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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: 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.