Re: Gpd win
 

That's true enough, but in closed-source land it's a given, basically (unless you fancy reverse engineering or writing from scratch).

At least on Linux there's a *reasonable expectation* that if there are developers willing to keep a device alive, it'll happen - if the manufacturers will meet them half way, at any rate.

edit - also worth pointing out that Windows support cycles (meaning both security updates and availability of modern software) are generally longer, although Linux support cycles do seem to be lengthening too.

Re: Gpd win
 

Don't know if it's been posted, but the GPD Win has also been updated.

https://liliputing.com/2017/02/gpd-w...aster-cpu.html

Re: Gpd win
 

Update from indiegogo page:

Re: Gpd win
 

Almost $700k raised and still 2 months of campaign left. I think they will reach $3m or even more, which hopefully will make other manufacturers interested in entering the (or returning to) UMPC market.

And some bad news: Linux drivers will be binary only - no source code. But they still may change their mind.

Re: Gpd win
 

I guess that is not entirely their call - chipmakers likely decide that in relation to how much "muscle" the manufacturer bring to the table.

Re: Gpd win
 

Not even always the chipmaker's decision, either... God only knows how many people's IP is sublicensed and tied up in a little piece of silicon.

Still, Ubuntu 16.04 has what, five years of support? As I understand it the Win *more or less* works at this stage, so I'm fairly hopeful they'll have got there before it's a disaster.

Re: Gpd win
 

And the manufacturers muscle might just be bringing a niche market to the table, such as a portable linux device where (almost) none currently exists.

It's a modest hike in sales at best, but the investment required by the chipmaker is small (documentation, or writing drivers), and the initial competition for that market is also small.

If we have a commercially successful device, it might just be enough to get other suppliers interested. e.g. Chuwi has some nice looking, decently spec'd tablets/laptops which dual boot Android/Win10, and a lot of interest in hacking them to run Linux on the web. Can't help thinking it wouldn't take much effort by Chuwi to put together a distro that can use all the hardware and kick their sales up a bit more?

Re: Gpd win
 

I have never heard of Chuwi before today. Thanks for the head's up.

Funny how there's innovation and perhaps close approximations to what we collectively might want in a device but not from the major manufacturers.

Re: Gpd win
 

Now that's weird. There is pretty limited space for binary userspace blobs on Intel, since support for the most of vital hardware should be implemented in kernel, and graphics driver is open-source i915 already. So either the one who responds the campaign questions wasn't well informed, or (the worst case) they are going to break GPL by not releasing kernel source code.

More information is needed, I think.

Re: Gpd win
 

Latest update

:)