OLinuXino - free alternative to raspberry pi?
Hello,
just read this article about a completely free alternative to the raspberry pi:
http://linuxfr.org/news/olinuxino-la-raspberry-pi-version-open-source
(it's french)
The article claims that the board is completely free .
Here are different models:
https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/iMX233/
I don't have much time at the moment but will take a closer look in the evening.
What do you think?
In English language here:
https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/open-source-hardware
The FSF posted a resource page about Single-board computers a while ago. All the current existing boards are not without their flaws (nonfree gpu, wifi, bluetooth) but they can be used in freedom. They do note that the workarounds are far from "painless".
They also list the boards with fatal flaws that make even booting the device impossible to do without nonfree software.
I know this list, but
>The free startup software does not handle the internal memory; therefore these machines have to be booted from an SD card every time.
what's the problem with this?
I will boot from sd card anyway with this device.
And I don't want to use wireless lan.
The devices listed can be used in freedom, the only problem is that these "workarounds" and non-functional hardware can be inconvenient to some.
Since these flaws don't bother you, there is no problem with these devices.
But you also have to consider whether it's a good idea to recommend these devices in general. Since some people may need such features, recommending that they use one of those devices is equivalent to recommending that they use the proprietary software that's necessary to make those devices work.
It would be nice if a project would start that uses projects from opencores.org to build a fully free single board computer in both a software and hardware perspective.
I recommond an external WiFi adapter such as
Once I've ordered such an adapter (or two of them) then I will start porting linux-libre-sunxi.
The GPU can be used in freedom, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l92S3wg2iSU
The VPU is WIP: http://linux-sunxi.org/CedarX/Reverse_Engineering
hi, this is my first post on Trisquel forum :-) ( but I use free-software Distro from a long time ;-) ).
I'm very interested to buy a raspberry-like micro pc, and this is good :-P ( so, I can use a cheap and energy-save micro-pc for web )
on fsf site there's no mention about A20 board, will be some workaround also with that?
Is the OLinuXino A20 freedom-friendly, too? It looks like the best one for a mail server, because it has an Ethernet port built-in.
There is nothing currently in existence that meets these criteria: http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/criteria to be considered something that respects your freedom.
Even with FPGAs you do not get the maximum freedom, currenly I am waiting for the new free toolchain under https://github.com/Wolfgang-Spraul/fpgatools. All other toolchains are nonfree.
I am a member!
thanks for this info, I am looking to make my usb printer wireless and I thought single board was the way to go with https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguin-wireless-g-usb-adapter.
if I understand fsf page correctly a beagleboard with trisquel will not have the gpu working, which I am not using anyway since I am only using it as a printer server?
do you have any alternatives that would not entail me buying nonfree hardware?
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Check the linuxgizmos news site for leads. Many boards there.
EDIT: Some are close to free hardware if you won't use the GPU and if you use a free USB wifi. However Trisquel won't run if the processor is an ARM. There are Debian and Ubuntu distributions that run ARM. I'm not sure how free they are. Since regular Debian and Ubuntu aren't "free" their offshoots also might not be. However Trisquel being based on Debian-->Ubuntu-->Trisquel is free, so who knows? Have to check board by board. Some boards have Intel or AMD chips, then Trisquel could probaby work.
AMD made a single-board computer called the Gizmo Board, which is x86 based. I'd assume that it has an AMD video card, which generally require nonfree drivers for 3D acceleration to work.
I hope Linus and other copyright holders of the Linux kernel will take legal action against manufacturers who don't release the source code of their drivers. It is a GPL violation, as the drivers become part of the kernel once installed, and legally must be licensed under the GPL, too.
On 26/10/13 01:32, name at domain wrote:
> AMD made a single-board computer called the Gizmo Board, which is x86
> based. I'd assume that it has an AMD video card, which generally require
> nonfree drivers for 3D acceleration to work.
>
> I hope Linus and other copyright holders of the Linux kernel will take
> legal action against manufacturers who don't release the source code of
> their drivers. It is a GPL violation, as the drivers become part of the
> kernel once installed, and legally must be licensed under the GPL, too.
I don't think you understand. arm world GPL violation is different from
x86 and non-free drivers and firmware. They can make non-free drivers
and firmware and one can install them. Installing them does not violate
the GPL. They do violate the GPL if they use GPL'ed code.
I was talking about nonfree graphics drivers in the second paragraph.
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Now with coreboot...
http://linuxgizmos.com/amds-gizmo-board-gains-open-source-bootloader/
The 4.0 x 4.0-inch, Gizmo SBC is equipped with a dual-core, 1GHz G-Series G-T40E processor, which offers a separate Radeon HD6250 GPU and an AMD A55E I/O controller hub. Higher-end T44R and T56N G-Series processors are available at extra cost. The board’s interface functions include VGA and Display Port video, audio in/out, SATA, USB, GPIO, analog in/out, PCIe, SPI, I2C, and JTAG.
"The code you are receiving is royalty-free, meaning that there is no recurring or per unit cost. You will be given a download link which will be valid for 30 days. The download is a zipped tar file containing all of the source files (except for the video BIOS which is binary only due to licensing restrictions from AMD)."
The Radeon GPU was ok on Trisquel 5.5. http://h-node.org/videocards/view/en/734/Advanced-Micro-Devices--AMD--nee-ATI-Wrestler--Radeon-HD-6250- but no 3d acceleration. Has that been updated with newer releases? Does anyone know if 3d works now? If so, this is getting pretty close to freedom respecting at $189, no?
Would be nice if someone freed the video BIOS. (It is possible, several
projects did this for some cards from other vendors and the RadeonHD
driver supported older cards without running such code.)
There is no 3d since the driver needs nonfree microcode. Various cards
have problems with suspend or black screen on boot due to other such
microcode. (This microcode is harder to replace, since e.g. the
instruction set that it uses isn't known.)
AMD doesn't do anything to solve these problems, adds more microcode and
works against drivers working without running nonfree bytecode from the
BIOS. Not good: Intel systems need more blobs and cryptographically
prevent replacing them.
"if I understand fsf page correctly a beagleboard with trisquel..."
Trisquel won't run on the BeagleBoard; the BeagleBoard is ARM based, and Trisquel hasn't been ported to ARM.
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A similar Olimex board was awfully close to freedom respecting, now they've released a new one...with a box enclosure for ~USD 47. There is an A20 version coming as well.
Olimex’s OLinuXino Allwinner A10
http://linuxgizmos.com/tiny-hackable-40-dollar-board-runs-android-and-linux-on-allwinner-a10/
Just updating here in case anyone is interested.
I recently baught a Penguin Wireless N USB Adapter for GNU / Linux (TPE-N150USB)
that I will use with my OLinuXino A13. Possible freedom respecting use cases are a mesh router, a vorbis player. I also plan to port Linux-libre.
I've created a port of linux-sunxi-libre and I will announce new versions of linux-sunxi-libre on name at domain.
The download link is here http://platen-software.de/linux-sunxi/
Here's a torrent version of linux-sunxi-libre-3.4.75.tar.bz2. Please seed!
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:1070a71f0dc1abd2327dfb66b9240f393f1a0b08&dn=linux-sunxi-libre-3.4.75.tar.bz2&tr=http%3A%2F%2Ftorrent.gresille.org%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.leechers-paradise.org%3A6969%2Fannounce
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| linux-sunxi-libre-3.4.75.tar_.bz2_.torrent | 41.08 KB |