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Project To Build Dual-Booting Linux, Android Tablet For $100
SternisheFan sends this quote from Ars:
"It likely won’t be as sleek or fast as a Nexus 7 or Nexus 10, but a new tablet running both Android and Linux is in the works for open source enthusiasts and lovers of low-budget devices. PengPod tablets, made by a company called Peacock Imports, will dual-boot Android 4.0 and a version of Linux with the KDE Plasma Active interface for touch screens. But in order to reserve a tablet for yourself, you'll have to contribute to the company's crowdfunding project on Indiegogo and hope enough money is raised to begin production. 'Our goal is to build a powerful, True Linux Tablet, one free of Google and Android's restrictions, at a reasonable price,' the PengPod IndieGogo page says. 'If you're a Linux fanatic you probably ended up getting an Android phone. Hey, it's Linux right? It'll be open, run all the programs I'm familiar with and let me hack around and have some fun right? Too often, this is not so. That is why we set out to find a way to run real Linux and all the software you really want.'"
KDE4 runs just fine with 512MB RAM and modern Android devices have even more. If you'll read the thread you've linked, you'll see that it's an openSuSE issue which has a lot of pre-enabled KDE components that are not needed on a tabled (like semantic desktop).
Why dual boot when you can run both simultaneously since both run on the same Linux kernel? Kind of how Windows 8 runs both WinRT apps(for tablet use) and desktop apps simultaneously. Best of both worlds, use the Android apps when you want to use a tablet, and then switch to KDE apps for real work, all without messy rebooting.
This space for rent.
Some people get very confused about the kernel vs. user space applications. RMS said it best:
“Android is very different from the GNU/Linux operating system because it contains very little of GNU. Indeed, just about the only component in common between Android and GNU/Linux is Linux, the kernel. People who erroneously think “Linux” refers to the entire GNU/Linux combination get tied in knots by these facts, and make paradoxical statements such as “Android contains Linux, but it isn’t Linux”. If we avoid starting from the confusion, the situation is simple: Android contains Linux, but not GNU; thus, Android and GNU/Linux are mostly different.“
For $100, i really hope its not based on the Maylong 150....
Its not, the maylong had a via 8650 processor with no coprocessing and a 400 mhz main processor, overclocked to the 533, 600 or even 800 claimed by sellers. The PengPods all have A10 1-1.2 GHZ processors with a 4 core mali coprocessor and the cedarx video coprocessor. Typically the system gets unstable after 1.2 Ghz but it can be taken up to 1.5, we are hoping the improvements in the boot software will eventually make that possible. Note that not all the source is available for the video processors but there has been a lot of work to make the closed libraries work well. Full disclosure: Im part of the project.