Tablets

Would the tablet would have Trisquel as the operating system? If so, then yes, I'd want one.

Hello Chris.
I found a tablet with similar specifications (running Ubuntu) here:
http://www.ekoore.com/web/en/product/tablet-2.html
The prices for the atom tablets are much higher than the regular Android tablets offered, so perhaps ARM would be preferable (assuming you can get all the needed drivers). ARM might also be preferable in terms of battery life. It would be nice to get 3G on the tablet also.

We could probably ship it with Trisquel given it is x86 although Trisquel isn't a tablet OS. I'm not sure how well it would work.

I believe Ubuntu supports it with 11.10 but all I see are "preinstalled" packages: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/oneiric/release/

Realistically since Trisquel takes the 32 and 64 bit versions of Ubuntu and adds their own flavor, how much work would it take to apply that same methodology to an ARM port?

I believe a tablet based on MIPS will be a lot cheaper than one based on Atom. You could use Parabola GNU/Linux, which is another great fully free distro and maintains a mipsel64 port. You could use some version of enlightenment with the "Illume" UI option built into it.
Though I'm in no position to spend any money right now, I really wish we have a real Free Software tablet in the market.

Again.. I doubt the demand exists as it is. We may make a go at an ATOM tablet in a few weeks.. maybe longer. We will see.

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On 2012-01-25 21:22, name at domain wrote:
> We have had inquires about tablets in the past and are in a position to
> release one. The question I have for Trisquel community is would you
> want one?
>
> We would probably be looking at the following specifications:
>
> 10.1" LED Capacitive Multi-Touch Display
> Intel® Atom™ Processor N450 1.66GHz 512KB Cache
> 2GB DDR2 SODIMM Memory
> 250GB SATA Hard Drive (other sizes and configurations available-
> including SSD)
>
> It would probably start at around $499-549
>
This form factor and pricing looks more appealing to me:
http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2012/01/reveal.html

Cheers,

Fabian

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Given Android's freedom issues, how about Replicant -- http://replicant.us -- with FDroid -- http://f-droid.org --? Would it be possible, a Replicant tablet?

See the page "Free Your Android Phone" in FSFE wiki!

One thing to consider is in this form factor you're going to need good drivers to enable all the SoC hardware acceleration features. I can see this being something that is BiBlob only. I know the camera on my current Acer Iconia A500(nvidia Tegra 2) has a community Android 4.0 build but we can't get the camera to work without binary files.

I know that tablets have usually inferior performance than a regular notebook but do you think that this tablet will be able to run Xonotics http://www.xonotic.org/ better than what my macbook 4,1 does?

My macbook 4,1 has the following characteristics:

Intel GMA X3100 using 144 MB RAM
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T8300 @ 2.40GHz

Thanks.

I'm not sure that Chris got the attention or enthusiast he was expecting on realising a x86 tablet. I personally will love to have one, so I made a letter to think penguin asking for it and this was what I got back:

"We aren't sure what we are doing in regards to tablets at the moment. We
may or may not be selling a tablet. I can confirm we have no intention to
sell an x86 tablet right now."

Too bad I really wanted one :(

To clarify. It isn't that we don't want to ship a tablet.

It does not appear that we would be able to ship one that meets even the minimum of free software standards. We also couldn't ensure the drivers/firmware were eventually available under a free software license.

If we can confirm work on drivers/firmware for all the main chipsets (audio, graphics, wireless, etc) that would be needed to get a tablet out the door then we would participate in a project to get such a tablet out the door. Right now there is a project working on such an endeavour.

The software project we are talking with is still getting off the ground and they don't have all the details. I can only confirm that some drivers have been released and that there may be others that for the time being are not available under a free license. Depending on the situation we may ship such a device. What we don't want to do is ship a tablet that lacks a community with free software principles behind it and non-free drivers.

While such commitments appear to satisfy the Free Software Foundation, Richard Stallman, and others in the community it is a deviation of our commitment not to ship such devices. To be clear: we do not ship hardware where the main chipsets are dependent on non-free software. The BIOS and other micro code not included (until such a time where the feasibility of doing so exists at least). This is why we are holding off on making a decision. We don't know which chipsets are involved. If it appears that it is just a matter of time we may be willing to release such a tablet prior to the availability of all the drivers under acceptable licenses. It would only be done after great thought and with a warning to users of the situation and any commitments.

Does anyone know if the OLPC XO3 tablet will use openfirmware and is usable with 100% free software?

If we were to get a good x86 tablet for example capable of running Trisquel, we'd need to do some engineering, I think, to make the experience comfortable.

Consider, for example, the bottoms at the top of windows to close and minimize windows - those are small buttons and not touch-friendly. Gnome-Shell has one big close button which is at least the size we'd need.

Also, a lot of the apps in our repositories probably wouldn't be very fun on a tablet - Virtualbox? GIMP with its multiple windows? It would work quite nicely with a stylus, but most tablets ship just expecting fingers.

You also need, in absence of a physical keyboard, the kind of thing smartphone systems do, which is intelligently open the keyboard when needed.

There are some great things happening in Enlightenment (e17) with tablet user interfaces, there are a few called "mobile" or something to that effect, but I found e17 to be inadequate out of the box and needing configuration to have that Trisquel-esque friendliness and configuring it is not an easy task. We'd want to, if we were to release a tablet version, do all of that configuration ahead of time and so the user simply installs and its user-friendly and great.

Unity, as controversial as it is, is at least part of a step in the right direction - with the big launcher buttons and the idea of scopes.

I have been waiting years a "free" tablet.

An 11.6 inch screen, solid state hard drives, and zero fans.
HDMI support would be nice too.

I was thinking of the ExoPC Slate (Intel Atom Pineview-M N450) with WeTab OS--sans the fan--which was based on Meego/Tizen--with work to remove the "non-free" parts.

The "short" battery life really isn't an issue for me. Eight hours sitting on the couch, plucking away at a tablet is more than enough. For some reason I just can't handle the fan, or I would have purchased it...that and one must buy Windows 7 with it in the US. ZaReason doesn't even sell them with Ubuntu.

Isn't the real issue: the Free Software Foundation isn't having new hardware created for "free" software? Look at the state of the OpenMoko Project's hardware: the GTA04 project. This issue also reveals the real danger of Restricted Boot.

The ExoPC was released October 2010...and the really sought after hardware iPad 2 was released March 2011..yet not one truly "free" tablet has been released. There are the Android and webOS tablets that do use the Linux kernel, but proprietary drivers and graphical environments.

It really is a tough pill to swallow to go without using amazing hardware and support "free" software. I know RMS doesn't have a cell phone, because there isn't a "free" one. However, is someone with $900USD really going to go without when they can pick up an iPhone 4S today? The choice: lose-freedom or go without is much different than "free" or not "free".

Hello, can someone explain to me why a libre tablet would have to have fundamentally different hardware specs (beside the touch screen), than a SSD netbook ?

RMS' issue with cellular telephones goes well beyond the issue of software freedom. Using a cell phone (smart or not) also invites the invasion of one's privacy by the cellular service company as well as the government. My impression from his writings is that he wouldn't use one even if the software was completely free.

The iPhone has so many ethical issues in terms of freedom (software, DRM, privacy, possible workers rights violations) that going without is definitely taking the ethical high ground. I wouldn't use one if it was free in terms of free beer.

>It really is a tough pill to swallow to go without using amazing hardware and support "free" software. I know RMS doesn't have a cell phone, because there isn't a "free" one. However, is someone with $900USD really going to go without when they can pick up an iPhone 4S today? The choice: lose-freedom or go without is much different than "free" or not "free".

I have been waiting years a "free" tablet.

An 11.6 inch screen, solid state hard drives, and zero fans.
HDMI support would be nice too.

I was thinking of the ExoPC Slate (Intel Atom Pineview-M N450) with WeTab
OS--sans the fan--which was based on Meego/Tizen--with work to remove the
"non-free" parts.

The "short" battery life really isn't an issue for me. Eight hours sitting
on the couch, plucking away at a tablet is more than enough. For some reason
I just can't handle the fan, or I would have purchased it...that and one must
buy Windows 7 with it in the US. ZaLinux doesn't even sell them with Ubuntu.

Isn't the real issue: the Free Software Foundation isn't having new hardware
created for "free" software? Look at the state of the OpenMoko Project's
hardware: the GTA04 project. This issue also reveals the real danger of
Restricted Boot.

The ExoPC was released October 2010...and the really sought after hardware
iPad 2 was released March 2011..yet not one truly "free" tablet has been
released. There are the Android and webOS tablets that do use the Linux
kernel, but proprietary drivers and graphical environments.

It really is a tough pill to swallow to go without using amazing hardware and
support "free" software. I know RMS doesn't have a cell phone, because there
isn't a "free" one. However, is someone with $900USD really going to go
without when they can pick up an iPhone 4S today? The choice: lose-freedom
or go without is much different than "free" or not "free".

Hello, can someone explain to me why a libre tablet would have to have
fundamentally different hardware specs (beside the touch screen), than a SSD
netbook ?

RMS' issue with cellular telephones goes well beyond the issue of software
freedom. Using a cell phone (smart or not) also invites the invasion of one's
privacy by the cellular service company as well as the government. My
impression from his writings is that he wouldn't use one even if the software
was completely free.

The iPhone has so many ethical issues in terms of freedom (software, DRM,
privacy, possible workers rights violations) that it isn't worthy of
discussion in this forum. In this case, going without is definitely taking
the ethical high ground.

>It really is a tough pill to swallow to go without using amazing hardware
and support "free" software. I know RMS doesn't have a cell phone, because
there isn't a "free" one. However, is someone with $900USD really going to go
without when they can pick up an iPhone 4S today? The choice: lose-freedom or
go without is much different than "free" or not "free".