New Handheld Computer Is 100% Open Source

metasonix writes "While the rest of the industry has been babbling on about the iPad and imitations thereof, Qi Hardware is actually shipping a product that is completely open source and copyleft. Linux News reviews the Ben NanoNote (product page), a handheld computer apparently containing no proprietary technology. It uses a 366 MHz MIPS processor, 32MB RAM, 2 GB flash, a 320x240-pixel color display, and a Qwerty keyboard. No network is built in, though it is said to accept SD-card Wi-Fi or USB Ethernet adapters. Included is a very simple Linux OS based on the OpenWrt distro installed in Linksys routers, with Busybox GUI. It's apparently intended primarily for hardware and software hackers, not as a general-audience handheld. The price is right, though: $99."

Comments

A couple of the potential uses

[Pojut]

Emulators, remote desktop control, a nice little side companion for reference while playing Video Games/MMOs, etc...

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[jgagnon]

It would be a LOT more useful for remote desktop if it had built-in networking. /sigh

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[hattig]

With a 320x240 display, you're better off using pretty much anything else for remote desktop (most smartphones are at least 480x320).

I guess you can have an 80x30 terminal though, with a 4x8 pixel font.

Otherwise, C64, Spectrum, CPC, Atari 8-bit, etc, emulators would be good because of the full keyboard.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[jgagnon]

Can't argue with that. Still, the lack of networking these days sure does limit its usefulness, especially because of its feeble resolution.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[tao]

320x240 is too small for C64 emulation -- while the text area is only 320x200 (8x8 pixels/character, 40x25 characters), the borders need to fit too, since a *LOT* of software for the 64 uses the border.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[toastar]

With a 320x240 display, you're better off using pretty much anything else for remote desktop (most smartphones are at least 480x320).

I guess you can have an 80x30 terminal though, with a 4x8 pixel font.

Otherwise, C64, Spectrum, CPC, Atari 8-bit, etc, emulators would be good because of the full keyboard.

The other thing is My g1, a slow phone by today's smartphone standards has a much better processor.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'm a touch befuddled by the severely limited RAM. Shoving in an SDIO wifi card is a doable upgrade. Upping the RAM would pretty much involve breaking out the rework station. How much could it have possibly added to the price to go to 64 or 128MB?

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[jgagnon]

Agreed... this thing is lacking is some very basic ways by the standards of today, especially considering how cheap many components are.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[Hatta]

I guess you can have an 80x30 terminal though, with a 4x8 pixel font.

Isn't that enough?

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

From having done a fair amount of fiddling with the NSLU2(266MHz ARM, 32MB RAM, 8MB onboard flash, 2 USB 2.0 ports(with the ability to hack another couple on) 1 10/100 ethernet) RAM ended up being the big kicker for a lot of applications.

With USB, you can trivially add terabytes of mass storage(or in the case of this portable, SD cards up to 32 gigs are cheap), and the onboard 8MB is enough for a kernel and initrd; but if you start swapping into a swapfile located on a USB HDD, your performance will tank.

With a 233MHz ARM, you can run an entire network's worth of services for a smallish household of users(RADIUS server, file server, VPN endpoint, SFTP, mostly-static web server, etc.) for 2-5 people, no problem; but you'll have a harder time doing that in 32MB of RAM, without serious effort that just isn't justified by the cost of 64 or 128MB. Adding a framebuffer to the equation isn't going to help any.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[morgan_greywolf]

No. I have an ssh client with a built-in terminal that uses a 4x8 pixel font on my LG Rumor messaging phone and while somewhat usable, it is barely so. My phone has a smaller screen at 176x220 -- roughly half the size of this device, so YMMV on this screen, but I doubt it'll be much better or more readable.

The device doesn't have an integrated NIC, but you can plug in one to the integrated USB port (or the SD slot, apparently)

USB wireless NICs are a dime a dozen these days and most are supported on Linux using either native drivers or ndiswrapper.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[quenda]

32MB is plenty. It comes with a choice of Slackware, Yggdrasil or MCC Linux.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[Anonymous Coward]

The entire 'feature' list looks like a long list of limitations, with the exception of the underlying OS. If this is the tech crowd's answer to the iPad, they need to try harder. What the hacker crowd needs is a feature and spec sheet compatible (or better) handheld with a FOSS OS underneath the covers. This is not it.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[DarkOx]

You will have to have native drivers; NDIS wrapper won't do you any good with the MIPS proccessor in this thing.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[hattig]

To be fair the device is really quite small. But there's a lack of software for Linux that is optimised for tiny screens. Using the MIPS port of Android could be an idea?

Maybe they should use the new quad-core Chinese Godson 3A CPU - 10W for four 1GHz cores...

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[hattig]

Oh well, sucks to not be able to run every piece of C64 software. However a lot could run, and that's better than nothing.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[khellendros1984]

The iPad is designed as a mass consumer device. The summary says that they're branding this thing as a kind of hacker/developer toy. For that market, sacrificing some features may be worth it for the openness of the platform...I guess their sales numbers will tell us if that's true or not.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[hairyfeet]

I have to agree, hell even the price isn't that great, as for the same money you can pick up one of those 7 inch ARM based netbooks off of eBay, and those have Wifi and Ethernet. Just yank the WinCE off and put on Android or your micro distro of choice and you'd have a MUCH better hackable device than these.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[Yvan256]

Isn't the C64 border just a single color? Or can the C64 actually adress pixels or at least lines in the border?

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[evilviper]

Just yank the WinCE off and put on Android or your micro distro of choice and you'd have a MUCH better hackable device than these.

I think you've greatly underestimated just how difficult that step is...

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[Zerth]

It is rather embarrassing, considering the Zipit has similar specs, wireless, and only costs $50.

Slightly less Free, though.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[aliquis]

10 watt is a lot.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[aliquis]

And less open.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[aix tom]

Well. Not really "address". But you could write own interrupts that messed with the VIC chip to allow sprites to move over the borders.

Details: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1477444/how-do-i-show-sprites-in-the-border-on-c64

But those interrupts made the system somewhat slower in general.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[tao]

Uhm, what do you mean with somewhat slower in general? There's no overhead of the raster interrupt except when it actually triggers. Sprites steal clock cycles from the rasterlines they cover though. BTW: Apart from showing sprites in the borders it's also possible to show the content of the "ghost byte" in the upper and lower border.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[hairyfeet]

Why is that? It is on flash memory, and has USB ports, so I don't see any reason why you simply couldn't put on your ARM distro of choice. There are also Linux and Android based ARM netbooks selling now, so it isn't like you can't just go with whatever floats your boat anyway, I just pointed out the WinCE version simply because they seem to be a little easier to get ATM.

But nearly all of them come with an SD card slot, so I don't see why you could just leave the WinCE on and boot from the SD if you want to run Linux. It isn't like large SD cards aren't cheap right now, and the (usually) 2Gb of onboard memory often isn't worth the trouble to hack anyway. So if you are wanting cheap and hackable the ARM based netbooks just seem like the way to go, and unlike this device most come with 128-256Mb of RAM, better expansion possibilities thanks to the SD slot and USB ports, better screen resolution, better CPU, and unlike this device has Wifi G and Ethernet built in, so you don't have to waste you expansion slot on connectivity. Seems like a no brainer to me.

I mean hell you can even get them at Amazon now, and for a whole $20 more than this device you get 64Mb of RAM, Wifi and Ethernet, plus an 840x480 screen. Maybe if this device was $50 it'd be good for pisslefarting around on, but at $100 it is just too limited compared to what you can get.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[Anonymous Coward]

And just what the fuck kind of emulator is going to run at playable rates on such a slow processor?

This product shows that 'open' doesn't mean 'better', unless you consider using 10 year old technology 'better'. I'll stick with something usable, thank you very much.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[Anonymous Coward]

100$ dollars for that level of hardware??? what a joke!!!

with that money, I can buy me a 2 or 3 years old laptop, and run Linux on it, with specs as follows:
512 MB ram
80GB hard disk
1024x768
celeron 1.7GHz
ethernet
wifi
and a few other goodies

or I could get myself a new netbook for around 150$ I think.

The one thing i agree with is the choice of Linux, but on 512MB of Ram, I would run Fedora or Ubuntu.

bottom line is I love free and open source, but not when it's more expensive and less performance. And frankly, I don't care if the processor is open source.

By the way, I worked for Silicon Graphics who once owned Mips.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[Curtman]

I've been watching this project for a while.. I found it while hacking a cheap DX PMP device that uses the same SoC. ( sku.28751 )

The Qi project is much more than open source software. It's an entire embedded system that you can have full datasheets for, and not have to sign any NDA agreement to get them. For anybody wanting to learn about embedded devices, this is a great project play with. For anyone looking to replace their iPad, they should look elsewhere probably.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[Obfuscant]

But nearly all of them come with an SD card slot, so I don't see why you could just leave the WinCE on and boot from the SD if you want to run Linux.

This is not always as easy as it sounds. I tried this with my Aspire One. Something hung in the linux and I had to hard-power (several second press of power button) it off. It turns out that there is some bug in the BIOS (or somewhere) that closing the system improperly results in an unbootable system. Something in the flash bios gets hosed. This was the evening before I was leaving on a trip where I really needed my computer, and I was pissed...

Turns out that this is a KNOWN problem, and that there is a KNOWN workaround using a USB stick and a specific file with a specific name ... the BIOS looks for updates on the USB and loads them if they have the right name. Good idea.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[xororand]

From TFA: "There is no built-in networking, but the micro-SD storage card slot supports several SDIO WiFi cards."
There are hybrid SDIO cards with both WiFi & gibibytes of storage!

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[udippel]

It is on flash memory, and has USB ports, so I don't see any reason why you simply couldn't put on your ARM distro of choice.

I do. It is MIPS.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with this story is that this isn't a new device. The NanoNote has been out for quite some time and is essentially a Dingoo A-320 with less storage space and a mini keyboard.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[hairyfeet]

So let me see if I got this straight. You buy a device that HAS a Linux version, but you don't buy THAT version, you buy the Windows one so....what? You can have the "fun" of an alternate OS install? You DO know it is guys like you that have the OEMs saying "There isn't a call for a Linux version" right? Why not simply support the OS you like by buying one with it already installed? Sheesh, talk about doing things the long way around! I mean did you ever think they didn't bother testing for Linux on the Windows one because they already had a Linux one and didn't see a point?

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[bhtooefr]

Because "ARM" only describes a CPU, "x86" describes a platform with at least an ISA bus with memory mapped in a certain way, and now PCI and ATA buses, again with that memory mapped in a certain way.

ARM devices have no such standardization.

Compare the Apple II, the Commodore PET, the TRS-80, and the Atari 8-bit machines. They all run 6502 software, but are wildly incompatible with each other. Or, the Sinclair QL, the Apple Macintosh, the Atari ST, and the Commodore Amiga. Same thing, they're all 68000 (or 68008 in the case of the QL) machines, but can't run software without being ported between them.

You'll have to compile a kernel specifically for your SoC, and compile a bootloader specifically for your SoC and surrounding hardware.

Now, realize that most of these Chinese netbooks have almost no publicly available documentation on their SoCs. There's usually four different SoCs that they use - an SoC made by Anyka that has no Linux support whatsoever, a WonderMedia SoC that, IIRC, doesn't have much Linux support, a Marvell XScale SoC that will likely have decent Linux support, and a Samsung SoC that has good Linux support.

Obviously, the Samsung would be the best bet of those.

Now you have to get your image onto the device. Can you get your own firmware on there? If so, how? How is it laid out? How much flash do you have for the OS? So on, so on.

If you can't get your own firmware on, can you get your own files, including a WinCE executable on? You can run HaRET from within WinCE to boot Linux, although you'll have to build HaRET for that specific device.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[bhtooefr]

Because the Linux ones are much less available?

And the Linux ones that are available tend to have crap hardware configurations?

I know in the US, the Linux ones pretty much disappeared with the move to hard drives. And, 8.9" Aspire Ones with hard drives used a different bottom chassis than the SSD ones.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[hairyfeet]

Well if it is THAT much of a PITA, why not simply buy one like this that ALREADY runs Linux? That was the first link, but it wasn't like there were a shortage of places selling. One of the nice things about ARM is it isn't completely locked up like x86/64 is for Windows, although I have noticed more and more coming with winCE so that freedom may not last long. But now you can buy one of several flavors of Linux, or Android, or WinCE, it is pretty wide open ATM.

So it doesn't really change the fact that for $100 the device in TFA is overpriced and underpowered. The ARM netbooks give you a minimum of double the RAM, 2Gb of storage, 2 USB ports, Wifi, and Ethernet. So for the same or pretty close you have a device infinitely more hackable and useful as a mobile device. Building this device without even Wifi and only a single card port pretty much makes it useless in my book, since you can't actually have storage and connectivity at the same time. What good is that?

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[Anonymous Coward]

Gameboy, GBA, Megadrive/Genesis, SNES and others.

I have a Dingoo A320, which has very similar specs and it runs all these emulators and more, it doesn't come with Linux, but has a quite functional and actively developed Linux port for it. To be honest if you just want a cheap device for running emulators it would be a better choice because it has controls intended for gaming, but no keyboard.

So, yes, this device will be able to emulate plenty of older consoles in a quite playable fashion, not that it would necessarily be a good idea to do so with the buttons on this thing. Though perhaps this would be more suited to emulating older keyboard based devices, like the Sinclair Spectrum, and Commodore 64.

I admit, I don't see the value in this device for myself. But there will be people who see this as a cool device to hack.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[evilviper]

Well if it is THAT much of a PITA, why not simply buy one like this that ALREADY runs Linux?

Ummm... Because YOU suggested buying the WinCE version? That's what this whole thread is about.

Also because for less than 2X that price, you could get a REAL netbook.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[Jae686]

I got a wifi enabled tablet running android for a little more than 85 euros on ebay : http://cgi.ebay.ie/7-Google-Android-notebook-Netbook-Tablet-PC-UMPC-MID_W0QQitemZ120568056079QQcategoryZ177QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp3286.m7QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DLVI%26itu%3DUCI%26otn%3D3%26ps%3D6%26clkid%3D8017503619244106713 In other hand , SACK look quite interesting in my book : http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/SAKC I wonder how much it will cost...

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[Obfuscant]

So let me see if I got this straight. You buy a device that HAS a Linux version, but you don't buy THAT version,

Bzzzt. There was no linux version available when I bought mine. Windows only.

You can have the "fun" of an alternate OS install?

I didn't really intend on installing another OS, I just ran a knoppix disk from CD to see if it would run.

You DO know it is guys like you that have the OEMs saying "There isn't a call for a Linux version" right?

Ummm, no. But so what?

Why not simply support the OS you like by buying one with it already installed?

Because 1) it wasn't offered to me and 2) I bought the OS I needed.

Sheesh, talk about doing things the long way around!

You mean like buying a linux system, installing wine, installing the DLLs, configuring all of that, so I can install the windows software I need to run and hope that it works? Why not just buy a windows system to start with?

I mean did you ever think they didn't bother testing for Linux on the Windows one because they already had a Linux one and didn't see a point?

I have no idea what you mean by that, so I guess the answer is "no, I never thought" of that.

Re:A couple of the potential uses

[Anonymous Coward]

where is the wifi ???? Did we go back in time ??? Maybe it is easier to hack now ...

Open Pandora

[kiberovca]

What about http://www.open-pandora.org/? It's a much better device than this one, has all of the stuff mentioned, and more.

Re:Open Pandora

[tepples]

Pandora's PowerVR GPU is proprietary.

Re:Open Pandora

[FlyingBishop]

The Pandora hardware is closed once you get to the level of individual chips, though it's not that big a deal for someone trying to build one.

Re:Open Pandora

[kiberovca]

So is the MIPS. I'd say there is not so much difference between the two. Yes, the Qi has all of the blueprints, but the Pandora can be actually used for a bit more than just as an example of the open design. I applaud the people behind the Qi, but the device has to be usefull too.

Re:Open Pandora

[drinkypoo]

Apparently you can actually order this device and get one, unlike the Pandora, where you have to apply to be a member of their club and then wait expectantly for your hardware. I'd like to buy a Pandora, but I have to be able to order one from stock on hand before it gets to be referred to as a retail product.

Re:Open Pandora

[kiberovca]

Well, Pandora people started shipping the device. It all depends on the demand for it. If suddenly several thousand devices were to be ordered, I wonder if the Qi people would be able to supply all of the devices on demand. Since both projects are enthusiast based, I'd say the situation is still the same.

Re:Open Pandora

[Dracker]

I know a lot about this device. I preordered one Sep. 30, 2008 and am about to receive it as they are finally shipping them.

There are a few problems with this device for thr purposes of a "100%" open source platform
-Philosophical: It's not 100% open. There are no blueprints available, and proprietary chips and interfaces (SD card reader, etc) inside. Furthermore, while the OS is open source, some drivers (wifi, analog nubs) are not.
-Practical: Even though they're finally in production, you'll probably have to wait a year to get yours if you order now. There are no large scale factories assembling them, it's done by the team behind the product (just a few guys) and any volunteers they can muster.

While an interesting device (and certainly one you can do a lot more with than the Qi) it's not really appropriate for a conversation about available 100% open devices.

Re:Open Pandora

[aristotle-dude]

The Pandora hardware is closed once you get to the level of individual chips, though it's not that big a deal for someone trying to build one.

Since when did you or anyone here own a chip foundry? You statement is pure fluff. You are getting sucked in by the word "open". You might not like the whole concept of "profit" but without a profit motive and some semblance of even temporary exclusivity, no competent company will ever develop an innovative product. Hiring real talent requires money and despite what everyone says, most techie people will not produce the same kind of quality on an open source project as they would on a closed source one where they are getting paid a lot of money.

One of the major downfalls of all of those "open" initiatives is that, once you go beyond basic things like a web browser with an well established UI paradigm or core services, the design by committee effect drags down not only innovation but quality of the end product. Core services tend to work out better because they are usually licensed to be compatible with wide participation from everyone including corporations and are focused on implementing an open standard.

Ultimately the problem is not about money but rather a herd mentality in open source. With a closed product, the employees have some incentive to come up with the best possible product because bonuses could hinge on good sales and because any team member could get rewarded even more if they came up with a brilliant innovation which set the product apart from the field.

Re:Open Pandora

[Dracker]

Reverse engineering and building one? Good luck with the analog nubs, those were specially designed just for this device, and have proprietary drivers.

Re:Open Pandora

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to steal there thunder man, what a bad poster. Don't you know on slashdot you have one of two allowed responses, support or di

Re:Open Pandora

[spazdor]

With a closed product, the employees have some incentive to come up with the best possible product because bonuses could hinge on good sales and because any team member could get rewarded even more if they came up with a brilliant innovation which set the product apart from the field.

Dan Pink says it doesn't work that way:
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

Re:Open Pandora

[somersault]

I pre-ordered back then too, then got fed up of waiting, cancelled my order, and bought a PSP. Which I don't really use. Ahem. I still might buy a Pandora when they actually get some spare stock.

Though I have another idea of something I might actually make use of rather than just having another toy lying around: buying an iPad, jailbreaking it, installing a bunch of emulators and oldskool point'n'click adventures (since they're about the only type of game I'd want to play on a touchscreen-only device).. that would be Nerdvana :)

Re:Open Pandora

[psbrogna]

I disagree with the assumption that only commercial software can innovate. Like Walt Disney "borrowing" fairy tales, commercial software often "borrows" from open source code. For example: ftp, rcp and rsh in Windows originally were ported from BSD. And how about all the hot features from FOSS web browsers being imitated by commercial browsers? Or KDE 4 features finding their way to Vista & W7?

Re:Open Pandora

[horza]

You might not like the whole concept of "profit" but without a profit motive and some semblance of even temporary exclusivity, no competent company will ever develop an innovative product.

That's a bit ironic posting on Slashdot (one of the first public blogs which gave its source away, not initially written for profit), read in a browser (not written for profit), all via the web using HTML over HTTP (again not written for profit). There are plenty of other innovative products not initially written for profit (Napster/Kazaa/BitTorrent spring to mind).

Hiring real talent requires money and despite what everyone says, most techie people will not produce the same kind of quality on an open source project as they would on a closed source one where they are getting paid a lot of money.

You are confusing quality with speed of development, and time with money. No matter how good the techie, he still has to put food on the table. If his OS project isn't paying the bills then he has less time he is able to devote to it. You can easily flip the argument around and say an OS project is always going to come up with the best possible product because he has no time limit whereas a commercial product has a deadline to get out of the door. Both arguments are false, as each has its own unique set of constraints.

One of the major downfalls of all of those "open" initiatives is that, once you go beyond basic things like a web browser with an well established UI paradigm or core services, the design by committee effect drags down not only innovation but quality of the end product.

I do not believe this to be true. A good leader with a clear vision and realistic project management will lead to a successful end product. Linus Torvalds has managed to create a superior operating system to Microsoft, who employ thousands and pay very well. There are plenty of examples where OS are clear winners and others where proprietary are clear winners (eg Photoshop).

Ultimately the problem is not about money but rather a herd mentality in open source.

Oh please, that is nothing to do with open source. Any time there is a successful proprietary product there are always clones. Most of them pretty bad. If you want to look at herd mentality, look at all the proprietary developers flocking to write for the iPhone despite the fact their product may get canned by Apple for absolutely no reason.

With a closed product, the employees have some incentive to come up with the best possible product because bonuses could hinge on good sales and because any team member could get rewarded even more if they came up with a brilliant innovation which set the product apart from the field.

I've worked as a programmer most of my life, and I've always had a fixed salary. Share options sometimes, but that's not the same as a bonus. Possibly myself and my colleagues are exceptions, but the biggest motivator for the people we see around us is the risk of getting fired.

I am not arguing against that money motivates some people, but do not agree with the supposed inherent flaws you see in open source vs closed source.

Phillip.

Re:Open Pandora

[Anonymous Coward]

Drops in the sea compared to what open source copies from commercial software.

Re:Open Pandora

[Lumpy]

Nice MBA degree you have there, too bad it's content is based outside of reality.

Open Source happes everywhere. Even medical fields.

Places like the Van Andel Institute are working to cure cancer and they attract the top of the crop doctors and researchers.... Not because they pay them insane amounts of money, but because they are working towards a goal that helps humanity.

In fact everywhere you will find the best of the best doing things for FREE. The ones that dont are never the Best but people who claim they are or try to act like they are.

Open source built and is running the internet. You think Microsoft would have been able to pull this off all for profit only? not a chance.

Re:Open Pandora

[Tacvek]

The idea of the Qi project is to have 100% open hardware, but I agree that not everything is open.
If it were 100% open hardware the following would need to be met:

• the Verilog or VHDL for any chips, would be included
• as would the exact masks used to manufacture the chips, including the memory chips
• Full specifications sufficient to fabricate the plastic shell, lcd, and any other component used would be included. They must be detailed enough that anybody familiar with fabricating that type of component could theoretically produce an indistinguishable product
• The PCB files would be included
• I would permit them to omit including instructions for simple well known components like widely available resistors, capacitors, and even LEDs, as long as the requirements for those parts are sufficiently specified, such as value, tolerance, mounting standard, wattage (for resistor), and information about required shape, and and the specific maximum current, and voltage drop for the LED. (There are for example multiple kinds of green LEDs, which have different voltage drops and current requirements, so they are not all inter-compatible).

While I'm sure they have included at least some of that, I doubt they have included all of it. Particularly, I find it very hard to believe that instructions sufficient to recreate the LCD were included. I also tend to doubt that semiconductor masks for all used chips were included, even if they included the VHDL/verilog.

Re:Open Pandora

[sootman]

One big strike against Pandora: You can't actually get one.

Since the Pandora is a project started by only a few people (and it isn't even out yet), you can't buy it at any online stores! As the first batch is currently produced and shipped, pre-orders will be available at www.gbax.com, shop.gp2x.de or www.gp2xtr.com soon.

Please check back regularly to find out when preordering for the second batch starts.

Other than that </snarky> it does sincerely look pretty cool. What do Pandoras cost? $99 for the new one is cool, and the lack of WiFi is made up for (at least to me) by ready acceptance of WiFi cards. But the Pandora does have a much better screen.

Re:Open Pandora

[sootman]

Sorry, forgot to click the store links. The one place that shows a price says $330.

Re:Open Pandora

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

responses, support or di

Alas, we now know which one you chose.

Re:Open Pandora

[BenoitRen]

A good leader with a clear vision and realistic project management will lead to a successful end product. Linus Torvalds has managed to create a superior operating system to Microsoft, who employ thousands and pay very well.

Wrong. Linus Torvalds created a superior operating system kernel. There is no one Linux OS to refer to, because people using Linux as their kernel can't agree on anything else.

Re:Open Pandora

[hedwards]

To be fair had MS not been so far behind they would've had other options available.

Re:Open Pandora

[hedwards]

That's a bit odd considering that the iPad costs about double the Pandora and lacks any way of playing many games. Personally I'm curious how one would play old NES games without buttons. But then again I'll be getting my Pandora soon.

Re:Open Pandora

[MightyYar]

The ones that dont are never the Best

You had me up until that statement.

Different people work for different motivations. Some talented people are genuinely altruistic and will work for peanuts, so long as their work is fulfilling to them personally. Sometimes talented people are purely driven by the almighty dollar. Most talented people have some mix of drivers. The fact is that if you take away a profit motive, you will lose some talent. The more profit you remove, the more talent goes away until you are left with just idealists with some other means of support.

You think Microsoft would have been able to pull this off all for profit only? not a chance.

MS would be a bad example, but AOL sure as hell was heading in that direction. I have no doubt that AOL would have eventually created a giant, worldwide private network very similar to the internet. It probably would have taken longer without the academic types, just as curing cancer would take longer without the profit-seekers.

The world isn't so black-and-white.

Re:Open Pandora

[Zerth]

It just started shipping, that page is out of date.

Re:Open Pandora

[Actually, I do RTFA]

For example: ftp, rcp and rsh in Windows originally were ported from BSD

Well defined commmand line tools?

And how about all the hot features from FOSS web browsers being imitated by commercial browsers?

I'm not aware of any. Most web browsers rip off Opera, but...

Or KDE 4 features finding their way to Vista & W7?

I'm not sure which features you mean. But the following point, which is unrefuted, is GP's point: Open-source can develop well-defined things, little things, or stuff designed by committee. No one said OpenSource cannot be innovative. But any big innovative project (OSS or not) needs someone making design decisions. Or you end up with a camel.

Re:Open Pandora

[Actually, I do RTFA]

That's a bit ironic posting on Slashdot (one of the first public blogs which gave its source away, not initially written for profit), read in a browser (not written for profit), all via the web using HTML over HTTP (again not written for profit). There are plenty of other innovative products not initially written for profit (Napster/Kazaa/BitTorrent spring to mind).

Slashdot makes money off traffic, not their source code. Their value is in the community.

My browser was written for profit.

HTTP, and the internet in general was funded by the government. The government is good at funding things.

The filesharing programs you mentioned all resulted around being small and solving a problem for the author. And were created by one very smart person (well, except Kazaa, which was created for profit). Innovation is certainly possible. The type of control you need to create a complex innovative product (read, many developers) almost certainly isn't.

Linus Torvalds has managed to create a superior operating system to Microsoft, who employ thousands and pay very well.

Superior is a relative term. Some things are better, and some are worse.

By Linus did it by himself, and slowly let people help. And most people came on once "working on the Linux kernal" was a rewarding enough to put up with Linus's decisions.

If you want to look at herd mentality, look at all the proprietary developers flocking to write for the iPhone

I think GP was referring more to the groupthink/decision-by-committee problem.

If no one is paying anyone, everyone wants the be the chief.

Re:Open Pandora

[bytesex]

Graphical browsers were first open source, as were web servers. Those are pretty big projects.

Re:Open Pandora

[Lunix Nutcase]

Open source built and is running the internet.

Sure, as long as you ignore the vast amounts of proprietary switches, routers and other hardware that powers the Internet.

Re:Open Pandora

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree it would be nice to have the whole supply chain similarly open, there is an important standard to be set in how they document and license the value that they add, even when they choose to or have to use proprietary components. Their achievement against that standard looks pretty impressive to me. see for example http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/AVT2_RC1_Reference_Board

Re:Open Pandora

[Anonymous Coward]

And costs three times as much.

Re:Open Pandora

[Anonymous Coward]

Regarding motivation for creative tasks, this that I only saw a day or two ago looks highly relevant.

RSAnimate

Re:Open Pandora

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a miserable old sod. It's a great device to be talking in this conversation! It's a lot more open source that pretty much every device out there, unless you know different?

I dunno, you just sounded a bit negative.

Re:Open Pandora

[horza]

When Slashdot first started, I doubt they expected to snowball into such a popular online magazine. Their growing pains testify to this. The moderation system, then meta-moderation, weren't driven by customer demand but by wanting to try out cool new ideas.

I presume you are using Opera, but most of us are using browsers that are free of charge. HTML was developed by Tim Berners-Lee whilst at CERN (not government related), and HTTP was a standard developed by a volounteer organisation called the IETF (of which Tim was a contributor to the RFC). Even one of the most crucial parts of the Internet, DNS, used to be controlled by Jon Postel in his spare time whilst he was working at University of South California.

Your claim that Napster was small, and just a single author scratching an itch, is laughable. It was a revolution that has irreversibly changed the course of our society. It spawned eMule, BitTorrent, and many other variations, and now nearly all video and audio content created by western civilisation is available on some filesharing site. If having instant access to petabytes of cultural information globally isn't complex and innovative then you are setting the bar pretty high.

There are plenty of examples of teams moving products forward in Open Source. Linux, Gnome, KDE, Blender, Gimp, Firefox, Thunderbird, Pidgin, Inkscape.. in fact every single application on my computer. It may not be exactly what you want and when you want it, but then that's where capitalism plays its part.

Linus has been key to the development of Linux, and his vision has been key, but so has his delegation (eg Alan Cox). Successful commercial products share the same attributes.

Take your initial statement about how some of the successful OS projects were small teams (sometimes a single person). The same is often the case with commercial products. Look at Xara Xtreme, which blew the competition away until absorbed by Corel. Or the small games houses which do great work but then get absorbed by Blizzard or EA and suffer the same groupthink/design-by-committee problem. Look how IE got overtaken by Firefox/Opera/etc despite Microsoft having a huge budget. Look at Vista come to think of it.

Politics and egos exists just as much in commercial projects as OS ones. It is mistake to cherry-pick a few successful commercial projects and highlight some of the problematic OS ones. It gives a false picture.

I'm not denying that it isn't one of the many problems facing a large development team, just that from what I have seen I do not believe it applies especially to OS projects.

Phillip.

Re:Open Pandora

[somersault]

I said "emulators and point'n'click adventures", meaning running the adventures on emulators and not using games that need control pads (though with a bluetooth keyboard I guess that would work fine, thanks for making me realise this :p ). The cost isn't really an issue at all if it was going to be something I actually got use out. The other bonus is that it would integrate well with my car stereo - I was considering actually buying an iPod simply because annoyingly my car stereo works much better with iDevices than bog standard USB storage drives..

Re:Open Pandora

[sznupi]

I see what you're saying, but it gets incredibly muddy when you look at it closer...

For the given example of web browsers - what is really the main motivation behind Opera? Profit? They give most versions for free since the time they can do that while also staying afloat and not relying on corporate granddaddy. They contributed huge portion of web standards, always backing interoperability. They continue to operate from one of most expensive places for business on the planet. They give millions of people the only practical way to access reasonably "full" internet (Opera Mini), for free as far as their part is considered (and it greatly minimises data transfer costs); likewise their desktop product, giving old machines a prolonged life.

Now try looking at big free browsers from the other direction. All relying on direct corporate backing, with some benefits for parent corp at leat implied...

In the end it probably makes your point even stronger, more general; encompassing more "good practices" than just OS software.

Re:Open Pandora

[aristotle-dude]

Regarding motivation for creative tasks, this that I only saw a day or two ago looks highly relevant.

RSAnimate

I saw that but the speaker failed to consider that the majority of successful "open source" development is done by "paid" developers. Some companies choose to use the open source model but still end up doing the vast majority, if not all of the development and testing of the main source tree. It makes for good PR and anyone can get their hands on the source but most companies would only allow commits to the source tree from developers they know and trust (their employees). They also often require copyright reassignment to the company for any commits so that it can be dual licensed.

You also have to consider that companies doing "open source" manage their projects with "paid" project managers, collect requirements with "paid" analysts and write documentation with "paid" technical writers. The so-called "pure" open source model is like a hydra with no clear leader and no clear change management process which is why the speed of development and innovation often fails to materialize.

Re:Open Pandora

[Luke-Jr]

Even if the MIPS implementation is closed, *using* the MIPS does not require closed software. Using PowerVR does.

Re:Open Pandora

[mdragan]

Yes, but the prices also differ. While Pandora is about $330 NanoNote is about $99. The price difference is greater than the price of the NanoNote itself. In terms of hardware NanoNote compares more to GP2X then Pandora, although it is much better than GP2X and cheaper (GP2X was about $150 when it came out). The sad thing is that it doesn't have a network card, but on the other hand it runs the latest Linux kernel and that means you can use USB WiFi, as opposed to GP2X where you have an old kernel with limited support for such a thing (only one obsolete chip is supported, AFAIK). Thing is NanoNote seems to be the greatest and cheapest freely hackable computer (CherryPal Africa is also close to it, but it's not so developer friendly).

Re:Open Pandora

[wisty]

Any project will be either small, well defined, or designed by a committee.

Quake? Small. One guy did pretty much all the coding.

DOS? Well defined.

Windows? Designed by committee.

Excel? Iterative improvements on a well defined product.

Re:Open Pandora

[simplerThanPossible]

He has a point about open-source UI interfaces. Not sure it's due to "design by committee", probably more that most programmers aren't UI designers.

Re:Open Pandora

[FlyingBishop]

AOL was built on top of the Internet.

Re:Open Pandora

[virg_mattes]

Not so. AOL was virtually all dialup access when it started taking off. In fact, there are many who consider the rise of the Internet to be what drove AOL down.

Virg

Re:Open Pandora

[MightyYar]

Nope!

I remember very clearly when AOL joined up with the internet. It was referred to as Eternal September.

Re:Open Pandora

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Slashdot did not expect their success, but their success has nothing to do with the proprietary nature of their code. Moderation/Meta-moderation were experiments in self-policing that worked.

I use Opera, which is free on the PC. CERN is government-funded. The IETF was entirely government funded up until October 1991. The University of Southern California is obviously partially government funded (and that's without going into the indirect compensation academics get from being famous/tenure/publishing/etc.).

Napster was a case of one man (Shawn Fanning) scratching an itch. The fact that he spawned all the replacements/competitors is just a testament to what one man can do. It was innovative. The point is that absent one person being the driving force, innovation is impossible because of groupthink and committees. Napster was pretty small and simple, as far as programs go.

Linux is in large part successful because, even with Linus delegating, he still sets the standards/can make the decisions. And because the kernel tries to be pretty small.

I agree that the commercial world can devolve into bad management (although Blizzard is a bizzare example), but the commercial world has authorities that can correct the problem (witness Windows 7; although releasing Vista was brilliant in my opinion a way to get app developers to pay attention to not running as an admin with a killable OS).

IE currently has over 50% of the market, and I dare-say if it had just not gone w3c compliant would have 80%+.

I suppose I'm pretty anti-fork (the usual OSS way to solve disagreements). Managing top-down is stupid, but at the end of the day, someone usually needs to make a decision and have it be the way it is. An okay decision today being worth a great one tomorrow and all.

This story contains one egregious error.

[Annirak]

MIPS is not open source. MIPS is a proprietary, licensed technology.

There are a few OSS processors out there, but they're pretty rare. One example is the xr16.

Re:This story contains one egregious error.

[Annirak]

Correction, the xr16 source is free for non-commercial purposes, not OSS.

Re:This story contains one egregious error.

[Lunix Nutcase]

Not to mention that the RAM and Flash among other pieces of the computer are all also most likely covered both patents and are proprietary.

Re:This story contains one egregious error.

[noidentity]

MIPS is not open source. MIPS is a proprietary, licensed technology.

You forgot one other glaring closed-source technology used in the product: matter. We're still trying to crack the DRM on this stuff.

Re:This story contains one egregious error.

[maitas]

SPARC T2 has is 100% GPL Verilog.

Re:This story contains one egregious error.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're trying to crack the DRM on matter?

Re:This story contains one egregious error.

[Albatrosses]

Yup, we've been trying to duplicate the stuff for thousands of years, but we haven't been able to crack this stupid Deity's Responsibile for Making the universe scheme...

Maybe those folks on Doom9 will succeed where the Alchemists failed.

Re:This story contains one egregious error.

[Anonymous Coward]

One example is the xr16

I was hoping for the LEON processor.

No Proprietary Technologies?

[Revotron]

I thought the MIPS architecture was a licensed design... surely you can't call something 100% open source if even one component has to be licensed, can you?

Re:No Proprietary Technologies?

[tverbeek]

Rounding error.

Re:No Proprietary Technologies?

[datapharmer]

open source != free.

Re:No Proprietary Technologies?

[Anonymous Coward]

While the official mips implementation designs are often not open source but rather proprietary licensed in a manner similar to ARM cores as you say, there are only four instructions the implementation of which are (or were - I think the relevant patent may have expired!) patent-monopoly-blocked in the mips instruction set. A cpu can get along just fine without them. While Loongson is now a mips licensee anyway, it originally was making "mostly mips compatible" cpus, missing those four instructions.

There therefore also exist opencores implementationsof "most of the mips instruction set" cpus.

Re:No Proprietary Technologies?

[Anonymous Coward]

open source == free
free software == ~free
proprietary != free

FTFY

Lemote Yeelong

[Anonymous Coward]

The Lemote Yeelong is also all open-source

  http://www.lemote.com/en/products/Notebook/2010/0310/112.html

and it has better specs than the Ben NanoNote.

Re:Lemote Yeelong

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that chinese for Remote Yearlong?

Re:Lemote Yeelong

[Anonymous Coward]

They prefer the term Chinglish, thank you very much.

Re:Lemote Yeelong

[Hatta]

That's pretty nice. How much and where can I order one?

Re:Lemote Yeelong

[Hatta]

I found it. At $450, it's not quite in the same market as this thing. Worth it if you're Stallman, but not for the rest of us.

Re:Lemote Yeelong

[TeknoHog]

It is a complete netbook, with a HD/SSD and a DDR2 SODIMM, so it's not really comparable if you want a smaller handheld. But at least it is Free as in GNU/RMS.

(I have no affiliation with this company, but it seems to be the only professional-looking vendor I have found so far.)

Re:Lemote Yeelong

[Lumpy]

That is a older MSI laptop. I have one of those that has MSI blased all across the top of it and the Bios boots saying MSI.

It looks 100% identical to a 5 year old mini laptop I bought from newegg.

SD card?

[Sockatume]

The SD Card Association says:

If your company is planning to manufacture or have manufactured SD host products (eg. cell phones, cameras or computers) or SD ancillary products (eg. adapters or SD I/O cards), your company is required to:

      1. Join the SD Card Association and
      2. Enter into a Host/Ancillary Product License Agreement (HALA)** with the SD Card Association and the SD-3C, LLC. Latest Revision: December 12, 2009

I suspect that interface standards are probably the biggest barrier to doing a totally copyleft product. You can't lose them if you want a practical product, and can't keep them if you want complete IP release.

Re:SD card?

[Gleapsite]

If your company is planning to manufacture or have manufactured SD host products...

Looks like it only applies to manufacturing. I see nothing in what you posted that would prevent a complete IP release.

Re:SD card?

[hedwards]

That's correct if you us an OMAP based chipset then TI would pick up the cost as part of their cost of production and pass the rest onto the customer.

Re:SD card?

[Anonymous Coward]

The SD Card Association says:

If your company is planning to manufacture or have manufactured SD host products (eg. cell phones, cameras or computers) or SD ancillary products (eg. adapters or SD I/O cards), your company is required to:

      1. Join the SD Card Association and

      2. Enter into a Host/Ancillary Product License Agreement (HALA)** with the SD Card Association and the SD-3C, LLC. Latest Revision: December 12, 2009

I suspect that interface standards are probably the biggest barrier to doing a totally copyleft product. You can't lose them if you want a practical product, and can't keep them if you want complete IP release.

I was part of a group a few years back that reverse engineered the SDHC interface; this gets rid of copyright, but not patents (I have no clue as to the SD Card Association's patent portfolio, nor do I want to).

Re:SD card?

[Luke-Jr]

They can say whatever they want... the question is, do they have any legal method to enforce it?

OSS App Store

[Toe, The]

Yeah, but if you want to run anything on it, you have to get approved by the Free Store. The draconian linux overlords will reject anything that isn't 100% free, open, copyleft, and blindingly geeky.

Re:OSS App Store

[mounthood]

Yeah, but if you want to run anything on it, you have to get approved by the Free Store. The draconian linux overlords will reject anything that isn't 100% free, open, copyleft, and blindingly geeky.

"RTFM" is all the rejection letters say. Not even any guidance about what to change!

Re:OSS App Store

[Lumpy]

Yup. That's why we dont have Nvidia and ATI video card drivers.

Damn I wish we could use Nvidia and ATI cards. as well as Intel cards and chipsets...

CURSE YOU LINUS!!!!!!!!!

Re:OSS App Store

[sootman]

So, porn is OK then?

Re:OSS App Store

[Jesus_666]

Now that's just not true. Sometimes they also just say "GTFO", which is widely understood as "Richard Stallman doesn't like your business model".

iPad? Really?

[TheOV]

I don't think this device deserves to be compared to the "iPad and imitations thereof" - A) it's not a tablet; B) it's far less powerful; C) it doesn't even have any built-in network capability, which is what the iPad and its following are intended for; and D) it's horribly ugly. That being said, it looks like an excellent little device to hack on, and a big bonus is that it has USB ports! I may actually pick one up one of these days.

Re:iPad? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think this device deserves to be compared to the "iPad and imitations thereof" -
. D) it's horribly ugly.

Hey its not as if the IPad missed all of the branches falling out of the ugly tree!

Re:iPad? Really?

[fm6]

That being said, it looks like an excellent little device to hack on...

Which pretty much defines the product. You'll notice that the web site emphasizes developers, not consumers.

Which limits the market, and guarantees that nobody's going to get rich selling the thing. I doubt that these guys care. Obviously their goal is to create a new open-source ecosystem. If that ecosystem reaches critical mass, then they (and anybody else who jumps on the bandwagon) will have a chance to design kewl products and make a modest living. Which is the ultimate goal of all serious OS projects.

I'm skeptical that this can go anywhere, but with such low upfront costs, why not give it a try?

But yeah, comparisons with the iPad are lame.

OSS processor is here

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.opensparc.net/

Two words for their marketing department:

[the_mind_]

Portable Nethack.

Re:Two words for their marketing department:

[Anonymous Coward]

i'll wait for the pandora or an n900 so i can get portable crawl w/ tiles

Re:Two words for their marketing department:

[Mister Whirly]

My G1 works great for that already. Suck it all you other smartphone users that only have a touch keyboard!

Re:Two words for their marketing department:

[Jesus_666]

Actually there are roguelikes for the iPhone. I played one and it worked fairly well. You have to be a bit clever about the input modalities but roguelikes can be made to work well on touch devices. Of course keyboard input it still better.

Ugh

[TyroneShoe]

"While the rest of the industry has been babbling on about the iPad" the geeks have been babbling about any random piece of vaporware that is remotely flat and meant to be touched as the next "killer"

Re:Ugh

[dn15]

"While the rest of the industry has been babbling on about the iPad" the geeks have been babbling about any random piece of vaporware that is remotely flat and meant to be touched as the next "killer"

My thoughts exactly. The post seems a bit confused – it starts off with a slight slap-in-the-face to the iPad but concludes with a statement that this device won't have broad appeal beyond hackers. It doesn't make sense to compare those two any more than it makes sense to compare a motorcycle and a dump truck. They both have wheels and an internal combustion engine, but the similarity ends there.

Re:Ugh

[PRMan]

And comparing GIMP to Photoshop differs how? Unfortunately, this type of thing is very typical of Linux fanboys.

Re:Ugh

[walshy007]

And comparing GIMP to Photoshop differs how?

The fact that they have a similar goal? raster image editing.

Those who complain about gimp vs photoshop always seem to come across as similar to those who complain about blender vs 3ds max. Professional output can be created (take big buck bunny for example) and nobody really gives a crap what you prefer to use, but to say that what someone else prefers is useless just riles them up.

Re:Ugh

[dn15]

Agreed, GIMP vs Photoshop is actually a very valid comparison. Photoshop does have its advantages, but for many people's needs they'll both get the job done just fine. In a lot of cases they could be used interchangeably.

Re:Ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't. It's a fairly invalid comparison as GIMP users are generally Ubuntards, students, and other undesirables.

Uh, Busybox *GUI*?

[Anonymous Coward]

When did that come out?

Re:Uh, Busybox *GUI*?

[cynyr]

it has a gui, a terminal is graphical and busybox provides ash, seems like a Graphical user interface. It could click at you and you could knock on it back...

MIPS has a free implementation

[tepples]

So is the MIPS.

The MIPS architecture has a Free implementation called Plasma. The trouble is that the PowerVR GPU is also a trade secret. That said, I do plan on buying a Pandora PDA once they get a couple more batches out; it'll surely be better than Apple's "iDon't touch".

Re:MIPS has a free implementation

[Anonymous Coward]

It is debatable whether the MIPS architecture is proprietary. The basic MIPS-1 ISA has been documented publicly in textbooks, however MIPS holds patents - which have now expired - on the infamous unaligned load and store instructions. This opens up the old debate on whether opcodes can be copyrighted, etc. However, whether or not the MIPS ISA can be considered "open" at this point, MIPS is a notoriously litigious company and would unquestionably seek to prevent anyone from making real money from what they consider to be their property. (Reference the demise of Lexra).

Re:MIPS has a free implementation

[lekernel]

That open source implementation is nowhere near as good as the original MIPS. As a general rule, the complete open source HDL thing, and especially Opencores, has still a lot of problems with quality those days.

Kindle killer? Not yet but...

[JThaddeus]

For what I want, this is the right track. I'm not interested in paying several hundred dollars for something that binds me to Amazon or Barnes & Nobel or Apple or whomever. I learned that lesson from having an iPod. It was a generous Christmas gift and I get a lot of use out of it, but managing it in my Linux-only world is a pain. My idea for an e-book reader is something I call Gutenberg friendly: It has what I need to download and display text, HTML, PDF, and Postscript files that I might download from Project Gutenberg or other open sites as well as software manuals. That and a $100 price tag could win me over to the e-book world.

Re:Kindle killer? Not yet but...

[dunkelfalke]

Get a used Toshiba E800, the device is very good for reading and quite cheap.

Re:Kindle killer? Not yet but...

[b0bby]

My idea for an e-book reader is something I call Gutenberg friendly: It has what I need to download and display text, HTML, PDF, and Postscript files that I might download from Project Gutenberg or other open sites as well as software manuals. That and a $100 price tag could win me over to the e-book world.

For $150, I'm tempted by the Sony e-reader. Sony does have an e-book store, but they seem to be the most open e-readers out there & usable under Linux. If/when my ancient Palm Tungsten dies, it'll be between the Sony or a Touch for a replacement - I mostly use it for reading, but the PIM features are still handy.

Re:Kindle killer? Not yet but...

[walterbyrd]

My idea for an e-book reader is something I call Gutenberg friendly: It has what I need to download and display text, HTML, PDF, and Postscript files that I might download from Project Gutenberg or other open sites as well as software manuals. That and a $100 price tag could win me over to the e-book world.

Walgreens has the delstar for $99. About five weeks ago, newegg was selling the ectaco jetbook-lite for $99 (now $119), and sears was selling the similar aluretek libre for $99. I bought a used ipod touch for $85, which is an okay ebook reader.

Seems like we're getting there. I think that, within the next few months, $99 ebook readers will be common.

Re:Kindle killer? Not yet but...

[Lumpy]

all of which are 100% useless at reading anything but a epub file.

PDF on all those suck horribly. so unless you are only using it for casual reading they are useless.

I've tried all them, they suck. I'm hoping that android will get a decent pdf reader by the time the android based readers come out...

I dont want to be stuck with my only choice being a n iPad.

Re:Kindle killer? Not yet but...

[butalearner]

I learned that lesson from having an iPod. It was a generous Christmas gift and I get a lot of use out of it, but managing it in my Linux-only world is a pain.

Dude, Rockbox. I wouldn't even use my iPod (5.5g - 30GB iPod Video) if it wasn't for that.

Re:Kindle killer? Not yet but...

[cdrguru]

I own a Kindle. It is completely unsuitable for displaying PDF documents that have not been customized for the screen dimensions. As is every other eBook reader out there, because you cannot see a full page and there is no good way to zoom and pan quickly. Unless of course you have an LCD display, which then makes it useless for reading other materals.

Same goes for Postscript - after all, PDF is a subset of Postscript.

Some eBook readers display a special eBook version of PDF which is designed specifically for Adobe-enabled readers. The page description is thrown out and the text is reformatted to fit the screen. As far as I am concerned, this isn't a PDF anymore. PDF is a page description language where the pages are intended to be rendered as the author intended.

HTML has a different problem with the Modern Web - games are played to get the page to display in a particular format with the screen width pretty much hard-coded into the page layout. At least a minimum width. For these documents, again a eBook reader is going to fail.

For all of these what is needed is something that can display an A4 or USA letter size page in a readable manner. Given display costs and yields today, you could probably have that for $500 or a bit more. Anything less than that is going to have an unreadably tiny display forcing you to (slowly) pan and zoom, zoom and pan.

I keep seeing posts like this, mostly from people that haven't tried to read an 8 inch wide page on a 4 inch wide display. With an eInk display it responds well to turning pages while reading and infuriatingly slowly attempting to move quickly. It doesn't work. Anything where the page is laid out by the author with a fixed idea of how the page should appear isn't going to come out very well without a display capable of handling at least that width, if not that height. Where eBook readers shine is where the "page" is dynamically formatted from unformatted text to fit the display. Just about anything else is a waste of time.

Re:Kindle killer? Not yet but...

[david_thornley]

FYI, I've found that my Barnes & Noble Nook works very well with stuff downloaded from Project Gutenberg, and the only computer I've hooked it up to so far is my Ubuntu laptop. It also features access to Google's free book collection through B&N, although those have a lot more text issues. I haven't done much yet with Calibre to transform other files to ePub yet, but it should handle text, HTML, and PDF.

No eInk reader will handle software manuals well, since flipping back and forth is far too time-consuming. On the other hand, it's effortless reading for less serious books that you'd read from front to back.

I'm very happy with the Nook, except that I'd really like more battery life.

Re:Kindle killer? Not yet but...

[narcc]

Same goes for Postscript - after all, PDF is a subset of Postscript.

PDF is neither a subset nor a superset of Postscript.

Re:Kindle killer? Not yet but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the Onyx Boox 60 isn't half bad. It has a great selection area zoom, that lets you crop the page as closely to the text as possible, all further paging stays within that zoomed area on a per page basis. (Plus it remembers your soom settings for later.) There are a few other ways of dealing with pdfs, but i've read several pdf docs on it and while not as seamless as reading epub its definitely workable. (Just checked and it even does a half decent job of pdf reflowing.) I often throw a hardware manual on it before i truck off to the server room to perform some maintenance.

Plus it comes with Wifi and a webkit browser
Plus it comes with a scribble function with stylus (including pdf annotations)
Plus you can write/install software for it (not much yet, but its an ebook reader)
Plus new features appear in new firmware revsions

It seems to be one of the more open options out there.

Neat?

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting philosophical ideas and if it's useful, well then great! Chances are though like most of these products so far it's still going to be a boggy buggy mess. For those with the patience to fix these copyleft products, I can only say enjoy it and I hope you do wonderful things with it. I believe that having this kind of competition to more closed platforms is good for everyone because I'm for a balanced center. Just a note to Qi... you'd come of as more of a comforting company if your website didn't look awful and run as slow as a jog in the mud. Just wanted to point that out.

Re:iPad? Really? Mod Parent up

[aristotle-dude]

I don't think this device deserves to be compared to the "iPad and imitations thereof" - A) it's not a tablet; B) it's far less powerful; C) it doesn't even have any built-in network capability, which is what the iPad and its following are intended for; and D) it's horribly ugly. That being said, it looks like an excellent little device to hack on, and a big bonus is that it has USB ports! I may actually pick one up one of these days.

Agreed. Although I had mod points, I decided to post in agreement instead. This product bares more resemblance to the Atari Profile than it does the iPad. Ok, to be fair, it bares some resemblance to the Toshiba Libretto but the Libretto is probably much more powerful and functional despite being a very old product.

This product will not sell well. I would be surprised if it even sells 4000 units. I remember everyone hyping up the JooJoo tablet but it only sold 4000 units initially and many of those were returned.

Proprietary in what way?

[tepples]

MIPS is a proprietary, licensed technology.

A microprocessor can be covered by three different proprietary rights: trademark, mask work, and copyright. Trademark is easy: "The XXX CPU is compatible with a useful subset of MIPS-I user-mode instructions." Mask work is similar to copyright and is worked around in the same way: design your own CPU based on the ISA description rather than copying from a microscopic photo of the existing CPU. As for patents, someone went down the claims in the patents for the MIPS-I architecture and found prior art for 99 percent of them. Hence Plasma.

Licensed under what proprietary right?

[tepples]

I thought the MIPS architecture was a licensed design... surely you can't call something 100% open source if even one component has to be licensed, can you?

While you were typing up your post, someone else said the same thing. Please see my reply there.

Amen!

[Weezul]

I'll stick with my N900 thank you very much.

Re:Amen!

[CreamyG31337]

It's kind of hard to recommend a $650 phone versus a $100 tablet. The N810 is about $200 on ebay, and you can run Mer on it which is a combination of Ubuntu and Maemo if you want. I just stuck with the OS2008 version of Maemo for now myself. N900 is a lot of fun though, there's a lot of apps available already and the OpenGL ES 2 looks promising.

Re:Amen!

[Verdatum]

N900 isn't 100% open source, but at least they're striving to continue opening as much as possible. And yeah, I'm perfectly happy with mine too.

Re:iPad? Really? Mod Parent up

[cynyr]

part of the joojoo thing was the fall out of the the techcrunch guy and the now owners of the joojoo. I know it left a sour taste in my mouth. I think both were being dumb about it.

The big issue with this device for me is lack of anything that resembles a decent screen. I have a 10.6" 1280x768 screen(http://www.greenfly.org/fujitsu/) from 2003. Why why why can't i get better than that on the 2010 iPad? surely the cost of producing LCD screens has gone down in the last 7 years? lack of networking also makes it just about worthless, it doesn't even make a good thin terminal.

Free to add repositories

[tepples]

Yeah, but if you want to run anything on it, you have to get approved by the Free Store. The draconian linux overlords will reject anything that isn't 100% free, open, copyleft, and blindingly geeky.

You've described the policy of the "main" components of Fedora, Debian, and Ubuntu repositories. (For example, see the descriptions of Ubuntu components.) But because the operating system is free, you are free to add additional repositories, such as non-free and contrib (Debian) or restricted and multiverse (Ubuntu). Blocking the user of a consumer product from adding repositories would be tivoization, which GPLv3 prohibits.

Re:Free to add repositories

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu is committed to offering our customers and community a wide variety of all applications, proprietary, copyleft, and in between. The Software Center already contains Adobe Reader, Flash, and Skype.

Another dumb P.O.S.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just another stupid me-too handheld. Why doesn't somebody start putting BeagleBoards into a case with a 480x640 touchscreen LCD??? That, I would buy.

Re:Another dumb P.O.S.

[Dracker]

Something like this?

Now shipping, but still be prepared to wait a long time before you get yours if you order now.

Re:iPad? Really? Mod Parent up

[somersault]

Hey thanks man, didn't know that was out yet - and I've just read that you can install Ubuntu on it rather that stick with the customised version.. £200 cheaper than an iPad too - I'm going to get one :)

Nice...

[EriktheGreen]

At $99, I can buy one with low expectations and play with it... much better than the ZL-5000 or the other 20-ish handhelds I've had over the years, but never used regularly. I'm just a sucker for gadgets like this. I think I'll use it to control the rotary table on my mill until I get CNC set up... Erik

32MB RAM...

[Anonymous Coward]

32MB RAM and no networking?
I'm sorry, but that doesn't qualify as a "computer" today, that's a calculator.

Re:32MB RAM...

[Dwedit]

Replace MB with KB, and you have a real calculator. Which people [url=http://www.ticalc.org/pub/83plus/asm/games/]still write ASM games[/url] for.

Re:32MB RAM...

[walshy007]

Excuse me, my TI nspire CAS has 32mb of ram

Ideal HTPC Remote?

[psbrogna]

This could be the silver bullet for all the HTPC (ie. XBMC) enthusiasts out there looking for a remote! I know that's how I'll justify my order.

Re:Ideal HTPC Remote?

[yurtinus]

...except for the lack of built in networking

Re:Ideal HTPC Remote?

[bradt]

Why not just get something like the Logitech DiNovo Mini? Its a bluetooth keyboard/trackpad combo that fits in the palm of your hand. Logitech only supports it on Windows, but its recognized on the Mac and should work as a keyboard/mouse on Linux as well. I've not tried it with Linux as none of my boxes have bluetooth...

Just a Slashvertisement

[Megaweapon]

I wonder if kdawson gets a cut or just posts what he's told to post.

useful for us blind folk...

[Anonymous Coward]

This could be very useful if someone were to put speakup on the thing and make it accessible. There are handheld computing devices for blind people, but they cost upwards of $1k and have crappy specs.

Comments on the N900

[Weezul]

Imho, there were three big features missing form Maemo : video calling, rotation, and printing. We've now got video calling and limited rotation, but still no printing.

Re:Comments on the N900

[CreamyG31337]

yeah but the video calling only works for skype or gtalk -- not for the actual "real" phone. There's a lot of obstacles to printing, and i don't see much work being done unless a lot of people asked for it. What would you use it for?

Re:Comments on the N900

[Weezul]

I donno, you could install the linux printing subsystem since cups isn't very big. I guess minimizing ghostscript's bloat might require some apt/dpkg/rpm integration for drivers.

Ideally, you might configure cups for just forwarding files, letting another machine handle the print drivers, and let people install ghostscript drivers if they've got a wifi printer.

After that, adding print commands into the various Maemo applications doesn't sound all that difficult, the main ones being email, web, maps, pdf reader, and file manager.

In fact, you can already print files from Maemo by building an ssh script, but that's not especially convenient.

Re:Comments on the N900

[rdnetto]

That's probably because there isn't enough demand for video calling - most people don't even know that it can be used, and even if they did the majority of people don't have phones which support it. Even then, it just isn't that useful, beyond a certain cool factor. Then there's the major disincentive to use it: the cost of a video call will be significantly higher than that of a conventional call. Not to mention the lack of 3G coverage, etc.
I'm guessing the only reason we now have video calling for skype/gtalk is that they are 3rd party components, so anyone with enough time could implement it. 3G video calling would have to be implemented by Nokia, and the cost of doing so just isn't justifiable.

Let it go Apple haters....

[uprise78]

Why, why, why must every article mention the iPad/Apple? Can't any of the Linux/MS fanboys of the world find anything compelling enough to actually stand on its own? In other news: - Some BP employees helping with oil spill wrecking the Gulf enjoy using iPads - The massive sinkhole that isn't a sinkhole in Guatemala happens to be within 100 yards of an iMac - AMD's Fusion Processor Combines CPU and GPU (won't run iPhone OS 4.0)

Re:Let it go Apple haters....

[BitZtream]

Simple. Most of slashdot is just a bunch of angsty teenagers (even though they may be 40, they still qualify mentally as teenagers) who just want some new reason to bitch at and stick it to 'The Man'.

This decade, it looks like Apple is successful, so they are 'The Man'. 10 years ago, it was MS.

The rest of the world moves on, fanboys still don't get why they will never be nothing more than fanboys of something very few people give a shit about.

Troll mods in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

Re:Let it go Apple haters....

[BobMcD]

I find it amazing that both of you have managed to overlook the existence of Apply fanboys on this site.

Ben!

[Anonymous Coward]

The name "Ben" is the Chinese word for "origin,"

Chinese words are more than just spelling, there is also tune. The word "Ben" can also mean "stupid" or "running" with different tunes. I'm not judging the device (in fact I think it is cool) nor the people involved (keep it up guys!), just passing along an interesting fact.

When did the MIPS processor become OSS?

[BitZtream]

Did I miss that part?

You can go ahead and mark me as a troll, I am. I never expect any 100% OSS or 100% closed/proprietary device. I care far more about getting a device that does what I want than putting retarded artificial constraints on something in order to stick it to the man or promote an agenda.

Well, I'll do anything to screw with people who don't make rational decisions.

Re:When did the MIPS processor become OSS?

[CountBrass]

Perhaps if you read some of the many posts above yours before making your smart remarks then you'd know. And not all of us on /. are mere consumers, some of us actually like to know how stuff works, be able to learn from it and improve it if we feel like. Which is the essence of the Freedom being talked about here. But as someone who just likes to look at the shiney you wouldn't appreciate that freedom. (And you're too ignorant to appreciate that the whole of the internet and the WWW were built around those principles).

so uhh...

[Anonymous Coward]

does it come with a magnifying glass?

absurd cost choice

[frovingslosh]

It seems ridiculous to have left out WiFi and even wired ethernet, and then suggest that a user waste the SD slot with a pricey SD WiFi card, when it could have been built into the device for so little and kept the slot available. No thanks, I'll pass.

Underpowered is ok, but

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't mind the abismal power of that hardware, but no wifi in this day and age is a crime.

Zipit Z2 - $50, similar / better specs

[X86Daddy]

The Zipit Z2 is easy to flash with Linux, has a MiniSD slot for additional storage, built in Wifi, Querty backlit keyboard, 320x240 screen, 312MHz ARM chip.

People making custom distros for it have already managed to cover all aspects of the machine's hardware... lid switch, backlight adjustments, etc... I bought mine on clearance at Target in October, and it's an adequate pocket Linux box for me while I wait for my Pandora. Here's a sampling of what people are doing with it:

http://zipit.rootnexus.org/
http://hunterdavis.com/archives/category/zipit-hacking
http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=security/zipit-z2-hacking-userland-side-track
http://www.karosium.com/2009/07/zipit2-clock-email-twitter-monitor.html
http://www.openzipit.org/
http://www.hak5.org/?s=zipit&x=0&y=0

NOT ENOUGH RAM

[serviscope_minor]

Repeated: NOT ENOUGH RAM. I have a Zauraus 3100. It is actually a rather similar machine. 400MHz ARM, 64MB RAM, 32GB flash disk (aftermarket mod), Wifi in the CF slot. Overall rather similar. Naturally a lot more expensive, predating this machine by 5 years, but similar nonetheless.

Sadly, 64MB RAM is rather low these days. Once upon a time, it could run firefox acceptably, if a little slowly. These days not so much. Sadly more and more websites, especially ones related to signing up for (even free) wifi services seem to be allergic to <a href= and insist on using pointless javascript. This means your choices in browsers is somewhat limited even if you only intend to access rather static content.

Networking

[xororand]

It supports networking through SDIO. "There is no built-in networking, but the micro-SD storage card slot supports several SDIO WiFi cards."

I almost went for it

[OrangeTide]

But I realized that I have a ZipIt Z2 just sitting in a box. There is a lot of work done for the Z2 now, including a port of U-Boot that sort of works, Debian+Fluxbox distro, etc.

Reminds me of Tetris

[tepples]

This opens up the old debate on whether opcodes can be copyrighted, etc. However, whether or not the MIPS ISA can be considered "open" at this point, MIPS is a notoriously litigious company and would unquestionably seek to prevent anyone from making real money from what they consider to be their property.

This would put MIPS in the same position as The Tetris Company: owning no patents covering its core product and making dubious claims of copyright in functionality.

When UI deficiency is forgivable

[tepples]

I agree that UI quality in an open platform can lag behind that of a closed platform. But it's often forgivable if the corresponding app on a closed platform has no UI at all because it doesn't show up in the exclusive store.

Did you read the article or the linked info?

[CountBrass]

It's not aimed at "consumers" i.e. people who are just going to use it browse the web so nonsense about bloaty-Firefox or Javascript versus normal html anchors are irrelevant.

The point of it is:

• It's as Free as it's possible to make such a device
• It's a handheld (which, for the benefit of the retards who suggest getting a netbook, is smaller than a netbook).
• It's cheap.
• And it has frickin' lasers!

I've already ordered one because I plan on using it to hack Lisp. Don't care about wifi or ethernet as I have an iPhone and a Macbook Air for when I want to be a consumer.

Re:Did you read the article or the linked info?

[soppsa]

First off it has 32MB not 64MB... 32MB isn't much for 'hacking' around with. 32MB is nearly useless. Unless your breed of 'hacking' around is guaranteed to be limited to a few very simple apps running at the shell, 32MB is going to be an issue. Wouldn't try using any of these modern interpreted languages with their bloaty runtimes, thats for sure.

iPad is irrelevant to this

[CountBrass]

I don't think it's so much a case of it not deserving to be compared but rather the comparison is irrelevant. You might just as well compare it to a microwave oven and complain that you can't use it to re-heat food. The important points about this device are: - it's as Free as it's possible to make such a device. - it's a handheld (so a comparison with a netbook is also irrelevant). - it has frickin' lasers. - it's cheap- well within my impulse-buy limits. I've bought one both to support "Free" and because I've wanted a pocketable Lisp machine for a while now. I

Maybe a joke?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, um... no sense of humor then?

Thats good

[phylevn]

Interesting, using a Handheld with Linux we have more tools to develop software..