The chassis of my PBP is great (brittle plastic notwithstanding)! That's the last thing I want to replace in the device.
We have needed a "Jeep of Laptops" for a while, maybe someone needs to spec out a fully open source design that any manufacturer can target.
I'm not sure if this counts in your book, but releasing all this stuff is closer than anyone else is to that dream.
That is the MNT Reform.
I could transplant the desktop model I got into my original framework, but I haven’t attempted it.
https://store.deepcomputing.io/products/dc-roma-ai-pc-risc-v...
Framework: "Let us show you how it is done!"
I wish someone made a keyboard that doesn’t suck, ideally split as well.
I don't know how to link to it directly, but midway down this article there's a picture and some more links of an MNT Reform (apparently completely home-built) with a very cool, "thumb-centric", column staggered ergo keyboard:
https://mntre.com/media/reform_md/2022-07-01-july-update.htm...
(search for "More great mods from the community..." heading if interested)
I would very much like to have a keyboard like either of those on my laptop. The stares you'd get when in public!!
A big part of the core functionality of a laptop, as opposed to a PC, is is that of a typewriter:
* Notes in class
* Minutes in a meeting
* Entries in a journal or travelogue
* Writing the next great novel
etc.
Why have manufacturers simply taken that away from us, in favor of a terrible excuse with ridiculous tactile feedback?
⇒ their market likely isn’t enormous, but it is larger than that of Framework Laptop owners.
But as much as I love the RK3588 it's very much in the "low perf utility SBC" world than "good performing general PC". I use my two boards for NAS, Plex, Forgejo CI builders, etc.
I do recall that Jeff Geerling I think had some followup with that board that perhaps there could be firmware changes that improve the power efficiency later maybe?
It is very usable for email, editing documents, code review, etc - but it will struggle if you're trying to multitask heavily.
This CIX SoC is a fair bit faster than the RK3588 though I believe.
This SoC may actually have Linux drivers.
Anyway, I've been using it on my Macbook Air M2 and it works fine for my use case [3]. Pretty smooth.
[1] https://rosenzweig.io/blog/aaa-gaming-on-m1.html
[3] https://daniel.lawrence.lu/blog/2024-12-01-asahi-linux-with-...
Can't seem to get DP Alt Mode to work on my used 2021 M1 Pro though, even though it's listed as supported with an asterisk, maybe someone here has managed it?
(Also, if you're buying used and wiping MacOS are you truly giving Apple a dime? I guess it's a matter of perspective.)
What's wrong with Asahi?
Ooof. I feel like power efficiency would be the main reason I'd take the plunge and switch from x86_64 to arm64, given that there would be difficulties and trade offs software-wise to do so.
My 13th-gen Intel board in my Framework 13 sits at around 11W semi-idle (Firefox constantly burning 35% of one core for reasons that are my fault). And this is with Linux, where power management isn't always the best.
Regardless, I'm happy to see something like this. It might not be something I want today, but it's a step in the right direction.
> makes your laptop slower
Hmm...
Cheap Windows Arm laptops are flooding the market, if someone can pick ONE laptop to support they could easily buy them on sale , refurbished them with Linux and make a profit.
Looks likes their are some challenges with doing this.
Now we just need to be as good as (or better than) Apple's Rosetta.
[1] https://www.xda-developers.com/arm-translation-layer-steam-f...
I was also slowly loosing hope, although I do still run some NixOS ARM Raspberry PIs. But with the recent Valve backing, I'm back on the train again, and eagerly awaiting the slow but steady improvements, and figuring out where I can contribute back.
Can we please move on to microkernels already? I'm fine with a tiny performance hit, I just don't want to get rooted because I plugged in the wrong USB stick.
On the other hand, if you're not running Wine, you can't get autorun virii from USB drives, plus the Windows virii just lives there and can't do anything.
To do that on a MacBook I'm spending a minimum of 3200$.
If you have unlimited money ( or can expense it) a 3200$ to 4k MacBook is going to be the best experience money can buy.
If you have limited funds, a 200$ used computer can get the job done with the right distro.
How about UEFI vs arm-specific bootloaders?
I tried arm32 Linux a few years back, and the largest hindrance at the time was the device trees and non-UEFI boot process. Given up on exploring the platform further (except maybe for SBC like raspberry pi) until that situation improves.
The upstream story due to this is kind of a mixed bag, though. I think they also still use out-of-tree NPU drivers, etc. Device trees and other updates are still flowing upstream. I think the next Mesa release will support the Immortalis GPU series though, so that'll hopefully polish off a big remaining problem with ordinary distros.
That’s a strange revision of fairly recent history. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Apple’s the one that proved out laptop ARM at scale.
i posted the article instead because it has some details that aren't on the listing.
Also worth looking at battery life compared to performance...
Also, it's not what you're asking, but self-hosted runners are a security nightmare if you don't have the hardware to completely isolate them from your local network.
[1] https://github.com/actions/partner-runner-images/blob/main/i...
Save you a click or two. Looking at this I have so many questions. Am I buying a mainboard? It is not clear. It lists ports: it only supports 2 ports? You have four options with 16/32gigs and 1tb of storage? Is the storage soldiered? If so, what is the storage? emmc? Soldiered memory seems to be a given in the ARM ecosystem, but the storage is completely unacceptable on a framework mainboard.
The only difference between the pro and the regular is that the second port is a usb-c over an hdmi? I am assuming this is the mainboard even supporting framework extension cards.
No listed Linux compatibility support. Forget if the NPU even works in Linux; I do not even know if this will boot Linux because the company did not bother to submit devicetree patches to the kernel for their SOC. No listed Windows support even.
This company's copy is absolutely terrible.
The high idle power on the Framework ARM upgrade board shouldn’t be blamed solely on MetaComputing or CIX. Poor idle power efficiency is a long-standing issue on Linux laptops, especially with new platforms, so this looks more like an ecosystem-level power-management problem than a single-vendor failure.
What stands out to me is that Chinese companies are actually shipping hardware and pushing into every possible market segment. Their decentralized, diversified corporate ecosystem seems to enable fast experimentation and broad market penetration.
Impressing. Athlon speed. And boost, and only 2 of them. Trully impressing.
> This chipset is likely slower than the Snapdragon X Elite or a current flagship smartphone chip, but it should still provide enough performance for many everyday tasks.
This read out like: 640k should be enough for anybody.
as alwas: imho. (!)
is it possible to install for example a current "vanilla" debian arm64 on this mainboard!?
what i mean by that:
write the "official" debian arm64 installation image to a thumbdrive, press some key & boot into the installation!?
and run the resulting system with the distributions "offical" kernel from the debian arm64-architecture!?
w/o jumping thru a few "hoops" like a lion in a circus ... ;)
i know ... the "openness" of the descendants of ibm pc at compatible machines was some kind of a "historical" error by ibm, but i got used to it!!
i like to "own" hardware i bought with my hard-earned money. i heavily prefer hardware, which is easily bootable from "inoffical" boot-medias - read: FOSS ... eg. linux/*BSD/...
and i'm not interested in "clamped down" hardware a la "most" available ARM boards - regardless of notebooks/tablets/phones ...
just my 0.02€
I use business software everyday that doesn’t support ARM, because of it’s licensing system doesn’t work on ARM processors.
Instead of fixing it, the company just sells cloud hosted windows licenses for $100 per user.
https://kickingandstreaming.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/x2...
There's no guarantee any company lasts forever. What's the point in not using something now because it might be gone in the future?
But that's just the worst case.
EDIT: Sorry, not SnapdragonX - apparently I can't read.
Also, who is "MetaComputing" and can I trust them with my money? Something about the big "Web 3 Integrated Devices" branding on their landing page makes me less than enthusiastic. Otherwise I'd be hovering over 'buy'
