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Reporter Pans Open Source Laptop Kit TERES-I (theverge.com)
The Verge's Paul Miller has some harsh words for the $242 open source DIY laptop kit TERES-I from Olimex.
Instead of buying one hyper-integrated board that has all of the laptop's brains and I/O on it, you buy several little boards and wire them together. Then you put them inside a mostly finished case built by Olimex -- although if you want to go ultra DIY you can 3D print your own case, too. Everything, from the shell's CAD design to the motherboard's wiring, is available on GitHub for perusal or modification, and the modular nature of the internals means you can add a more powerful chipset or modify just about anything you find unsatisfying about the computer if you have the know-how or if Olimex or others offer compatible parts.
But, unfortunately, almost everything about this laptop is unsatisfying right now. It runs a quad-core ARM64 chip, though x86 and MIPS chips might be offered later on. It has a tiny 11.6-inch screen, a huge bezel, a tiny trackpad, a cramped-looking keyboard, and a whole lot of plastic. The OS (Linux, naturally) runs off a microSD card. At least the LCD comes in a 1080p variant, because the default 1366 x 768 resolution is a real throwback. There's even 802.11n Wi-Fi, which has me questioning what decade it is.
But are there any better alternatives? In the comments share your own thoughts about open source laptop kits.
But, unfortunately, almost everything about this laptop is unsatisfying right now. It runs a quad-core ARM64 chip, though x86 and MIPS chips might be offered later on. It has a tiny 11.6-inch screen, a huge bezel, a tiny trackpad, a cramped-looking keyboard, and a whole lot of plastic. The OS (Linux, naturally) runs off a microSD card. At least the LCD comes in a 1080p variant, because the default 1366 x 768 resolution is a real throwback. There's even 802.11n Wi-Fi, which has me questioning what decade it is.
But are there any better alternatives? In the comments share your own thoughts about open source laptop kits.
first post
Someone explain Mr. Miller whats the difference between a ready-to-fly Chromebook and tinkering-required Teres-Kit.
but these look like shit, and I would never buy one. If I didn't know any better, you guys were paid to publish this article.
MIPS > ARM.
The guy doesn't really seem to have much idea what the purpose of this product is. I'd hate to see how he reviewed Lego
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
You can buy just as good of a cheap 11.6" notebook for less than this. Put whatever OS you want on it and have a solid warranty too. I've seen a few companies attempt to copy the ideal of build your own with laptops like the desktop PC's. But because of the form it really doesn't work. Even desktop building has faded to mostly people who need special purpose machines, or gamer's who want a certain setup. The mainstream users can buy a pre built cheaper than trying to build one from scratch.
and more expensive than loaded used, but in great condition Lenovo X220 (coreboot=no drm).
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
Sorry, got real drink last night. wont happen agaion
-David
With better specs and you can still install Linux at the end of the day.
I reviewed the reviewer and found that he doesn't have skills, IQ, and temperament to construct and operate a DIY hobbyists computer kit. However, on the Pro side, he blends in really well at The Verge.
I'm struggling a bit with the comment that "1GB is in fact completely unacceptable."
At the risk of i) showing my age and/or ii) getting laughed off the page... I started my career in technology being paid to write software for the 1980s era BBC Micro, a computer that shipped with 32Kb of RAM, of which only 27Kb was usable in the best possible scenarios, and which disappeared rapidly if you wanted anything as high-spec as a graphical display mode...
But behind the ridicule I expect the above comment to attract, I think there lies an important point. Most of us today experience an entire technology stack that has been developed in accordance with some of the rules personified by Eric Raymond in The Art of Unix Programming, specifically things like, "Rule of Economy: Programmer time is expensive; conserve it in preference to machine time". Or "Rule of Generation: Avoid hand-hacking; write programs to write programs when you can"
As a result of this, the technology we use gradually loses sight of the purpose for which it was created. I use a word processor because it is a quick and simple way to allow me to edit a document, layering my thoughts, editing content until I am happy with it, without having to re-type it from scratch each time I want to make a change. There is/was an extremely capable word processing application called Wordwise [which shipped on a ROM chip] for the BBC Microcomputer and which took no RAM [because its code executed in ROM] and which allowed me to edit and maintain documents. Sure, Wordwise doesn't have the features of Microsoft's Word 2016, or LibreOffice Writer 5.0.3.2 [both of which I use], but it gave me word processing with a fraction of the resources demanded today.
I think that we sometimes lose sight of the absolutely insane improvements in system performance over the last 20-30 years - and the complete lack of progress that we see at the human interface. My suspicion - going back to the works of Eric Raymond - are that our developers are writing code that is increasingly inefficient, that the environments that run that code are increasingly wasted [do I really need an animated "ribbon" in my Word Processor - i.e. something that actually slows the software down? No.].
Today we find ourselves arguing that a computer with more than thirty-two thousand times the capacity offered by that fully-functional 1980s BBC micro is "completely unacceptable."
Let's just pause for a moment and consider whether today's 1Gb system is north of 30,000 times faster, better, or cheaper than that 1980s system. Today's machine will surely have many improvements over such early-era systems, but will still fall far short of the orders-of-magnitude improvements that simplistic comparative analysis would suggest. Why is that? Because we have become lazy and inefficient, and so has our technology.
In other words, "If you can't do it in 1Gb of RAM, you are doing it wrong."
For most maker/open source/DIY projects, the audience are fanatics who will put up with a kludgy piece of junk as long as they can say they built it themselves.
If they want to get wider acceptance, they need something which presents few such obstacles.
Raspberry Pi, before Google got involved, was a great example of spanning the two worlds: a simple, easy, no-BS project board.
Once the usual Silicon Valley suspects get involved, I suspect it will be configured to print out feminist sayings by default...
Alternative Right.
I use an AP with that. FW is from this decade. No known exploits. I've been using it since 2008. Works with everything. Solid. Dependable. I've looked at new ones, and nothing compares when I look at price: $0 to stay, $300 to leave. I prefer wired ethernet over Wi-Fi so only use the Wi-Fi part for a phone and the stray tablet. Opinions and criticism welcome.
The company I worked for regularly ordered directly from Olimex.
One time they shipped us a defective part.
We returned it for exchange (we paid for return shipping) but they refused to reship until we pay the shipping fee again to return the item to us.
It was a ~20 Euro part which could have been stuck in an envelop. They refused, so we removed all Olimex stock and switched to a competitor. Now with proper customer service.
Fuck Olimex!
This reminds me of a story a friend of me told me a couple of years ago.
She works for a consumer protection agency. One day, a lady (let's call her "customer") phoned her. She was furious. She had booked an organized trip to Pompeii, the renowned ancient Roman city, "preserved" under the ashes of Mount Vesuvius. "There were only destroyed houses!" she yelled at the phone "no shopping possibilities! Everything was dirty and broken!". She wanted her money back, and she wanted the agency to support her on that.
My friend had a hard time trying to explain to the customer that, actually, that's how Pompeii is supposed to look like and that no, she saw no chance in recouping the money.
So dear Mr. Miller, whenever you plan a trip to Pompeii, at least have a look at the relevant Wikipedia page beforehand and try to understand what it means.
with same results, a Frankenstein-ish laptop with compromises everywhere, and usually thicker and heaver than a store bought laptop. Now the HP Stream and Tosh Chromebook2 could have been the way to go, but some have hard soldered EmmC boards, or non upgradable memory.
Could this be done, uhhm,yah... but it will take a major manufacturer to make the base kit and still have a relatively sexy laptop.
So what we need is a great screen to start, a mother board(s) that are cheap and upgradable, extra RAM slots, and probably an M2 interface for storage, with that said, it would have to be a standard, so others can make components to fit.
I dont see this happenening as long as the main OEM's want you to buy a new laptop every 2-3 years.
I would play with one -- knowing it's not meant to withstand an elephant walking on it. It could actually be very educational like a Raspberry Pi.
While it probably isn't good enough for Linux with all the bloat of Gnome and systemd, it should run OpenBSD with XFCE quite nicely.
It's a FOSS Laptop Computer kit for ~250 USD. And for that if looks pretty neat. ... So the bezel is a bit larger? Big fat hairy deal. I guess that is why the screen is so cheap - because it's a 10 year old model optimised for production.
I considered buying a new MB Pro - you know, the one with the touchbar. I thought long and hard and then settled for a current OS-less 11" netbook (300 Euros vis-vis 2300 Euros helped me make that decision aswell), with a quad-core pentium and 4 GB of RAM. I installed Lubuntu on it. Using it right now, typing this.
Yes, this machine, as this FOSS kit, isn't top of the line. But it is small and fast enough to be usable. And since it's slow enough to force me to use the CLI whenever I'm in doubt a task I need to do will perform well on the GUI, it is actually quite fast.
Long story short, I think this guy didn't quite get what the product he was reviewing is all about.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
from 2010 oh the humanity, how soon people seem to forget.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
The EOMA68 is sort of similar. It's a standard around which 100% free devices are being designed one of which is a laptop computer. It's god a good keyboard, large screen, and upgradable core via modular computer cards. Throwback is sort of a joke- given 1336x768 is the most popular screens being used on the market. There are also other factors if you actually care about open source- like is the hardware really open. If your are dependant on some 802.11ac chip your depending on proprietary junk. If the bootloader isn't free it's more of the same. Is your keyboard / LCD controller running open source software? I can tell you- the answer is almost certainly no. EOMA68 is solving those problems and the hardware specs don't matter because it's a standard and you can just upgrade later.
WTF does "Reporter pans" mean? Never seen that expression in my life as an english-as-a-second-language user, and I'm 44.
Pan. Verb (t): to criticise harshly or vociferously. His latest play was widely panned in the press".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It would be interesting to reuse old laptops, with a new board / internals.
Most laptops i would guess, if not dropped, die by graphics card, motherboard, disk or whatever. The screen probably still works, and keyboard, speakers, and so on.
A way to revive these would result in an (imo) much better computer.
Or maybe not?
I am poor, on disability and a bit of an idiot-savant. I would be interested in obtaining your unused technology. At the very least, I would learn a little bit. A bit of a reach, but if you don't ask, you don't get.
Sure, great strides have been made in getting user interfaces usable to people who couldn't use earlier interfaces, but when it comes to imbuing interfaces with power, we have a long way to go. The computer doesn't keep track of much of anything I have done and not do stuff that makes stupid mistakes happen. I spend a lot of time in File Manager and its idea that it should put a check mark next to folders you return from, and uncheck everything when you are a little bit off the mark of checking a box has caused me untold grief. The file picker dialog boxes should have more of the features of the full-fledged File Manager as well. I don't know how many times I find an outdated file I want to delete when I download an update, but the process to do so is cumbersome. The file picker for no particular reason wants to replace the name of the file with the name of the selected file.
For that matter, grouping of programs by tasks has a long way to go. Tabs are grouped by application. Windows should be application agnostic as to what tabs belong to them. Text is unselectable in many places and lack a context-menu in still others.
I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but many of us do not live for "work". Your dismissal of anything that is not work is shallow. There is plenty of action in the places you dismiss as the sidelines.
Does he also "pan" Home Depot and other similar stores? I mean why build it yourself if you can just pay someone else to do it right? Let's tell our kids to stop drawing and playing with crayons, when there are so many good pictures we can just buy in the stores.
Complaining about 768p at 11"...
the Verge is Fake tech news
>You can build a laptop out of open source components if you want a bad laptop
Apple fanboys at the Verge are butthurt someone won't spend $1600 on a touchbar to tickle their dong
>'m typing this on a unibody MacBook Pro
Fucking knew it
>in the drawer next to my desk is a Raspberry Pi and a loose LCD I bought from Adafruit
he is truly a leet hackar
>a MacBook is a superior computer, but a Raspberry Pi is more than a computer: it's an invitation to do something new and different with computers.
Normies btfo
>almost everything about this laptop is unsatisfying right now
Claims doing something new and different is satisfying. Complains something new and different is dissatisfying.
Yep, we're definitely reading the Verge.
> It has a tiny 11.6-inch screen, a huge bezel, a tiny trackpad, a cramped-looking keyboard, and a whole lot of plastic.
But muh $1700 macbawk
>There's even 802.11n Wi-Fi, which has me questioning what decade it is.
I can't tell if he's complimenting it, or genuinely retarded.
>All these unimpressive specs can be yours for the reasonable price of â225, about $242 USD.
Muh macbook is so gud. why cant u be gud OSbook? L2APPLE NUBS!@
>Unless you're excited to build your own computer, you're probably better off getting any old Chromebook
>in the drawer next to my desk is a Raspberry Pi and a loose LCD I bought from Adafruit
Normie tech press confirmed.
A curious potential customer on the website asked:
"What kinds of micro sd cards does it support?"
"Olimex Ltd" replies:
"we don’t have anything above 32GB to try"
So that's their official answer? They've not even done that level of testing???
128G micro SD cards are $25 items now.
Haha granpa shit in pans haha
oss works because volunteers can pool their efforts
osh (open source hardware) doesn't - you only get cost reduction when you get volume, which is why kits like this will always always be behind large volume manufacturers
I mean, 500 bucks gets you a decent brand name laptop with 2-4 gig of RAM and a great screen...
shit everything: keyboard, performance, touchpad, enclosure.
yay.
For those of us who won't RTFA and give potential rubbish a chance, did he supply an alternative? Or is he just bitching and moaning?