Project To Build Dual-Booting Linux, Android Tablet For $100 114
A reader 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.'"
So we could actually call this (Score:4, Funny)
One Linux Per Contributor?
Is this news for nerds? Is this even news? (Score:1)
'Our goal is to build a powerful, True Linux Tablet, one free of Google and Android's restrictions, at a reasonable price,
Yeah, that onerous Apache license that stop you from doing.. uh.. what exactly?
Well, I mean at least hardware-wise they're free of the "restricted" $200 7" tablet that is instantly unlockable so you can put whatever you want on it, including Ubuntu [ubuntu.com]...
Um, wat? How are Google's Nexus tablets "restricted"?
The folks behind PengPod are off to a slow start, with $769...
Wow, I could buy 7.69
Hopefully not just a repackaged Maylong 150.... (Score:3)
Re:Hopefully not just a repackaged Maylong 150.... (Score:5, Informative)
For $100, i really hope its not based on the Maylong 150 [arstechnica.com]....
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.
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o_O (Score:1)
Seriously?
A fool and his money are soon parted. Sheesh.
"free of Google and Android's restrictions" (Score:1)
Ummmmm.... what?
Isn't that the whole point of Android? Free from restriction? Customizable? Hackable? Open?
Just go get a Nexus tablet. I love mine.
No! (Score:2)
As a true Linux enthusiast I ended up with a Nokia N900, Please, anybody who has one and doesn't like it, offer to sell it soon. My understanding is the formerly great hardware manufacturer is facing severe financial hardship due to bad management decisions concerncing software. I've not seen anything even approaching it since it's introduction. I'd say less than a quarter even offer a hardware keyboard anymore.
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Exactly. Why not take all this effort to crowdsource when they could just throw their backing to Jolla's MeeGo project [wikipedia.org] or Ubuntu tablet edition? I mean, more power to them, but I don't think re-inventing the wheel again is going to be all that productive.
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The Maego family of GUI's are quite mature and far more standards compliant than Android, just imagine one could run Thunderbird on a Nexus 7! :)
This is why I'm interested in an MS Surface tablet, running some form of KDE on it must be really nice.
I have Kubuntu running on a 23" HP Touch and it works well, it's just a little clunky to use it as a tablet
MS surface (Score:2)
Remember that all windows 8 ARM based devices are REQUIRED to lock the boot to signed binaries... on the X86 is "just" recommended.
I dont know if the FSF/redhat/ubuntu boot loader can work on ARM (as usually the boot is limited by the cpu and firmware)... it might be a while until you can run other OS on MS surface.
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The n900 was a fantastic device. Problem is not many people bought it or were interested in what it could do. It was basically an ultra-compact linux box with a great camera and screen that happened to make phone calls. It was a product for a niche market. MeeGo for the n9 and n950 made up for those shortcomings and was worlds better for a phone and the device got fantastic reviews but by that time it was too late to save Nokia.
You best get used to it: if you want a table that runs linux proper, get you
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It is right in the ballpark. Similarly specced Android tablets sell for around $80-$120 at 7" (although they tend to have 1024x600 screens). You can get a single core tablet at 800x480 for a bit over $50.
It is worth supporting these sorts of projects if only to keep development going for tablet interfaces with Linux - or more specifically the applications that run on it. Android is fine in its own right, but what we need is an infrastructure that assumes that apps will be open source and free. For that, we
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They aren't using the desktop version of KDE. They're using KDE Plasma Active, which is KDE's touch-oriented interface.
Why dual boot when you can... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Exactly. Anyone who says "both linux and android" has no clear idea of the concept.
OSF zealots correcting things to "GNU/Linux" and "Android/Linux" arriving in 3.....2....1.....
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I imagine the distinction might intended to be
1) Google's customized and restricted user experience via the necessity of developing apps conforming to their development parameters.
vs
2) A truly RMS-type FOSS alternative that gives anyone with the knowledge and experience to hack code and build a tablet with just what they want.
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Speak of the devil:
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/11/15/2218230/google-targets-android-fragmentation-with-updated-terms-for-sdk [slashdot.org]
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Has there been any attempts at doing this? Adding the whole Android app ecosystem to more traditional Linux would be fantastic.
You can run the SDK Android emulator, but that is not really a solution.
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It would seem possible, technically.
I remember an article a while back about bedrock linux, which was designed to make multiple distros run side by side on the same kernel.
You can certainly run normal Linux in a chroot on Android. It would be much better the other way around where the computer is controlled by a proper OS but you can access android if you need.
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"IT colleagues" caring about user experience like mere noobz?
Must be seductive stuff!
TGTBT (Score:2)
Too Good To Be True. It used to be that an inventor gets a patent then approaches a company to market the product. When did it change to crowdfunding (whatever the hell that is - sounds like tincup begging to me) with a promise of no return beyond being first in line for a product that right now only exists as a sequence of numbers on a spinning disk? Excuse me if I come off as arrogantly skeptical, but that's what life has taught me - if you leave yourself open to be shat on, then you will be shat on.
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Crowdsourcing is the combination of your uncle borrowing money from your dad for his latest "hair-brained scheme" and a chain letter.
WebOS ?? (Score:2)
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Actually, if you really want to dual boot, you can only have two.
Not very impressive (Score:3)
It runs Android 4.1 and I can run Ubunu 12.10 from the sdcard with almost everything except the touchscreen because of no drivers for that, or the Mali-400 GPU.
What they seem to planning here doesn't seem to be all that impressive considering my chinese brand tablet can do all that. Truth be told it may not be open-source like they want, but the kernel sources for Ubuntu are obviously available, and the company has released the Android kernel they use.
Ainol is also one of those companies that churn out tons of Android tablets, and they seem to be doing fine. A sub $100 tablet doesn't seem like such an achievement.
Basically, I don't see what the appeal of this project is aside from mabe extended support, but even my device has a good community behind is releasing custom ROM's and constantly keeping it up-to-date and applying fixes from the hardware manufacturers.
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Sounds interesting.
Howabout some links?
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I also have an Elf II (nice tablet for the $), but I think you hit on the major point. It can run Ubuntu 12.10 (great!) without the touchscreen (wtf). Having a device with well supported hardware would be very useful. Especially as the hardware gets older and moves from primary tablet to laying around and gathering dust. If we had full support for the hardware it opens up those older tablets to all kinds of interesting uses / repurposing.
As it is we get stuff that may run linux in a half-assed
I agree with the goal but will not buy one (Score:2)
First a Tablet can be a "computer" but for most people it is a conduit to consuming stuff, preferably after having checked out their brain to the hat rack....
Now when a Tablet is used as an "adjunct" computer, it does make sense to have an open source OS running on it.
But the error in the pengPod strategy is that having the cheapest tablet possible actually is a guaranty of disappointment, I own a similarly priced 7ins Arnova tablet, it is "perfect" to look at a video on a long flight or train commute, it i
"Real" Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
“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.“
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So he wasn't so pedantic after all.
Yeah, RMS' problem isn't being wrong, he usually isn't wrong. His problem is that he's not very diplomatic when he's right.
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lol RMS is finally getting vindication for his GNU/Linux pedantism.
Sadly, this happens quite frequently.
Firstly, RMS sounds like a paranoid nutbag consipacy theorist. Then, 10-15 years later, his predictions have the unfortunate tendency to come true.
The sad fact is that RMSs paranoia is based very much in reality, and he seems to see bad things happening in the computer world well over a decade before they happen.
Also the other thing to remember is that RMS didn't invent his philosophy in a vacuum. It all
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Redundant Much? (Score:1)
So the project aims to create a tablet that will let you run Linux...or another, and more polished, version of Linux?
If it's just about having a more free platform than Android, why bother taking up storage space by putting Android on there? Maybe I'm missing something, but this seems like a waste of time and money.
You Get What You Pay For (Score:3)
I live in Shenzhen, and here in China you can pick up these Allwiner based tablets for about $100-$125 USD. My buddy couldn't resist a bargain and bought one a few weeks ago. I was surprised how well it worked out of the box. Decent performance browsing heavy pages, and the all the 3D games I could throw at it ran smoothly. That Allwiner blows the Rasberry’s CPU out of the water.
Initially, I was tempted to get one. Then I started noticing the problems. The accelerometer hadn't been properly calibrated or mounted at the factory, meaning some racing games you have to hold the device at a 20 degree angle to drive straight. When the battery started getting low, I plugged it in to its proprietary charger only to find out the touch screen doesn't work when charging.
Then about a week later my buddy said the screen popped out after he left it charging overnight. Turns out the battery had swollen up. All these issue point to shoddy cheap components and lack of testing and QC. With only $100 to spend, suggest a used Kindle or Nexus 7.
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Gee why is this exactly the same post word for word as one in the ars technica article?
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Notice username was also the same. Right after I posted on Ars, I saw it made Slashdot. Copy/Paste. It's China; that's how we do it here. Since I've actually spent some time playing with one of these Allwiner based tablets, I thought I'd share my experience. Sorry for the lack of originality on the repost.
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Yeah, I bought a cheap non-name Chinese Android tablet too. There are small outfits importing them to the U.S. As in your case, the build quality sucked, Plus the screen wasn't a touch screen! (You had to use a stylus.) Many video apps didn't work, including Netflix. And the glass broke real easy.
I think it's safe to say that $200 is the current lower bound for a 7" tablet that isn't crap.
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Plus the screen wasn't a touch screen! (You had to use a stylus.)
[citation needed]
or rather, that seems exceptionally unlikely. Most likely is that it is a resistive touch screen which work as both a touch screen or with a stylus. Stylii are more common since you get precision input to make up for the lack of multi touch.
If it's stylus *only* and really doesn't work with touch (I've had one of those) then it's probably Wacom based and they do all sorts of nice things like pressure and angle sensitivity.
IOW
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Can't give you a citation. I don't recall the tech, but the digitizer always misread finger touches. Worked fine with a stylus. And no, it was not a Wacom digitizer. I know those (used to have Motion Computing tablet), and besides which they add too much cost to be used with a cheap tablet..
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Plus the screen wasn't a touch screen! .
Sounds like his was an older and even Cheaper model. My 10" screen did not require a stylus and was definitely a capacitive touch screen. Besides being low resolution, something like 1024x800, the main issue I had with the screen was related to the poor quality of the charger. According to these guys:
http://www.arcfn.com/2012/10/a-dozen-usb-chargers-in-lab-apple-is.html [arcfn.com]
It's a big problem with counterfeit and low quality chargers
EOMA-68 or go home. (Score:2, Interesting)
In a couple years, when I get tired of whatever low-end SoC they can get in their $100 tablet, there'll be a couple new generation of SoCs, and either a low-end from the newest generation or a mid-range from the older generation will easily double the performance for the same price.
If the tablet uses EOMA-68 CPU cards, I'll just be able to buy a new CPU card and upgrade the tablet. And then I can put the old CPU card in something else (maybe a plugserver or such). If not, I'll have to buy a whole new tablet
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There's been talk of that EOMA thing at least since the Raspberry Pi was announced, and it was presented as an alternative to it. Now the Raspberry Pi has gone and sold more than half a million units and there's still no sign of EOMA ever coming out.
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One of the things that caused the Easter Island civilisation to collapse is because they had some new standard for Moai where you could just put on a new top bit instead of buying a whole new Moai every two years.
The result? Cannibalism, civilisation collapse and the eventual extinction of humans on the island.
This proves that you should chuck out your old laptops, phones and tablets every two years and buy a new ones. Unless you want to be EATEN ALIVE by a STARVING, ZOMBIE LIKE MOB.
Patents? (Score:1)
KDE for Android (Score:3)
Trying to port Linux to Android tablets is a dead end. They will get Mer, OpenWrt, etc running on ONE tablet a year. If at all.
The alternative is to consider Android as a different Unix platform, with its limitations, and port KDE, Gnome, etc to Android. More details here:
http://www.elpauer.org/?p=1191 [elpauer.org]
That path would reach potentially every Android tablet (and phone!). Easy? No. Doable? Sure thing.
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Mod Parent Up!
The idea is so brilliant and so obvious almost everyone missed it.
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Any desktop environment (KDE, Gnome, LXDE, etc) ported to Android should not use X but whatever Android uses to replace X (android.view [android.com])
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I seriously doubt I've missed the point, given that I was the one who proposed this "port the desktop environment to Android" idea.
KDE is ported to X11 (Linux/BSD/Solaris/etc), Windows (GDI+), Mac (Cocoa), OS/2 (PM), BeOS, etc. Porting to one more graphics layer (Android.View) is not a problem, especially since Qt provides the Qt Platform Abstraction (QPA, formerly known as LightHouse) and we have Qt for Android (AKA Necessitas).
Gnome, XFCE, etc should become more graphics-layer agnostic and do the same as
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Kickstarter is not a Store (Score:2)
OK, they're not using Kickstarter. But the fact remains that the crowdfunding mechanism is a stupid way to buy stuff. If you think the project is unbearably kewl, by all means donate some money. But if you think "buy it in advance so we can get the money to develop it" is a reasonable way to buy stuff, I have a Nigerian prince who wants to talk to you.
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OSX forums are just as bad. Hell I think all forums are full of twats trying to prove their self worth. OSX forums its more along the lines of 'you wanna do something different? IDIOT. apple didnt design it that way'. -- happy OSX and linux user.
Re:They lost me when they mentioned KDE... (Score:4, Insightful)
The people on the forum are trying to use the classic Linux excuses and make the user feel stupid and blame him for Linux shortcomings.
No, the people in this forum are using a classic FUD technique of finding one nasty datum and pretending it's the whole world.
They're also lying about KDE, and being deceptive about the DE which will be used on this tablet. If you're genuinely interested in the system and have read past the mess of disinformation and proprietary propaganda that is today's Slashdot, go to the KDE Plasma-active [plasma-active.org] site and test it yourself for free.
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Linux is absolutely lightweight and flexible, it's just that KDE and gnome seem to be making a mess of things lately in a stupid attempt to keep up with the Joneses.
I use xubuntu+xmonad and it is blazingly fast and flexible on 4+ year old hardware. I tried using Gnome and KDE but I feel they get in my way more than helping me do my stuff, but I am completely happy with my current setup.
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gnome-shell for all its flaws, runs, two monitors at 1440x900 at desktop idle, a whopping 220 MB of RAM.
while playing WoW in wine on one monitor, yakking away on xchat on another, while having firefox open to watch stupid youtube videos and engage in "polite discussion" on
just under 2 GB of ram.(so says gnom
no swap (Score:2)
You know that you should have ALWAYS some swap enabled... even if its just 100MB (1GB should be better). The linux kernel have some entries that fail if there no swap enabled, even if you have free memory and no need for swap, that might create weird problems.
Also, swap is good for big apps like chrome, firefox, java, etc, where the apps requests several GB of RAM, but will just use a small part of that. Without swap you will lose all that unused RAM, with swap that unused RAM is mapped to the swap (without
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I've done the math plenty before doing this. I've never seen firefox, nor any other app, despite hype, use more than 1GB of RAM.
Not even world of warcraft though wine.
"You know that you should have ALWAYS some swap enabled"
live cds run just fine without swap.
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Virtual memory != Resident memory
use a top or even the ps xua. the VSZ is the virtual memory request by the app... its the RAM that the app MIGHT need and so its reserved (but most of the times, only a small part is used). The RSS is the resident memory, its the amount of RAM actually used by the app and not in swap.
If you have no swap, you have all the virtual memory mapped to the real RAM, even if its never touched by the app. If you have swap, that unused area is virtually "remapped" to the swap and only
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It is true that the "It's the linux way" guy is appalling. But if you read the thread carefully, you will see that he gave the correct answer right in the first reply: Disable the Akonadi insanity.
BTW: I generally find MacOS X and Windows users even more intolerant. Every time I tell a Mac user that the Mac desktop is unusable for me they get downright aggressive in a way that I don't find with Linux users. Likewise I've been called "Dinosaur" by our Windows administrator for using command line interfaces.
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If he doesn't use PowerShell, he can't be much of an admin...
The awk-ward response (Score:2)
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Fair enough - but using a different scripting environment still implies use of a "command line interface".
Re:They lost me when they mentioned KDE... (Score:5, Informative)
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Actually... yeah - why should you need to dual-boot when Linux Desktop and Android both use the Linux kernel?
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Android lacks the GNU libc and toolchain tho, could affect things.
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Intriguing. Are you suggesting the tablet as a coding/development tool for programmers? Might be a nice on-the-go coding gadget, but I wouldn't want to compile anything but the simplest programs on such a dainty thing. Perhaps a more practical role as a development TARGET (or prototyping tool ala Arduino) for app builders fully supported by everything open source currently has to offer? I can see how that would appeal to mobile app developers who know their way around a compiler. But the benefits of acc
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According to various tests on recent distributions (use your Google-fu to find them, it's not difficult), the memory use of KDE is not great, but not nearly as bad as Gnome 3 or Unity. However, it would seem that xfce or LXDE would be better choices for low memory devices.
In general memory required for Ubuntu 12.04 and 12.10 goes: Ubuntu (unity) > Kubuntu (KDE) > Xubuntu (xfce) > Lubuntu (LXDE). Similarly, memory required for the different desktop environments on Fedora 17 is: Gnome 3 > KDE
Re:They lost me when they mentioned KDE... (Score:4, Informative)
the only problem with XFCE4 / LXDE is that they are not designed with touch input in mind. KDE4's Plasma Active is designed for smaller screens and touch input, and generally the smaller screen devices it is designed to run on don't have quite as much RAM so a lot of the more memory intensive eye candy and other goofy crap is turned off by default while retaining the KDE power utilities - Konq / Dolphin spank the pants off Thunar / LxFM in terms of features. Thunar still hasn't gotten the "Open Terminal here" working to actually open the terminal in the directory it was selected from as of the last time I tried it ( ~2-3 months ago) it opens the terminal in your home dir.
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the only problem with XFCE4 / LXDE is that they are not designed with touch input in mind
You missidentified the problem. XFCE4 is designed for desktop use so that is a feature, the problem is caused by one "size fits all" beeing a horrible idea.
A few examples as to why "on size fits all" is inherently crazy:
- cars: very few people drive an 18 wheeler, very few truckers would be happy about driving a smart.
- clothes: nobody is going to wear suit and tie when they are swimming/jogging
- spoons: large variety of spoons and I'm quite sure there is not a single one I would use to both eat soup and as
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Just when will this FUD end?! Oi!
Plasma Active is not Plasma Desktop a.k.a. KDE4 Desktop shell. They share code but they are two different projects so it's not one size fit all, it's the exact opposite where there's one framework with multiple but independant graphical shell implementations.
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Re:They lost me when they mentioned KDE... (Score:4, Informative)
They lost me when they mentioned making a tablet! (Score:3)
This is putting the cart before the horse. Make something that runs well on _existing_ tablets. _Then_ talk about building a special tablet to run it on. There are a lot of fine candidates out there—there's no reason to waste effort building another one that will deliver half the performance at the same price. A Nexus 7 or a Nexus 10 would be a great platform for prototyping this.
Having said that, I completely agree with your point about KDE. In addition to being a memory hog, it's hopelessl
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This is putting the cart before the horse. Make something that runs well on _existing_ tablets. _Then_ talk about building a special tablet to run it on. There are a lot of fine candidates out there—there's no reason to waste effort building another one that will deliver half the performance at the same price. A Nexus 7 or a Nexus 10 would be a great platform for prototyping this.
I can't imagine that this isn't being done, at least internally. Can't we already go buy a Nexus 10 (or similar) and dual-boot Android and Linux w/Plasma-Active ourselves? Isn't the price the point of the project?
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This is putting the cart before the horse. Make something that runs well on _existing_ tablets. _Then_ talk about building a special tablet to run it on. There are a lot of fine candidates out there—there's no reason to waste effort building another one that will deliver half the performance at the same price. A Nexus 7 or a Nexus 10 would be a great platform for prototyping this.
I can't imagine that this isn't being done, at least internally. Can't we already go buy a Nexus 10 (or similar) and dual-boot Android and Linux w/Plasma-Active ourselves? Isn't the price the point of the project?
Actually, taking a second look at the specs in the article, I'm surprised anyone is behind this. The "vertical" resolutions are 480 pixels (7") and 600 pixels (10"). That is ridiculous. With the Nexus line so competitively priced, who would ever touch one of these?
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That's where people ran into the brick wall of trade secrets in the graphics hardware and no way to make something run well without painstakingly reverse engineering the things. Starting with documented hardware that does the job makes sense in that context.
Re:They lost me when they mentioned KDE... (Score:4, Informative)
I'm right now on an HP-mini running KDE-Plasma on 2 Gb of RAM with 6 tabs open in Firefox and looking at the system monitor less than 400 Mb of RAM is in use.
When on a bare desktop with a couple of widgets running it's below 300 Mb, and yes that's of course without the indexing service running.
Would you take the tablet version of KDE you'd get even better results.
Stop trolling in a place with Real Users.
Re:They lost me when they mentioned KDE... (Score:4, Interesting)