[fedora-arm] 1ghz ARM Laptop (12in 1280x800 LCD)

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 4:02 PM, Gordan Bobic <gordan at bobich.net> wrote:
> Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
>
>>> Unfortunately, I'm not a hardware hacker. But, as a consumer, I'd say
>>> that a "1gb NAND Flash" is quite a bit below the level. I also wouldn't care
>>> much about a 1280x720 screen if the hardware wouldn't be capable of playing
>>> the video flawlessly. Or, if there was an HDMI port to connect to TV, which
>>> is, in my taste, better suited for watching.
>>
>>  yep - all the designs i've worked on, and all the CPUs found (so far)
>> were selected precisely because of the HDMI output capability.  i'd
>> kinda ruled out the spea1310 because you need an extra IC converting
>> LCD to DVI/HDMI or even *shudder* a PCI-e graphics IC (volari Z11 god
>> help us is about the only free-software-compatible option)
>
> I was just thinking about that, actually. If you're making a custom mobo,
> then as long as you can find an ARM SoC tht has PCI-e, you could just apply
> an MXM module and plug in an ATI or Nvidia GPU for which we already have
> passably working OSS drivers.
>
> Of course, this defeats the purpose of the exercise - who in their right
> mind would use a 2W CPU with a 30W+ GPU in a laptop?

 *ROTFL*.  yyep.  the volari z11 is what ended up in the openrd
ultimate, for pretty much these reasons.  yes, i've been looking
around for an IC that does 3D graphics at lower power.  there are a
couple from broadcomm but broadcomm are a f*****g nightmare to work
with.  their attitude can be summarised as "your product will fail,
therefore we are not interested".

 it's very interesting that it's been the U.S. companies whose
attitude has been "your product will fail, therefore we do not wish to
be involved".  i find this fascinating.

>>  gordon is right about the SD/MMC card thing, but the "level 10" ones
>> can at least guarantee above 10mbytes/sec *read* capability.   so
>> _yes_ to the SATA interface.
>
> The 10MB/s is _supposed_ to be for worst-case sequential writes. There is,
> however, no defined benchmark, and manufacturers are free to do their own
> testing. Most fail any sane real-world measurements of the specification.

 oops.

> I'm glad we agree on anything other than SATA being unworkable. :)

 weell, i'm covering all the angles.  genesyslogic's ICs are about $1
- $1.50 even in small volumes so it's not as if it'll break the bank
by putting one on the motherboard, in the case where the CPU itself
doesn't have SATA.