"Who keeps the same phone for five years?"
I do!
Motorola UCH80000, Nokia 280, Audiovox 9000, Audiovox 9155gpx, LG VX8610 Decoy (This the first time in years, that I did an upgrade in less than 5 or more years) LG VS740 ALly, but 2015 or so will be the next upgrade, maybe.
Thats since 1984 or so....
"Why the skepticism?"
Well for one... lets start with the ever changing form factor and abilities.
Started out as about the size of 2 USB sticks. With HDMI on one end, and then USB on the other. Now its to credit card size, 256MB. (Yes, I read their fora about the 512MB PoP memory issue. thanks)
Next, plans to use Ubuntu, which this is perfect and right up Canonicals alley, so you would think! WRONG! WRONG! Canoncial (see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/848154 ) PULLED the plug on the ARM V6 support and only supports the OMAP, basically TI is paying them to support the Beagleboards, so anything else ARM based is hosed, and you will have to go to Debian, or others. Thats fine, BUT... your targeting this to be used to do things like oh, play MP3's.. well then you have just run a foul of the DFSG, and 99.9999% of the Debian stuff has NO MP3 support unless you RECOMPILE IT! So your not going to do apt-get install mediaplayersoftware as it has NO MP3 support. Its great that it supports Ogg, but I provide Ogg formatted streams, and NO ONE USES them, but me. No arch or fedora doesn't count, first RPM based, and thanks but I've had enough dealings with RPM's on CentOS to say NO THANK YOU! Versus on Debian based DEBS and apt, simple as apt-get install, done.
Lets move on to connecing to see something..
HDMI? fail. Sure for the tech user side this not an issue. But if you aiming as stated by RPI that they want to see this in schools and developing areas, then HDMI is not a choice. Tons of old VGA monitors.
Oh..but we have compsite... Ok.. is that NTSC, PAL, or SECAM? And if its selectable how will I select it to start? If you need to keep costs under control your not going build 10K NTSC, 10K PAL, 1 SECAM, thats an inventory nightmare and cost issue right there.
Next, peripherals? Yes, the techies will walk over to their parts bin and pull out a USB hub, keyboard, mouse, no problem. Don't have it pick up some via ebay or if your lucky a decent local source. Again the techies aside, no problem. Back to that other target area, schools and developing areas. They are not likely to have spares of this available, and/or resources, namely $$$$, to fund purchase. And those touting get them from ebay etc... Ok... how is that going to work in the middle of the Africa for an area which may or may not have any data access, no ebay account, and no paypal account, let alone where its going to be shipped. Oh... groups/companies will donate those for projects. Great. You've got 100% commitments for 100% fulfment on these projects? Otherwise sourcing the various components for power supply, keyboard, mouse, hub etc. are not cheap, and easily will outpace the cost of the $25/35 board itself. And counter to what their spokeswoman on their fora thinks, this is not a "straw man" arguement. This IS an issue, and you need to have a plan on how your going to provide the WHOLE SYSTEM to users, and its not going to be $25 or $35, more like $75-99 with power supply, SD card with OS, keyboard, mouse, hub, HDMI cable, and/or VGA converter..... I love all those touting these $3 HDMI cables on ebay, and $7 s/h, again thats fine for the techie crowd who needs to pick up a few items, its not so good for some school in the middle of the Africa!
Now. I think this a FANTASTIC IDEA.. And I am game for 10 of the $35 Model B's right now, ship them over. If I can get their version of Debian to work with my project then I've solved a huge problem. I am very interested in this project... but I have doubts about the ability of this project to be viable OUTSIDE THE TECH ARENA, ie: those using the Ardurinos and Beagleboards. I am clearly in the techie developer side of this. I've got a price point I need to meet and trying to use a $150+ beagleboard don't cut it..
Personally, its a great idea, but dump the schools and delvoping areas aspect of this, and focus on competing in the Ardurino/Beagleboard arena, where there are people willing to pay for this device. I easily would pay $50 for the model b, and $99 for a 512MB version with other features. Oh, and you need to get others to beat down on Canocial to get their ARM V6 support back (Thats what the BBC article used, Karmic last V6 compatible), IF you want to continue to float the schools and developing areas portion. Why? Like it or not (and I have huge issues with canoncial on things) they've done more to make Linux a viable option to many users and make stupidly easy to get software installed and going with a few clicks or a simple command line. You might push the compile method/mode for the tech school users, but the other side of this, DO NOT CARE ONE bit! They want to install software and get on with it. And Canoncial has done that, and the support for it is far more widespread than the base Debian. Sure some of the Ubuntu stuff will install back to Debian, but you've lost the PPA's etc. that make some of this so easy to install along with the driver support, codex support etc..
I think the various areas they want to support are pulling them in opposite directions and are causing them problems. They need to pick a side tech (Ardurino) or schools/developing areas. There is no middle ground on this.
Can you confirm that that device will have the optional FPU system?
http://www.arm.com/products/processors/technologies/vector-floating-point.php
http://www.arm.com/products/processors/classic/arm11/arm1176.php, under specifications under ISA support, FPU *OPTIONAL* this is a must have.
This is listed as OPTIONAL... media codex require the FPU to be used ie: LAME, ogg etc... for encoding...
I am not discussing what it may decode, ENCODING of audio for streaming in mp3, ogg, AAC, FLAC etc...
How about more involvement from the community?
Theres lots of buzz on this from the PR in May, lots of requests for users to get their hands on boards to test, how about invoving the community more in this project for testing of the alpha boards, etc.... I willing to purchase the board(s) at a 10-20% markup to support the project as well as to test out things and report problems, as well as be able to get my own needs met for possible use of the device in my own project.
Seems to be a lot of changes from the press release prototype in May
Size increase, Change from in OS from Ubunutu to Debian, removal of features listed, all to meet this $25 goal, while thats nice, how about a Model C or D which is closer to the original prototype, ie: size/form factor, with more memory 1GB, and switching or offering Ubuntu,
Debians great, but the DFSG is going to cause you problems with media programs ie: no support for MP3 unless your providing your own repos's with things recompiled to include LAME, MP3 support. Ubunutu will allow for simple apt-get or synaptic use to install a much richer selection of software with a lot more ease. Considering the crowd your aiming for using Ubunutu would be a better csae.
Synergy
>How many people actually reboot their Linux systems?
Desktop and servers hardly ever...
>I guess if you're on a laptop you might sometimes, but I just use >Sleep functionality
Laptop is powered off every time I am done with using it...I never use sleep, hibernate, its buggy and prone to lossing work if you don't save it every 1 uS... never had it work on Linux or any other OS *reliabably* meaning 100% operation 100% of the time, no OOOPPS! I've deceived I don't want to come back on and have to pull the battery to get the thing to even boot... and loose anything or totaly meltdown of file systems etc... pass no thanks....
Power on, do my thing, power off, pack up and move on...
"Have IT staff ever ridiculed you for asking questions about Linux?"
NOPE! Exactly the opposite... I ridicule for use of any NON LINUX OS and software! HEAVILY!
" didn't realize that Ubuntu was using Pulse by default - I thought that was more of a KDE thing. But it's not like it's hard to remove Pulse itself (just don't touch libpulseaudio) and revert to ALSA."
KDE does NOT use pulse except kubutunu variants,your confusing PHONON and pulse different things.
One is trash, pulse. Phonon is now the back end with several different supporting servers from XINE to VLC to operate the sound etc...
As for ALSA... unless they fixed it Canonicial REMOVED the OSS ALSA emulation in the kernels they packaged which will break things that depend on them or require a recompiled kernel on the box to run these.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/579300?comments=all
Mailing list?
Does this have the optional VFP core for floating point operations??
If you want to keep the list off the public posts send it to me at s l a s h d o t AT w p a s c a n n e r DOT c o m
Definition of a patent troll:
Has patent(s)
Sues anyone over the patents
Patents are evil, wrong, and must be eliminated.
Lets look at another sector of the Motorola phone division, iDEN..
i1 - V1.5 when 2.1 was just released
i886 - About to be released, and guess what... V1.5! AGAIN!
Oh.. an update to the i1, fixes some bugs.. but STILL 1.5!
The reason... motorola is too lazy to update 2.2, 2.3 to work with the iDEN baseband.. so they just keep releasing devices with this.
The outcry from the iDEN crowd about this was not pleasant and then the efuse crap hit the Droids and the bad 'tude at M started to really kick in!
So the OS that SAVED THE PHONE DIVISION is going to RUN OFF CUSTOMERS ! ?! ?!?!?!? Is that really a good marketing strategy?
WE don't want you to purchase our phones! Go away! ! !
I was looking at a Droid Pro.. but the "go away" 'tude..
OK I will! And did... I got an LG! And saved $150!
Bad move motorola... kiss the phone division goodbye!
"Why is this the case? Why isn't it easy to go into an electronics store and buy an unlocked phone at retail, and then take it to your T-Mobile store to get a SIM-only "Even More Plus" plan?"
Becuase the in the US the cell phone purchase model is NOT even remotely close to that of the process in the UK, EU, Asia, Polynisa, AU/NZ.
In the US you have:
Post Paid
Pre-Paid
SIMS only exist for GSM, UMTS, and iDEN
iDEN is specific to one, nextell, while its a SIM in the GSM sense you can't switch it between GSM and iDEN... you can from iDEN to iDEN handset and if its a Nextel SIM from Nextel to Boost, but the reverese requires the subsidy lock.
In the US if you don't qualify for Post Paid account either deposit free or choose not to pay the VERY HIGH DEPOSITS of VZW and ATT then you have to use pre paid
How you will proceed now depends on what type of phone and YOUR WILLINGNESS to PAY for the PHONE.
The carriers in the US make it VERY DIFFICULT to IMPOSSIBLE to move from carrier to carrier pre or post paid and reuse phones from carrier to carrier. From $350 ETF's to incompatible technology, to policy(s) which refuse to service any device not in the "OFFICIAL MEID/ESN Database."
Most users in the US purchase a VERY HEAVILY subsidized phone a DROID Pro is $700 retail, a 2 year contract and you probably walk out the door with it for $200. Throw in some promotions and possiby some credits for upgrades and your down to $100-150, and recently BOGO. Same goes for every phone out there. Unless you paid 100% retail, then you got a subsidy and are subject to a $175 to $350 ETF to get out.
Its a different world in the US cell market as compared to 99% of the rest of the world.
Google tried to initially buck this method and got the cold shoulder and stiff arm, go away.... Even with the future of everyone sans Clear/Sprexhoostgin on LTE, this is not likely to improve or change in the slightest in the US. The only way this changes is if the government puts regulation in place to curb the carriers actions, which probably would not end them all, would end up in court as restraint of trade etc...
I would love to see changes in this area, its very unlikely to happen in the US.
"Do you guys in the US not have a massive prepay market?"
No.
"prepay sims"
SIMS are only used by ATT, TMobile and for iDEN on Nextel/Boost iDEN
The PREDOMINANT carrier(s) in the US are CDMA, and not GSM or UMTS: Verizon Wireless is CDMA and does NOT use SIMS or RUIM (equivalent to SIM in CDMA) in 90% of its phones. Only "world edition" phones have a SIM. Matter of fact the TOP carriers in the US, nationwide (VZW) or regional (US Cellular, MetroPCS, Cricket) are ALL CDMA.. The two GSM and UMTS carriers rate at the bottom of the scale as last or second to last.
And even with att and tmetro moving from to the other is not even remotely close to the experience in the UK, EU, and other regions. Carriers in the US make it as difficult as possible. This is true even on CDMA.. Sprint REFUSES to put CDMA phone on their system that was not originally on their system to start. So if you want a sprint CDMA phone from the used market you have to purchase one that was specifically on sprint.
The model for cell phones in the US is VASTLY different than the rest of the world.
To write good code is a worthy challenge, and a source of civilized delight. -- stolen and paraphrased from William Safire
