Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
 

Nope. So you should never start building something?
Most of those things can be done buy many people. But very few companies are willing to sell you a good cpu if you don't buy large enough.

And how much longer is the wait for the Vivaldi?

Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
 

Well, if you're talking about CPU, then clearly you've already developed your own board layout and specification, so on that basis, most of my initial questions are already answered, including who will provision hardware drivers and adaptation?

I'm not trying to rain on your parade, but a little bit of pragamtic realism is required when talking about building a device from scratch, based on someone else's UX.

Blowing off my comments by suggesting "Most of those things can be done buy many people" fails to identify just who, and how much work is involved and thus takes us back to square one.

As for how long the wait is for Vivaldi, I don't know, but I can say it'll be here a lot sooner that any device being talked about on this thread, and it'll have (has) proper hardware drivers.

Of course if you don't want to wait, you could try the pengpod.

Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
 

On desktop pc's and to a lesser extent it is possible to buy all the parts, body,cpu, motherboard etc end then build your own device and then put on OS on it of your own choosing (within certain limits).

Is something like that not possible for mobile devices?
And what if you base it on a x86 cpu instead of a ARM?

I am not saying it is easy or even possible. Just want to know. Maybe use soemthing like a Raspberry pi type device?

Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
 

No,

1. you have to have BIG volumes to get the chips.
2. No ARM embedded GFX driver is open, many only is Android GFX drivers.

The closest ARM CPU you get today to play with is beaglebone black:

http://beagleboard.org/Products/BeagleBone Black

Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
 

1. Buy nexus 7

2. Compile hildon-desktop for ubuntu-nexus7 (real one, not touch) or mer.

3. recompile the apps from extras you want for ubuntu or mer

4. Profit.

Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
 

tablets and mobile devices are designed for portability and, not too different to most net/ultra books being shipped today, this means minimising space by soldering essential components onto themain board (CPU/GPU,Ram, flash Storage etc.)

This makes it virtually impossible to buy individual components without economy of scale via a proven manufacturing capability.
Large CPU manufacturers that use Arm technology, for example, place very stringent demands on manufacturers to reveal technical and design information about the sort of products they will be putting their hardware into (to ensure quality and performance and brand consistency).

This is part of the reason why so few "quality" open source tablet type devices have been made/sold without being to a "preordained/determined" spec as set by the manufacturer.

If you've followed the scene, you will find that most people who want to design/develop an open source device, start out with a high spec concept and then end up with whatever low-mid spec system they were able to actually get their software working on.

I genuinely believe that building on an existing base is the best way to go. the Iconia w500 can run Mer and thus technically there is no issue with running Hildon UI on top of it (or any UI for that matter. With Vivaldi so close to market, why go through all the heartache (and delays) that they have, just to create a parallel piece of hardware, when others have done it for you?

Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
 

So would it be possible with a x86 based chip?
Something like the Mbook http://www.umpcportal.com/wp-content.../umidhands.jpg
or Viliv N5? http://www.dynamism.com/images/gallery/viliv-n5_02.jpg

Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
 

Haven't really read the whole thread (sorry 'bout that, but I've been forum whoring all day! I swear this is the last one...), but I thought I'd throw in against all the naysayers. Look at the Amiga community. There are seriously people in that community that make all kinds of random hardware bits. Several make Playstation 1/2 controller adapters that plug into the Amiga. There is a single guy who runs Individual Computers that makes everything from CPU 'accelerator' boards to 'flicker fixers' (anyone who knows anything about the Amiga and even some older computers knows that they use old display technology that isn't exactly friendly with most modern screens).

And yes, there are even the makers of the Minimig, which is an FPGA based Amiga 500. So they would be a good group to look at when seeing what some people can accomplish as far as providing hardware or contacts of people to get a hold of for manufacturing actual product.

In fact, a couple of guys have recreated the PCB for the Amiga 1000 and have a parts list so you can build a replacement motherboard!

If there were indeed a kickstarter, money talks as the saying goes.

My only thing at this point really is; Why Maemo? To me the most awesome thing about it was that it was Debian based, and worked well on a small touch screen. What we need is Hildon ported to GTK3, and... oh wait, that's practically Gnome-Shell! It was inspired by Maemo after all. Let's just get a tablet device that runs Gnome-Shell, improve the few things it's lacking (get a proper gtk port of Maliit) and whip up a Debian Wheezy based setup. Though I think we'd want the base, but Gnome 3.8 (there are a lot of improvements since 3.4, which is what Wheezy has).

Then just polish up Debian (really easy to do) get GTK3 to be more touch friendly (multitouch, etc) and we'd be set. Then we'd have a real competitor to Ubuntu, which I hate :D

slaapliedje

Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
 

Couldn't agree with you more!

Re: Furture maemo UMPC via kickstarer funding
 

these look awesome!
Shame they are 3+ years old