SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The goal of the EOMA (Embedded Open Modular Architecture) project is to introduce the idea of being ethically responsible about both the ecological and the financial resources required to design, manufacture, acquire and maintain our personal computing devices. The EOMA68 standard is a freely-accessible, royalty-free, unencumbered hardware standard formulated and tested over the last five years around the ultra-simple philosophy of "just plug it in: it will work".
With devices built following this standard, one can upgrade the CPU-card (consisting of CPU, RAM and some local storage) of a device while keeping the same housing (e.g. laptop). One can also use the CPU-card in different devices (e.g. unplug CPU-card from laptop, plug into desktop); or use a replaced/discarded CPU-card from a laptop for NAS storage or a micro-server. There are housings currently available for a laptop (can be 3D-printed in full, or in part to replace parts that break) and a micro-desktop; and there are plans for others like routers or tablets in the future.
There are multiple articles talking about this project and analyzing the hardware, for example from ThinkPenguin, CNXSoft or EngadgetNG. There is also a recent live-streamed video introducing the project.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Gravis on Monday August 01 2016, @06:14PM
the problem with the card design is that they don't utilize high speed IO, the video uses most of the connections and you have no dedicated IO for storage. oh and it gets worse. the underpowered SoC is from AllWinner, a flagrant GPL violator. i want a libre laptop too but this isn't the answer.
(Score: 1) by mafm on Monday August 01 2016, @06:35PM
There are two updates discussing the questions raised here:
I think that I read in one of the updates or explanations around that Allwinner is one of the few ones which allow to work with a small number of orders (the goal is 250 at the moment).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 01 2016, @10:15PM
The point of libre computing isn't to be the best in a technical sense. If anything, improving on that would come later. And this is libre, even if AllWinner violated the GPL in the past.
(Score: 1) by lkcl on Wednesday August 03 2016, @07:48PM
exactly. judging someone by their past is a bit like hitting an animal for something it doesn't understand. we need to be able to do psychological "instant reward / gratification". they've made their money: they don't care. boycotting them isn't going to help *us* get Libre-compliant hardware. real simple, i wish there were more people who understood this.
(Score: 1) by lkcl on Tuesday August 02 2016, @07:30PM
the problem with the card design is that they don't utilize high speed IO, the video uses most of the connections and you have no dedicated IO for storage. oh and it gets worse. the underpowered SoC is from AllWinner, a flagrant GPL violator. i want a libre laptop too but this isn't the answer.
we see these misunderstanding being made time and time again, gravis. i'll try to be brief as i have a lot to cover, apologies in advance
there are 2 USB ports, one is USB2 the other is up to USB 3.1. there's also SD/MMC on the interface and a 2nd one on the end of the computer card (just this particular one - other Computer Cards will have their own I/O). so that takes care of the I/O misunderstanding
the video is RGB/TTL 18 pin, that's only 21 out of 68 pins - the standard had 5 years of refinement, i think that's quite a long time to do a decent analysis: if you feel i've missed something do contact me on the mailing list after reviewing the whitepaper http://rhombus-tech.net/whitepapers/ecocomputing_07sep2015/ [rhombus-tech.net]
the HDMI output on the EOMA68-A20 is a 2nd output so you can actually run two screens simultaneously. we feel that's probably enough for most people. so that deals with that misunderstanding.
the SoC is the best that can ethically be obtained - there's an update about it, please read that first, if you know of any other SoCs that can fit the ethical criteria do let me know, i need to evaluate them https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/picking-a-processor [crowdsupply.com] so that deals with that misunderstanding
the situation with allwinner is complex, there are some extremely powerful investors each of whom has carved out their own niche, we're working with allwinner to provide a financial argument along the lines of, "these people are buying this processor because it's GPL compliant, they want to place an order for 50k units of this other processor and will buy 1 million later but you have to fix the GPL violations FIRST".... **NOW** we've got their attention. if you boycott THE ENTIRE COMPANY guess what happens? no conversation, no fixing the problems. so boycotting allwinner just fucks everybody over. don't do it. so, that mistake / misunderstanding clarified.
lastly, this is a modular upgradeable architecture - which you've never seen before so there isn't anything you can compare it against. so the misunderstanding about "this system is too slow therefore don't get it" is perfectly understandable... but wrong. see the other post "titled clarification" above for full answers on this.
sorry, bit of a rush, apologies for the curt tone, i'm dealing with somewhere around 25 different forums at any one time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 03 2016, @06:54AM
There's an option that is a passthrough card. When you plug this into the laptop enclosure then it isn't a laptop but a screen and keyboard and trackpad with battery that you can plug to your mobile phone or TV stick or development card or even laptop to get a second screen, with USB and HDMI cables,
You can support the concept, get a repairable laptop with your choice of processor and alow the project to carry on to produce better cpu cards in the future so that you can remove the cables and the external computer or mobile.
You don't have to buy an Allwinner to support the project.
I don't know about the future behaviour of Allwinner and how such a company can be impressed by 200 or 300 (or 1000 if it comes to it) CPU cards sold. Or even is such a company can control itself even if impressed. But I know there are no good SOCs to choose.
In order to change that there are 2 ways:
- Dump lots of money to buy or build hardware manufacturers (possibly SOCs and others). Hopefully it works with RISC-V or similar, but takes money and time.
- Accept that the performance we got some years ago is as good now as it was then and stop being addicted to the latest features because this is what feeds the oligoolies that keep abusing consumers to the point of spying, remote controlling or even remotely bricking your computer when they decide you should buy another.
http://boingboing.net/2016/04/05/google-reaches-into-customers.html [boingboing.net]
No current CPU is decent enough to use. If you don't have your own fab, you can either use second hand computers while they don't fall apart, don't use computers at all, or,
as a mitigation, not really a solution, use as few CPUs as you can to feed your enemies the less you can. So if you can use the CPU in your mobile for you laptop use cases,
get an EOMA68 laptop with a passthrough card, and you get one less CPU sold by this abusive industry.