Rolling Your Own Laptop?

rneches asks: "I've been looking around for a Linux friendly laptop, and I've found a couple of reasonable systems. However, there really aren't any laptops out there that really meet the needs of a Linux user. In particular, most laptops are, more or less, desktop replacements. As such, they are loaded with scads of nifty features, beefy processors, and so forth. This is great, I suppose, if you are running Windows or MacOS and want a desktop replacement. If you're a Linux user, and spend most of your time in emacs windows (er, frames), most of that fancy stuff is more of a liability than an asset. In other words, I'm talking about coders, admins and other Linux hackers more than I'm talking about the 'average user'." In short, rneches is looking to find a way to build his own laptop, and if the platform doesn't exist to be able to do this, he's looking for help in creating one. Interested?

"From a laptop, I want five things:

• A nice, clear screen. Color is nice, but not critical. It should be big enough so that looking at it doesn't make me feel like I'm stuck in the coach section of a DC-9.
• Decent 2D video performance. I might just be editing text, but at least it should look good while doing it. In any event, with decent a framebuffer and hardware acceleration, I can use nice anti-aliases fonts and play around with the window settings. This might sound frivolous, but nice-looking text and windows go a long, long way to relive eyestrain, which is exceedingly important.
• Good physical utility. Too many laptops seem to be designed to sit on your desk, with the occasional trip to some other desk (transported in a deluxe, custom leather briefcase). This is OK if you are, say, the CEO, and don't do any real work in the first place. I want a laptop that is durable, light and small. I don't want to have to transport it in a special bag, or worry about fragile bits getting broken from normal use.
• Insanely long battery life. I don't mean 'barely survive the flight from NWK to LAX'. I mean 'I'm only going to be in Tokyo for a week, so I won't need the AC adapter.'
• Good built-in networking. No PCMCIA stuff, dongles, or other junk. The system should have a respected 100base-T card built in, and probably an 802.11b card and high-gain antenna as well.

If it can do that, I don't care all that much about CPU speed, disk storage, CD-ROM or DVD drives, USB, FireWire, IrDA or integrated late makers. Oh, and it needs to run Linux, or at least OpenBSD or NetBSD. So, basically, I want a tough little system with a StrongARM CPU, a flash disk and grayscale 1024x768 LCD. Insofar as I can tell, no one makes such a thing.

Which brings me to my point - Is it possible to roll your own laptop? I've looked at pc104 systems that might do the job for a base, and flash disks that would be great for storage and battery life, but the video, screen and enclosure are all somewhat of a mystery to me. I've taken apart Dells and (shudder) Sonys, and the video hardware is completely non-standard and funky. Each major brand of LCD has a different connector, and require a special (as in, not your average VGA compatible card) hardware to drive them. I'm not sure where I'd get a decent PS/2 keyboard that would be appropriate for a laptop. And as for the case itself - well, I'd probably need take out some life insurance, and then get in touch with those folks from the /. story a few months back about making storm trooper costumes from vacuum molded PVC.

I know this sounds like something of an absurd project, but then again, there once was a day when building a desktop PC was an absurd project. The pc104 standard seems like a pretty good standard to use in the same way desktop system use AT and ATX. Most of the pc104 boards are intended for ultra low power embedded systems, but there's no reason I can see that beefier chips couldn't be used. You'd have to give up the spiffy ZIF sockets, but laptops aren't really that upgradable anyway. Chances are, there's already a pc104 board that will do just about anything you want at very low power consumption. You could cram two or three pc104 boards into a really thin laptop (side by side, not stacked).

If someone started making pc104 video cards that could drive a host of different LCD screens, that would help a lot too. And, of course, someone would have to make some decent cases.

Is there anyone out there who's tried this? Any successes, I hope?

If I actually did go out and build my own laptop, do you think there would be enough general interest to get a community together? Maybe even start a little company to sell pc104 compatible laptop shells and the various adapters, trackpads, keyboards and other doodads that people would need?"

Comments

Pointless...

[tweakt]

This is dumb. You'll end up paying three times as much to develop this thing. Just go buy an ultraportable, like the Thinkpad X22... no drives built in, weighs barely anything... runs anything you want, and hell, you can even get it with linux pre-installed.

Hello, Sally, this is Harry

[babbage]

If it can do that, I don't care all that much about CPU speed, disk storage, CD-ROM or DVD drives, USB, FireWire, IrDA or integrated late makers. Oh, and it needs to run Linux, or at least OpenBSD or NetBSD. So, basically, I want a tough little system with a StrongARM CPU, a flash disk and grayscale 1024x768 LCD. Insofar as I can tell, no one makes such a thing.

Going to a restaraunt with you is a staggering exercise in pain & humiliation, isn't it? I can just tell: you must be the sort of person that looks over the menu at a fine dining establishment and then makes the staff do backflips to come up with some esoteric custom dish for you, because the many, many fine offerings they provide are never quite right. Give me a break... :)

I wouldn't pick at you, because you've clearly thought about this a lot, but somehow you haven't noticed that your requirements are, aside from just plain silly, mutually exclusive & thus impossible. You want a week long battery -- yeah right! -- and you want ultra light weight (thus, um, no battery??) and built in high speed wireless networking? How much power do you think that's going to draw? I'll admit, I'm not sure myself & maybe it's less than I'm thinking, but you are going to have to make some compromises between these wildly varying demands. If you want long life, it means a big battery. If you want lightweight, it means a small battery. You pick.

And in the, assuredly long time you're going to spend ruminating over that dilemma, there will be thousands of others that take one of the many fine off the shelf offerings, meet 90% of what you seem to really want here, and they'll be able to get on with their lives without a second thought. Might I suggest relaxing & trying to do the same?

Re:Hello, Sally, this is Harry

[squaretorus]

And in the, assuredly long time you're going to spend ruminating over that dilemma, there will be thousands of others that take one of the many fine off the shelf offerings, meet 90% of what you seem to really want here, and they'll be able to get on with their lives without a second thought. Might I suggest relaxing & trying to do the same?

Surely this isn't in the spirit of the analy retentive puritanical /.er!! Why settle for 90%?

We're not talking about functionality here - we're talking about fetish. We're talking about obsession, compulsion, and personality disorders!

Its like having a model railway - its a way of avoiding your woman by spending untold hours online and in the garage making tiny, but observable, changes to a train, hedge, track, motherboard, skin which REALLY matter to you, but are incomprehensibly pointless to the rest of the world. You dont have to watch endless soaps and listen to her bitching about work mates - AND you get a new toy sometime!

In many ways its like art. The pursuit of perfection is always worthwhile if it matters to you. Who cares if it doens't matter to anyone else. If he gets it right he could be using this machine for 20 years. Text is text. A bit of effort is well worthwhile.

Applause to this guy! The spirit of the shed in action.

Re:Hello, Sally, this is Harry

[rneches]

Interesting analysis of my personality, although your conclusion is rather far off the mark. I am a vegetarian, but other than that, I don't bug the wait staff at restaraunts. I've been a waiter, and I've also been a cook - I know what annoying customers are like. However, in my own kitchen, I can make whatever I like. [segue to actual point]

Your technical analysis is, although interesting, also off the mark. The fact is, there was a machine that met most of the requirements I outlined - the TRS80, and we all know how old that is. If you want a refrene point, what I propose is to build a modern system along the same lines as the TRS80. A 50 Mhz CPU is more than sufficent, and a non-backlit screen will do just fine. When the wireless card and LAN card aren't in use, you can power them down. Besides, you are right. It does draw less then you're thinking.

Since I wrote this article, I have found a number of hardware combinations that would essentially give me what I (and, if my crammed inbox is any testament, an astonishing number of other people) want: A portable system to hack on, not a desktop replacement. Basically, the questions are ones of design, not plausibility.

I have a Dell Latitude that I like very much. It runs Linux splendidly, it's pretty light, and I get fairly decent battery life if I stay in framebuffer mode (6-7 hours on one battery). But it's a lot more than I really want in a portable. What I propose is, from a technical standpoint, much easier than building a Latitude, or a Vaio.

I'm sorry if my tinkering offends you. If hobbiests annoy you, you don't have to listen to their ruminations or read thier posts on public forums. I happen to enjoy building things. The fact that a reasonable solution exists in off-the-shelf systems (with notable compramises) is quite beside the point.

When I'm at a resteraunt, I order what's on the menu. When I'm at home, in my own kitchen, on my own time, I'll cook whatever I want. I know Slashdot isn't as civil as it used to be, but for crying out loud, loose the attitude. Sure, I like to play with computers because I think it's fun. What are you accusing me of? Being a geek? A nerd? A dork? If you have a problem with that, what are you doing on Slashdot?