosity.

        This ""FOSS"" project is a bald-faced scam and anyone who donates is a moron.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by epitaxial on Tuesday July 10 2018, @02:11PM (6 children)

      by epitaxial (3165) on Tuesday July 10 2018, @02:11PM (#705085)

      Why does no one understand the intent of the Pi? It was designed to be made as cheap as possible as a learning device for students. Nowhere did they ever plan to be 100% open source.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @02:38PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @02:38PM (#705112)

        FTFY

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @05:13PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @05:13PM (#705219)

        Why does no one understand the intent of the Pi? It was designed to be made as cheap as possible as a learning device for students.

        From my experience, I thought the whole point of the buggers was to end up spending the rest of eternity cluttering up the drawers of clueless non-technical people who thought they (the people, that is) were cool..
        Seriously, I know two people¹ who've got something like 17 of the things between them and you'd be lucky if two of them have been powered up. (And will they part with them?, will they fuck...), almost everyone else I know purchased at least one, and I think of them I know of only one who uses the thing on a regular basis (as a media player).

        As it was designed for students to hack around on, it never took my fancy even as an impulse purchase (for the only applications I'd have for a Pi type board, the USB Ethernet and lack of SATA are deal killers.).

        ¹Does it help here if I mention that both these characters are full members of the Church of Jobs, not engineers, definitely not programmers and wouldn't know know a while loop if it bit them?

        • (Score: 2) by bitstream on Wednesday July 11 2018, @11:18PM

          by bitstream (6144) on Wednesday July 11 2018, @11:18PM (#705975) Journal

          What are your single board computer tip that won't break the bank?

          (I'll agree on the USB Ethernet, it really suck)

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by melikamp on Tuesday July 10 2018, @07:41PM (2 children)

        by melikamp (1886) on Tuesday July 10 2018, @07:41PM (#705333) Journal
        If this device was really intended to assist learning, it would be completely free/libre/open, or as open as possible, hardware and software. Now, perhaps using ARM qualifies at this time as being "as open as practically possible" on hardware side, I don't know. But if it doesn't, if it falls short of that mark, then regardless of the declared intention, the real intention is not to assist learning, but to get some suckers addicted to the proprietary technology under the guise of teaching them something.
        • (Score: 3, Informative) by epitaxial on Tuesday July 10 2018, @09:30PM (1 child)

          by epitaxial (3165) on Tuesday July 10 2018, @09:30PM (#705401)
          • (Score: 2) by bitstream on Wednesday July 11 2018, @11:42PM

            by bitstream (6144) on Wednesday July 11 2018, @11:42PM (#705986) Journal

            About us (Raspberry Pi) [archive.org]:

            We want to break the paradigm where without spending hundreds of pounds on a PC, families can’t use the internet.

            Well the paradigm has been that you had to spend hundreds of pounds on a computer to even have one. Then you had to spend even more to have a modem. That could communicate with another computer, not internet. On top of this, it all required some serious technical wits to even get the technology to do what you wanted. Maybe even with some luck one could get hold of a proprietary compiler on some spinning media.

            Unfortunately, easy and cheap computing has also attracted a lot of people that is just mental chaff. So it's not necessarily a good thing.

            Some thoughts on the Raspberry Pi computer device:
              * Why not use MIPS or SPARC?
              * Get a SoC with a builtin MAC so Ethernet can utilize the line speed.
              * Use round DC plugs so real power can be delivered.
              * Open source GPU?
              * Externally clocked DMA please?
              * A real sleep mode such that realistic battery use will be possible. 100 mA idle current won't do it.
              * PCB track jumpers to disable wireless if desired.

    • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Tuesday July 10 2018, @04:45PM

      by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 10 2018, @04:45PM (#705200) Journal

      I loved the powerPC, but why not give everyone a rPi?

      I am not saying you are deficient in intelligence, nor lacking in usefulness.

      But I am saying that suggesting that an "open hardware" project designed for free software (that's the PPC) be replaced with a toy that can't even be booted without a proprietary non-free driver's permission (That's the rPi) is singularly unhelpful, and I wonder the motive for such.

      If you want a commodity ARM board that uses proprietary software, there are lots of them--have at it. I don't want such a thing, but I don't want to stand in the way of your having one; to each his own.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by KritonK on Tuesday July 10 2018, @07:30AM (1 child)

    by KritonK (465) on Tuesday July 10 2018, @07:30AM (#704970)

    ACube produces [acube-systems.biz] various PowerPC-based AmigaOS motherboards and computers, so presumably they're building on their know-how. I wonder if this means that, in addition to Linux, the notebook will be able to run AmigaOS 4 [wikipedia.org]. The reverse is true, e.g., with the Amiga One.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @12:01AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @12:01AM (#705459)

      I know that there are x86-compatible solutions.
      http://www.google.com/search?q=AROS/IcarOS+AmigaOS+virtual.machine [google.com]

      Now, whether this thing has enough horsepower[1] to do something similar (provided someone is willing to port the VM to this architecture) is still a question.

      [1] ...with enough oomph left over to run some apps, of course.

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 2) by epitaxial on Tuesday July 10 2018, @02:07PM (7 children)

    by epitaxial (3165) on Tuesday July 10 2018, @02:07PM (#705082)

    They're trying to get me to donate money for a project laptop using a six year old CPU? This thing is going to cost thousands of dollars and be slower than a bargain bin Android phone. Oh hey but I have full schematics!

    • (Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Tuesday July 10 2018, @02:28PM (3 children)

      by bobthecimmerian (6834) on Tuesday July 10 2018, @02:28PM (#705105)

      If all a person cares about is freedom above all, getting something fully open trumps performance considerations.

      ...but yeah, that's a hell of a trump. The Talos Workstation campaign is similar. The performance doesn't look too bad, but it sure isn't cost effective.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @09:55PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @09:55PM (#705406)

        The single/dual processor Talos II configurations cost about the same as an equivalent Intel Xeon workstation.

        • (Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Saturday July 14 2018, @03:10AM

          by bobthecimmerian (6834) on Saturday July 14 2018, @03:10AM (#706896)

          Yes. But I'd be pretty happy with a free-as-in-freedom option that's equivalent to an $800 desktop with a Core i5 or Ryzen R5 1600. So the fact that an $8000 Talos 2 matches some $8000 Xeon workstation is irrelevant.

      • (Score: 2) by bitstream on Wednesday July 11 2018, @11:48PM

        by bitstream (6144) on Wednesday July 11 2018, @11:48PM (#705990) Journal

        Though why they chosen the PowerPC architecture for this boggles my mind.

        Maybe the Raspberry Pi will adopt PPC as the CPU too? :-)

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday July 10 2018, @02:29PM (2 children)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 10 2018, @02:29PM (#705107) Journal

      It depends on your use case.

      If you are a journalist or human rights activist working in a hostile regime, you might want to have a higher level of confidence that your system is not penetrated by the nsa, fbi, cia.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday July 10 2018, @05:38PM (1 child)

        by darkfeline (1030) on Tuesday July 10 2018, @05:38PM (#705244) Homepage

        You can't exactly fabricate your own board and CPU from the schematics though. You'll have to buy the hardware, and the reason you can trust that the hardware matches the schematics is...

        Software has a number of properties which makes it suited to open source, which hardware does not have. It is easy and cheap to make (compile), it is cheap and easy to design (you can learn useful programming much faster than useful electrical engineering and circuit design), it is cheap and easy to change (that's why hardware design issues are often fixed/compensated in software, it's easier than having to touch the hardware again).

        --
        Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @12:21AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @12:21AM (#705469)

          the reason you can trust that the hardware matches the schematics is...

          Someone with a continuity tester and enough patience can verify the PC Board.[1][2]
          That done, someone--again, with enough patience--can bit-bang the silicon to assure that that stuff is what is claimed.

          Ringing (wringing?) out a hardware design isn't all that difficult.
          Engineering techs do it all the time.

          [1] PC fabrication houses have a bed of nails tester to do this repeatedly, taking only seconds.
          That process uses the engineer's|layout guy's documents to create a database for the machine; at that point, it's duck soup|unskilled labor.

          [2] Now, stuff like equal-length transmission lines and other stuff that can only be tested dynamically make verification a bit more difficult.
          As with all things in tech, unless you're e.g making your own tools out of iron ore that you mined, at some point you're going to have to trust someone.

          -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @05:24PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @05:24PM (#705232)

    They seem to be too optimistic about this design. Usually these things are done in iterations, and if you junk 2 prototype mainboards because they hang under load (e.g. this low-current reference power track should be a millionth of th thicker than specified in datasheet) it's a good process. When they finish, Wirth's law will make Linux completely unusable on their hardware.

  • (Score: 0, Troll) by eravnrekaree on Tuesday July 10 2018, @05:34PM (7 children)

    by eravnrekaree (555) on Tuesday July 10 2018, @05:34PM (#705242)

    This is pretty misguided. The big problem we have with Linux uptake is the lack of compatibility with the ocean of Windows apps. Wine only has 50% compatibility if that, which is not enough, if its not up around 95% its really not good enough. People shouldn't have to check the Wine compatibility list and say I can't run that because Wine won't support it. Incomplete support is almost as bad as no support.

    If there is any fundraising it should be toward Wine.

    On the other hand, PPC is a waste of resources. What will it get us? All it does is fritter away money to support another fringe platform rather than to develop something useable by the mainstream user. It can't run the Windows apps natively which is about 99% of the commercial desktop application base. The money that is used for this could be used to provide better Wine application support that would benefit more people. Since we already have PC support such as PC makers such as Dell supporting Linux, yet another platform doesn't get us anything we don't already have. Spending money on this is brain dead.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @06:35PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @06:35PM (#705295)

      this is donated to by people who care about this goal. they are not necessarily the same people who give a shit about slaveware "business" apps.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @07:07PM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 10 2018, @07:07PM (#705314)

      This is pretty misguided. The big problem we have with Linux uptake is the lack of compatibility with the ocean of Windows apps. Wine only has 50% compatibility if that, which is not enough, if its not up around 95% its really not good enough. People shouldn't have to check the Wine compatibility list and say I can't run that because Wine won't support it. Incomplete support is almost as bad as no support.

      If you're using proprietary software, you've already failed. Free Software is about freedom, which proprietary software is opposed to. Don't make the mistake of thinking that the top priority should be getting proprietary software to run.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @12:45AM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @12:45AM (#705483)

        Many folks have found that we don't need closed-source proprietary stuff built with Windoze-only tools.
        gEDEA [google.com] KiCAD [google.com] LinSmith [freecode.com]

        Misplaced priorities

        The misplaced priorities are yours.
        (I like the reply by AC#705314.)

        As has been said multiple times in this (meta)thread, if freedom is not your priority, this story|device is not for you.
        Just move along to the next story and continue to give away your freedom to whoever offers you the lowest-dollar quote (this week; we'll see how that goes later when they've cornered the market and can charge whatever they like).

        -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @12:48AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11 2018, @12:48AM (#705485)

          Meant to reply to eravnrekaree.

          -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: 2) by bitstream on Wednesday July 11 2018, @11:45PM (2 children)

          by bitstream (6144) on Wednesday July 11 2018, @11:45PM (#705988) Journal

          FPGA synthesis tools is a problem though, STILL.
          (incredible)

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 12 2018, @08:20PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 12 2018, @08:20PM (#706345)

            Even when your thing is ostensibly Windoze-only, a developer|company who wants his thing to be the most-used|industry-standard thing, that is entirely possible.

            Mike Engelhardt of Linear Technology, developer|maintainer of LTspice, made that commitment well over a decade ago. [google.com]

            N.B. If WINE doesn't yet have an API covered, don't use that API.
            ...and, before you release your work, do check it against that commonly-used compatibility layer.
            This really isn't rocket surgery.

            -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

            • (Score: 2) by bitstream on Thursday July 12 2018, @11:33PM

              by bitstream (6144) on Thursday July 12 2018, @11:33PM (#706404) Journal

              This is a good idea too keep in mind: "If WINE doesn't yet have an API covered, don't use that API."

              Though I'll guess Microshauft compilers will include "extras" or have it inserted by other means.

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