Re: Prospects of a GNU/Linux Tablet

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Alexander Stephen Thomas Ross
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Iscritto: 09/17/2012

On 13/11/12 07:42, name at domain wrote:
> There is the Vivaldi tablet project.
>
> Project page: http://makeplaylive.com/
> Forums: http://opentablets.org/
> Main developer's Blog: http://aseigo.blogspot.fi/
>
>
> They are making a GNU/Linux tablet that should be fully free software
> compatible. The project has had some setbacks recently though.
It's SOC is GPL violating. All it takes is some one to brother to put
SOC corp into legal doom and so all products using there SOCs are
seized.Then have to go to a few thousand Linux devs asking for
forgiveness so then can redistribute the kernel, Linux.

Only one reason it had some more source code then other SOCs was a dev
of the corp leaked it.

See Luke's posts on the Rhombus-Tech mailing list.

Alexander Stephen Thomas Ross
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Iscritto: 09/17/2012

Rhombus-Tech are making progress on a KDE Tablet. There are also in
talks with the FSF in doing a fund-raising campaign like they did for
Media Goblin. There will be an Free Software compatible card that has an
attractive spec of 1.2GHz 1 core CPU and 2GB RAM, if I remember correctly.

The tablet is future proof! Upgrade the insides by popping out the card!
No more buying a hole new device each time!

Chris

I am a member!

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Iscritto: 04/23/2011

That would be great.

Tullia
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Iscritto: 11/13/2012

Yeah I love the replace-the-card idea. IMHO this is the way forward for hardware - we can't keep disposing of entire machines. A truly green machine with upgradable components is the way to go.

alucardx
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Iscritto: 02/29/2012

I agree. This idea of throwing away phones and tablets every couple of years is just wasteful. Plus being able to extend the life of a device by replacing a component just makes sense.

I hope that idea comes to fruition. I'd really like a straight GNU/Linux tablet. As stated before, I don't think Android is really that great.

Tullia
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Iscritto: 11/13/2012

I'm not as techy as I'd like to be, so I'm using Android 'as is', and I'm not even remotely impressed. I hate the way the apps are hardboiled into the OS so that I can't delete them, and are using up precious memory instead of installing onto the SD card.

I also hate the way Google integrates everything - I haven't bought any apps because I don't want to hand over my credit card to the play store. And it makes the core functions - making a phone call - more complicated than they ought to be. Being able to run a proper OS on a tablet is critical for me.

MagicFab
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Iscritto: 12/13/2010

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On 12-11-17 04:17 AM, name at domain wrote:
> I'm not as techy as I'd like to be, so I'm using Android 'as is', and I'm not even remotely impressed.
I hate the way the apps are hardboiled into the OS so that I can't
delete them, and are using up precious memory instead of installing onto
the SD card.

Maybe try CyanogenMod or Replicant (depending on what device you have),
they take care of both (deleting system apps and automatically moving
apps to SD).

>
> I also hate the way Google integrates everything - I haven't bought
any apps because I don't want to hand over my credit card to the play
store. And it makes the core functions - making a phone call - more
complicated than they ought to be. Being able to run a proper OS on a
tablet is critical for me.

So don't use any of it. When you install CyanogenMod for example you
*optionally* install the Google Apps - results in a *very* different
experience, reminding me of the same efforts when I started with
Trisquel. No Flash? No problem, but you need to research/understand why.
So far I have been able to reproduce most of the Google experience. The
most challenging is everything that depends on their servers
(contacts/calendar/backups etc.). OwnCloud helps a bit with that.

I am hoping at some point Replicant will include such functionality by
default. Although all the pieces seem to be there to make this with 100%
free open source software, it's far from automatic or integrated. Very
hard to sell that to someone that already is into Google's services.

F.

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Tullia
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Iscritto: 11/13/2012

Thanks for that... though you did read the bit about me not being techy, right? ... I have a tendency to break things! Is Cyagen idiotproof?

Chris

I am a member!

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Iscritto: 04/23/2011

I'm no heavy user of of either although have run Replicant, Cyanogen, and Android versions to test functionality/usability/compare. Between this and what I have read Replicant is similar to Trisquel in that its main purpose is to provide a version of the operating system that is free of propritary pieces.

So you can think of Replicant as Cyanogen without the non-fre software.

You can think of Cyanogen as a heavily modified version of Android. The main thing that I see in Cyanogen is it gives users back control over the details. Google has tailored Android to provide it with a source of revenue. In the process they force a lot of undesirable restrictions on you. It's not as bad as Apple in that they cooperate with the free software movement to a minimal degree. Google is far from being setting the standards on cooperation with the free software movement though. They could be said be more aligned with open source proponents.

MagicFab
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Iscritto: 12/13/2010

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On 12-11-17 04:30 PM, name at domain wrote:
> Thanks for that... though you did read the bit about me not being techy, right? ... I have a tendency
to break things! Is Cyagen idiotproof?

To the extent you are on this list and (I assume) know how to
install/use Trisquel, that's as "techy" as you need to be.

Actually, there is some ridiculous amount of detail on procedure to
install recovery + alternate ROMs on Cyanogen, per-device. There are
tons of device-specific forums, so I'd say it's easier to
install/maintain an alternate ROM on a phone than to install GNU/Linux
on a PC.

Cheers,

F.

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Andres Muniz
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Iscritto: 10/28/2012

----- Mensaje original -----
> I agree. This idea of throwing away phones and tablets every couple of
> years    is just wasteful. Plus being able to extend the life of a device
> by replacing    a component just makes sense.
>
> I hope that idea comes to fruition. I'd really like a straight GNU/Linux
>    tablet. As stated before, I don't think Android is really that great.
>

Sorry, i might have missed someone mentioning this but do any of you use replicant? Might work only for mobile.
Replicant replaces where possible all the propietary software.

Remember that at least in the EU flashing your device does not void your warranty.

Chris

I am a member!

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Iscritto: 04/23/2011

I was using it for a short while. There are some major issues with it for everyday use. I have to say it works better than the Freerunner did the last time I investigated it.

I don't know how the GTA04 compares. GTA04 is a board for the Freerunner case. It is not the kind of thing most people have the finances to afford though. I believe the whole thing would run you around $1000 USD. At best it works not terribly well as a basic phone. It's not meant to compete with Android phones though. It is meant more as a tool for development with the hope it will one day be possible to release a freedom friendly consumer phone.

Alexander Stephen Thomas Ross
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Iscritto: 09/17/2012

On 17/11/12 09:17, name at domain wrote:
> I'm not as techy as I'd like to be, so I'm using Android 'as is', and
> I'm not even remotely impressed. I hate the way the apps are hardboiled
> into the OS so that I can't delete them, and are using up precious
> memory instead of installing onto the SD card.
>
> I also hate the way Google integrates everything - I haven't bought any
> apps because I don't want to hand over my credit card to the play store.
> And it makes the core functions - making a phone call - more complicated
> than they ought to be. Being able to run a proper OS on a tablet is
> critical for me.
I should mention then that Rhombus-techs card is aimed at none techies.
Even your grandparents can swap out the card for a different one.
Deficiently there will always be a proper GNU/Linux based distribution.
I can't imagine there not being.

The card are robust. So you can swap them dozens or several's of times a
day without them reaching there death by date early.

Tullia
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Iscritto: 11/13/2012

(just an offtopic aside: in the profile it says my email will not be made public, but I'm seeing it in the quoted text here. Are you seeing it also? What is the deal with that? I'm all for transparency but so long as I know if my email is being published, I'd use a different one. )

Chris

I am a member!

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Iscritto: 04/23/2011

You might want to change it. Maintain a web site, project, etc is a lot of work. The project doesn't have enough money to properly fund development. Even little changes require time. There are a lot of little changes. The default text for which the site is based says something to the effect your email won't be published I think. Trisquel isn't trying to make money off selling your address however the bug hasn't been fixed which is causing the addresses to be released. The project should probably change the message rather than fix the bug.

Tullia
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Iscritto: 11/13/2012

Yes that text definitely needs to be changed. It's so misleading.