- arm-netbook - Mailman test

Fwd: [Project question: EOMA68 Computing Devices] STM32MP15xx processors?
by lkcl 22 Apr '19

22 Apr '19

Hi, I'm wondering if the STM32MP15xx processors have been considered for EOMA68 (or perhaps the future EOMA50 CF version)? https://www.st.com/en/microcontrollers-microprocessors/stm32-arm-cortex-mpu… https://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/search.html#q=stm32mp15-t=products-pag… Features: cortex A7 single or dual core @ upto 650mhz + cortex M4 core @ upto 209mhz max 1 GByte ram @ 533mhz 1366 x 768 max resolution @ 60fps upto 24bit/RGB888 for LCD-TFT optional Vivante 3D GPU @ upto 533mhz optional secureboot & crypto optional MIPI DSI interface 10/100/GbE no VPU multiple SDMMC/SDIO multiple USB 2.0 host USB OTG more.. Power consumption appears to be similar to or better than the jz4775 - so may be a good low power option. $9.80usd ea suggested retail from ST (10k price) for STM32MP157C TFBGA361 (version with all features incl) OpenEmbedded/Yocto build system used for OS images, with git repositories of sources available for 4.19-kernel/u-boot/TF-A/OP-TEE at ST's github here: https://github.com/STMicroelectronics Boot ROM functionality is detailed here: https://wiki.st.com/stm32mpu/wiki/STM32MP15_ROM_code_overview .. along with lots of other info on this wiki. Some evaluation boards/kits are also for sale soon it seems.. (with various combos of 512Mbyte - 1Gbyte RAM, GbE, HDMI out, LiIon Batt connection, various LCD touch screens, etc.) https://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/products/evaluation-tools/product-eval… https://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/products/evaluation-tools/product-eval… https://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/products/evaluation-tools/product-eval… https://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/products/evaluation-tools/product-eval… .. Mouser and element14 have listings for some of them. Apologies if I've got any details wrong above, or if you're already well aware of all of this information. Thanks for your time, and for EOMA68 ! Craig.

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Re: [Arm-netbook] EOMA68 Computing Devices Update: 500 Micro Desktop PCB Assemblies
by Paul Boddie 27 Mar '19

27 Mar '19

Hello again, It was nice to see this latest update on the project: "Just a brief update: Mike’s factory has assembled the 500 Micro Desktop PCBs, though the through-hole VGA connectors still need to be hand-soldered on. These are the simpler of the two boards, so all of the Micro Desktops are being done, whereas explained in a previous update, the more complex board, the EOMA68-A20, will only be done in a smaller test run of 100 at first." https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/500-micro-desktop-… It must be satisfying to see all of this start to come together. On the topic of casings for the computer cards, I get the sense that there are no ready-made solutions for the outward-facing side of the cards, this despite most traditional PCMCIA/CardBus-profile cards exposing ports of different kinds (such as modems, network ports, like two cards I have from many years ago) and thus having similar requirements. I suppose 3D printing or some other creative casing solution isn't an option. Injection moulding seems to be quite demanding, as the following from the Tomu campaign indicates: "Right now a shop in China is etching the Tomu case shape into one ton of steel. Once that’s done they’ll manufacture a few units to verify the etching works. After this “T0” shot, they will harden the steel tool and start production." https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/tomu/updates/design-done-product… To provide context, the Tomu case is a tiny piece of plastic of around one square centimetre and probably no more than 3mm in depth! Paul

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Laptop LCD Touch Pad: Display KB Layout Idea
by Alexander Ross 25 Mar '19

25 Mar '19

On the laptops lcd touch pad. Here’s a idea for a feature. When leaning new keyboard layout. Say dovrak for example. The trouble is learning where the new keys are. For me at least, one could do with a constant reminder. What if the lcd touch pad displayed the current pressed keys? Maybe on a image of the keyboard, meaning some way of representing where the key you pressed is relative to other keys. So if its the wrong one you can see where the right one is. This info is only displayed while the keyboard is in use. When the touch pad is in use it switches to a relevant display for touch pad use. As for when the user is using not the touch pad nor the keyboard? What then? display keymap? If playing video display: video controls, time left, is internet speed fast enough for this stream? etc.

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Heads up, RISC-V doing a world tour
by David Niklas 21 Feb '19

21 Feb '19

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 Or at least it looks like that: https://sifivetechsymposium.com/ Might be interesting to attend (I can't). Especially to ask what to do about the companies that are already breaking the license of RISC-V. Note, however, that in the schedule for one of the events: https://sifivetechsymposium.com/agenda-boston/?_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_2AgWSrIUTQhN… Says that it is only 1 day! And it's apparently sponsored by someone, both because it's free and because I see 2 "Ecosystem Partner Presentation"s. I'm more interested in what on earth they expect to do in 1 day then the event itself... Sincerely, David -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iQIzBAEBCAAdFiEEL2N7+xWmVOJDQxWGm3XCrhg2YP8FAlxtsG8ACgkQm3XCrhg2 YP9shw//aBpeZHiuTA/pG6JxjshZn8H3O2XJuaAwMm8sD9ZvGKAEklMka1zoYUNm HlS8c+1omeReiC9NBJT1mq116iv9TP9olFtkxRq351OcN4qC4NmDgKskZTNXFyNz qNgPlgT3aZV3AQCR6kkhBDzfbdhtC/+pyzGI/ukUH2cBCLZxXL/6du9BS5+GHosb ZJvS9B3VUktsOHKW2o+J4vx0fZGuAD5k2PcGLkTRS0MoPoKYUU2yYk/DVP8sda29 NJmwVXTSfZ6oOMaYJ0Og6OxOlA0I7+MlCx/3r8kKSikAiv7DjA85BVa0/H/3IBJi /gnrnVB2D2P9V2cDh5k+UsE7PRMJ7B4j2G5vLNXqOyzttCx+A43arJCPmnkrWhzk YGi0gt2rKom83H7dyDsH2UVhbmaKH+ATcG9bWo+ta76ITiV1lJ4Z54uFeFic/Ree 21pD1PNIzWOM0bjM6BH1hPnEeyx7TlY14rL1ira2NUfBo5d2XxXGAPjEK/Xz8Sn3 8Q1L9KASZNWVDrhl6/2xEBE+5pPS3HxTH7t9YFyo40dkouFr5TpNwoB2di8Ih3xj yJnFC83VPg6JKQ37EQN4MTjvPvRGkrT63DFSuaxShF5kVtt2UYTVVe12AuWlo9e6 sZYfwMK+c4ZV+8hs6atvdkdyk/BI9ZntROuex/gecjnr8wvuQe0= =zSdp -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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NLnet PET Grant 1st round selection approved, 2nd round to begin soon
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 21 Feb '19

21 Feb '19

i've received word that we've passed the 1st round selection criteria for a EUR $50,000 Grant from the NLnet foundation. they have EUR $5.6m available however they must have well over a hundred other applications and they need to go through a strict 2nd round of questions. https://nlnet.nl/PET/guideforapplicants/ https://nlnet.nl/PET/ i'll keep people informed: given that the project is entirely based around providing the hardware that respects peoples' privacy, and that it's pretty unique and has no competition, we stand a high probability of success. l.

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Another processor with RISC-V and it's not looking OSHW
by David Niklas 20 Feb '19

20 Feb '19

http://linuxgizmos.com/linux-driven-96boards-sbc-features-ai-and-risc-v-com… At first I was excited. Now that I find out it's not really OSHW I'm not so excited. What the future of RISC-V is I can only guess at. And my guesses are involving vendor lock-in and the usurpation of OSHW... Sincerely, David

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Just a thought for the 2nd revision of your standard,
by zap 19 Feb '19

19 Feb '19

https://linux-sunxi.org/Linux_mainlining_effort https://linux-sunxi.org/A64 sunxi cedrus now supports this processor. I would be estatic to see that happen. A64 is a good processor because it is 64 bit, and 32 bit has less people interested in it more and more as time passes... What do you think Luke? Especially given the whole bootlin/cedrus support. Seems the Video Engine is available now. Let me know what you think of this as a possible Rev2 of eoma68 the standard. ps, I am mainly interested in this because of the possibility of wine-staging on it. But yeah, even better it has no issues of meltdown/spectre. :) https://olimex.wordpress.com/tag/allwinner/ https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=5544

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Microarchitecture by Osmosis
by David Niklas 12 Feb '19

12 Feb '19

Dear luke, I was thinking of your problem with needing to drive 128 gates from 1. <disclaimer> There comes a time in life where people, or rather I, must demonstrate to the world just how stupid I really am. And there comes a time in life where people like you rebuke my idea in the foolish expectation that it will *never* be proposed again. :) I am going to propose a solution that works on paper. I have NO experience with logic programming, architecture, or chip design of any sort. What I propose causes a major increase in complexity, while keeping the amount of transistors roughly the same, and maintaining the speed and power efficiency you desired. <\disclaimer> I have no idea how well my idea will scale, with respect to the amount of driven gates. But I have throughly researched it as best as I can. You can find a nice table, which I can only partially understand here: https://courseware.ee.calpoly.edu/~dbraun/courses/ee307/F99/01_10/01_Franco… It will explain how many gates you can drive from one with respect to the maximum and minimum current that the gates accept and output. The capacitance and resistance of the gates and wires may prove somewhat more difficult to ascertain. Attached are 2 images (No, ASCII art would not have worked here). One shows a set of NAND gates with an ordinary layout. I chose NAND gates because NAND is one of two universal gates. The second image shows a modified version of the first. It uses a recursive layout of NAND gates enabling a tree like effect. These were both drawn while riding in a car so don't expect perfection. Also, my scanner got both sides of the paper on one page (technically, image), which was annoying. So I cleaned the images up a bit. I'm excited about my idea, however pitiful it is. Tell me what you think! Thanks luke, David

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Microarchitecture by Osmosis
by David Niklas 09 Feb '19

09 Feb '19

Is the CDC 6600 and it's successors an open source CPU? The way luke talks about the CDC 6600, it is totally available for inspection, unless you're looking for the more obscure parts where you just have to know someone. If so, I'd be interested in finding out more. Experimenting with your own CPU using plain old off-the-shelf parts is rather interesting. Yes, I have heard of the youtube guy who made a CPU called Megaprocessor. I often think that we lost a lot of genius due to the closed source nature of modern processors. Not to mention the methods of creating these CPU designs. Concerning luke's need to drive 128 gates from 1. You could probably operate more gates at once if you used a MOSFET instead of a normal transistor for your driving gate (I have no idea if or how that would work in silicon though). Thanks!

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Modular U-Boot - FOSDEM presentation
by Jeffrey Sites 05 Feb '19

05 Feb '19

I don't recall seeing a reference to this already, nor a resolution to the open question of how to enable U-Boot for different EOMA68 configurations, so I figured it may be useful to someone to review the applicability of a talk given at the recent FOSDEM: https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/porting_u_boot_to_a_modular_device/ I hope this is helpful to someone! Happy Hacking

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EOMA68 Computing Devices Update: New Factory Equipment, New Grant Proposal
by Paul Boddie 05 Feb '19

05 Feb '19

Hello, Good to see another update: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/new-factory-equipm… I hope Mike is bearing up in the face of his recent difficulties. With regard to your funding proposal [1], I see that you wish to revive the other computer cards, and this brought to mind a couple of things I saw recently. One of them was the StereoPi crowdfunding campaign: https://www.crowdsupply.com/virt2real/stereopi The relevant aspect of this is the use of the Raspberry Pi Compute Module as the core of the solution. Previously, the Compute Module was rather "unobtainium", shall we say, but given that Adafruit and the like seem to actually have the latest models in stock, I guess that they are being made and sold to real people. Although things like the StereoPi have developers as their audience, and so it doesn't really bother people that bare boards and edge connectors are the basis of modularity, it would be nice to be able to pitch EOMA68 (and related profile) products for these kinds of things. But these kinds of campaigns do help to demonstrate the case for EOMA68 and modular computing. Another thing that I noticed was in perusing the Dingoonity forums, where there is a fairly active forum about Ingenic-based handheld devices: https://boards.dingoonity.org/ingenic-jz4760-devices/ As the URL indicates, a lot of them seem to be based on the JZ4760, but there was a curious remark about the JZ4770 used in the GCW Zero: "There's no GCW Zero clone. H350 is its presumed internal name. The factory illegally sold prototypes from the initial test runs. Apparently the factory is hogging the last JZ4770 SoCs in existence. So don't expect a third party to jump in and start manufacturing a compatible device." https://boards.dingoonity.org/ingenic-jz4760-devices/gcw-zero-14324/msg1841… Of course, the JZ4770 is the Vivante-based product variant, alongside the JZ4780 (PowerVR-based) and JZ4775 (no GPU). The latter two are still featured on Ingenic's Web site and are presumably active products. Hopefully, there are no availability issues, although one may wonder whether the JZ4760 might be a fallback if there is a glut of those (as evidenced by the continual stream of handhelds) and a shortage of the others. Again, EOMA68 would be a good way of enabling products for this market. People seem to end up chasing discontinued products and settling for random imports, often being disappointed with some aspect of them or other, plus the software is not exactly responsibly produced, either. Paul [1] http://rhombus-tech.net/nlnet_2018/

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2.7.5 production
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 17 Jan '19

17 Jan '19

hi folks, so, mike's uncle died in december, and his mother is recovering from surgery in hospital. we'll be doing the 100 test production run after chinese new year. l.

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Libre "New Art"
by Jean Flamelle 19 Dec '18

19 Dec '18

I believe the term software should get avoided when talking about libre development styles, in lieu of the patent requirement definition "new art" or "a new artifact for all history". Likewise I've substituted out "best" for '"Most Effective"..."for"...', so-as not to claim absolute morality. Memetics infrastructure, implies an infrastructure for generating serialized morality for complexifying interpersonal interactions. We cannot promise a series of guidelines thereof because we can't nor should subsidize the moral requirements of the world. http://rhombus-tech.net/proposed_best_practices/ P.S. Tip: The page still won't automatically update with the source. I very much want to continue updating this page. We could theoretically compile quite some interesting data. I also want to keep writing http://rhombus-tech.net/Economics/ . -- CC0

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Free the (Intel) FSP?
by Richard Wilbur 15 Dec '18

15 Dec '18

This looked interesting--like Intel is starting to feel pressure from RISC-V, et cetera. Regardless, I'm still very interested in security, efficiency, configurability, and other aspects of libre design of RISC-V. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Intel-Open-Source-FSP-L…

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What do 1,000 EOMA68-A20 PCBs look like?
by Paul Boddie 12 Dec '18

12 Dec '18

Hello, Nice to see the progress being made in the recent update: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/what-do-1-000-eoma… It's a shame that you have to redo your Parabola bootstrapping. I experimented with bootstrapping Parabola on MIPS a few months ago using two different approaches - (1) try and cross-compile packages, (2) try and native build in another environment - and it was rather frustrating either way. Ultimately, I didn't regard it as a great way to spend my time. Paul

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Free culture
by Jean Flamelle 12 Dec '18

12 Dec '18

Biases as well as lack thereof distinguish individuals. Whatever one believes might get muted by what one cannot choose to not receive exposure. Colloquially "free to speak; free to not listen". This existential health issue related to FLOSS in my opinion should take priority over the information security issue. -- CC0

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Re: [Arm-netbook] Reframing The Holy War
by Jean Flamelle 11 Dec '18

11 Dec '18

Don't forget free CULTURE. Too much focus on illusions of grander security, minimizing the minimal black swans, then we forget we want a clean mental environment furthermore to have as well as give meaningful challenges with outcomes expressing the spirits of the souls experiencing the prerequisite difficulty and more. We want diversity AND isolation to have a creative society. That requires redundancy, which requires excluding exclusive proprieties. Libre Propriety.

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Questioning The Holy War
by Christopher Havel 09 Dec '18

09 Dec '18

Okay. Forgive me, Luke, for inciting what will inevitably be a stake-burning that will be of such grand proportion as to be visible in space... ...but... ...I have to admit that I just don't "get it". When I write, I save my documents in Word 97-2003 *.doc format. Sometimes I even make a PDF copy. When I listen to music, it's inevitably an MP3. When I go shopping, I like to sit in the Subway at the local Walmart and mooch off the wifi- to the point that, specifically because it has no wifi, I won't go to the Wendy's across the parking lot even though I like their food better. And not having access to Flash is always an annoyance when it occurs. Even my phone is a Samsung Galaxy S7 - not exactly flying the flag of happy freedom-ness. All the stuff I do and rely on daily in my computer is closed-source. I prefer Linux as an operating system primarily because (a) it is a standalone setup which does not require third-party applications for ordinary daily operation, the way Windows does, (b) it's incredibly modular, (c) it doesn't think I'm stupid (much), and (d) I can't beat the price. In using both Linux and Windows (and, to a somewhat lesser extent, DOS and whatever's in a Commodore 64) over the roughly two-and-a-half decades of my life in which I've had my own computer, the only applications I've ever had that actually shot the cat (metaphorically) were applications designed for that purpose, i.e. malware - and in all instances, that was on Windows. (There is one exception that was me being a dummy and turning off a vital system component and then rebooting, the result of which was an unavoidable reinstall -- but that was quite early on and something far more along the lines of a moderately entertaining learning experience than anything else.) ...and that's kind of where I usually draw the line. If a guven application doesn't 'shoot the cat' -- cause obvious system instability or exhibit other overtly malicious activity during use -- and it performs the task(s) it was designed for, it seems to me it ought to be considered just fine, at least for the most part. Yet, almost every message on this list seems to carry with it the implication -- if not express statement -- that if a given application can't be openly audited on a remarkably low level by a random layperson at a random time and place -- leaving alone the fact that most ordinary individuals severely lack the knowledge and education required for that task -- it must therefore be evil and untrustworthy and oh god we can't have any of that sort of thing around here, shoo shoo... Maybe I'm just too ordinary (although that's one thing I've never been accused of!) but I just don't understand. If a program demonstrably does its job, keeps its pants up, and doesn't 'shoot the cat', at least in everyday use, it's got to be, at worst -- as Douglas Adams would say -- "mostly harmless "... right...?

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libre-riscv, first update
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 05 Dec '18

05 Dec '18

https://www.crowdsupply.com/libre-risc-v/m-class/updates/why-make-a-quad-co… in case anyone's interested, do subscribe to updates. i'll post links here anyway. l.

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I just had a great idea,
by zap 27 Nov '18

27 Nov '18

Luke have you ever considered making a libre earth friendly server? Tell me if you like this idea... :)

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tricky conundrum for the upcoming libre-riscv soc crowdsupply page: image needed
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 12 Nov '18

12 Nov '18

ok so to start the new campaign, an image is needed. not a logo, an *image*. something that "represents" a chip and its potential uses and usefulness in a real and concrete way. the problem is: this is a fabless semi-conductor design... there *is* no chip, there *is* nothing to put out there, and because it's just one component that goes *into* products, there *is* no frickin product either! a confusing jumbled utterly boring montage of hypothetical products would be needed. even more of a conundrum: even putting up a picture of some BGA or QFP packaging isn't ok either, because depending on the final pincount, *AND* on large customer orders, the chip will be *custom packaged* and tailored to their needs (i.e. the same die will have far more interfaces added than there are actual pins, and the die re-packaged to suit the customer's needs, leaving many of the pads disconnected internally or connected internally to other dies). if you look at every single campaign there is a nice "image". it's either the first frame of the video, or it's a really cool-looking shot of a PCB, or a 1in cubic robot: https://www.crowdsupply.com/william-weiler-engineering/skoobot logos are out, although not completely ruled out. if anyone would like to convert the attached to PNG (with a variant placing a circle behind the square) that would be really helpful. so this is the challenge: come up with a suitable place-holder image. l.

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libre-riscv shakti m-class talk
by Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 02 Nov '18

02 Nov '18

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojeHX33MPSc cool! i didn't realise this was up, until someone kindly pointed it out, today.

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Should we support libre.computer's efforts at promoting lima?
by David Niklas 02 Nov '18

02 Nov '18

Are they even talking about lima? Or are they giving us the wool-over-eyes treatment? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/librecomputer/la-frite-open-source-fri… Searching.... Nope, I can't find anything for or against lima. Can anyone else find out? I'm going to try and ask them directly, but evidence would be better. Thanks!

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Re: [Arm-netbook] [Campaign Question] USB-C is used more and more...
by lkcl 15 Oct '18

15 Oct '18

[cc'ing arm-netbooks as this question is best answered there, so that other people benefit from it] On Sat, Oct 13, 2018 at 11:32 PM Crowd Supply <orders(a)crowdsupply.com> wrote: > > bonzify(a)airmail.cc submitted a question about your project, "Earth-friendly > EOMA68 Computing Devices": > > USB-C is used more and more often in a day to day basis.Thunderbolt-3, HDMI > ports and new tecnologies are frequently being used more often in the > mainstream market. USB C can intagrate these technologies and also repace the > charging port entirely. How come you didn't use USB C for the EOMA68? there is no such thing as a physical item named "an EOMA68", as it is a standard. the *option* to use USB-3 *is* actually on the EOMA68 standard. USB C is NOT part of the EOMA68 standard, because it would be inappropriate to do so. HOWEVER. implementors of base boards are ENTIRELY AT LIBERTY to add a USB C socket on the base board. AND implementors of Cards are ENTIRELY AT LIBERTY to add a USB C socket on the user-facing end of the Card. the reason why USB C was not included in the EOMA68-A20 - the first in a SERIES of Cards is: massive redesign costs would be required to do so. if you have around USD $20,000 spare, anywhere, i am happy to do another SoC Card, one that uses a PMIC that supports USB-C. l.

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Schedule Updates?
by Paul Boddie 09 Oct '18

09 Oct '18

Hello, I was reviewing the last update on Crowd Supply for the EOMA68 campaign [1], and taking information from that and from discussions on this list, it seems that the following timeline was being followed: 15th June: Crowd Supply update, prototype tested, DRAM tested and ordered, HDMI not tested Late July: DRAM manufactured ("about a month to have the 8 Gbit 1600 MHz DDR3 x8 RAM ICs manufactured"), assembly begins (working from "three months after getting the cards back from assembly before shipping begins") Late October: "delivery of the first units" (presumably "delivery" is the same as "shipping", meaning "dispatch" from Crowd Supply) I hope that things have been proceeding as anticipated. August was a quiet month on this list, and I imagine that Luke has been very busy with all his projects, but I wonder if there is any news about whether the DRAM manufacturer came through, whether assembly could start, whether testing might have begun (and was hopefully a success), and so on. I imagine that there is also the awkward matter of getting the boards from China to the US, related bureaucracy, and other complicating factors. Anyway, I hope everything is going well, that Luke isn't overworked, and that I didn't miss something that would have made the current state of the schedule a bit clearer. Paul [1] https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/2-7-5-samples-rece…

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