Olimexino x86

[gabrago]

Hello to all.
Do you know minnowboard ? It is an x86 dev board with Linux support.
Maybe Olimex also may build a dev board with E3825 ?
And do not forget battery charge capability as A20Lime, for example.
Thanks and best regards!

[jlucius]

Hello to all.
Do you know minnowboard ? It is an x86 dev board with Linux support.
Maybe Olimex also may build a dev board with E3825 ?
And do not forget battery charge capability as A20Lime, for example.
Thanks and best regards!

I think the E3825 is quite expensive but there is the new Bay Trail Platform from Intel which is quite affordable with the Z3735F for example.

[gabrago]

Unfortunately it's unclear whether any Bay Trail-T platforms are currently fully supported to install Linux.
After reading here http://news.softpedia.com/news/Petition-Started-for-Intel-Atom-Bay-Trail-Tablets-64-bit-and-Linux-Support-458872.shtml maybe will be convenient to wait some more time.

[jlucius]

Unfortunately it's unclear whether any Bay Trail-T platforms are currently fully supported to install Linux.
After reading here http://news.softpedia.com/news/Petition-Started-for-Intel-Atom-Bay-Trail-Tablets-64-bit-and-Linux-Support-458872.shtml maybe will be convenient to wait some more time.

I´ve read the article and isn´t the problem here that e.g. Lenovo sells Bay Trail tablets with 32Bit UEFI where you can´t install a 64 bit Linux? Should Olimex not be able to ship 64 bit UEFI firmware? And there is also a Bay Trail Android kit so this should run as well. So you would have the choice between Android, Linux or Windows to run.

[JohnS]

Tesco HUDL2 may help.

John

[qq]

CompuLab recently announced the type of computer, that I would wish to see in an OSHW version: http://www.fit-pc.com/web/products/fitlet/. In such a version, I would also hope to see a socketed boot flash chip and coreboot as boot loader. I wonder, is Olimex only looking at ARM or might we see some modern x86 hardware from here some day? After all, that AMD APU in the fitlet even contains an ARM Cortex-A5 core for TrustZone execution beside its four x86 cores, according to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_accelerated_processing_unit_microprocessors#.22Beema.22.2C_.22Mullins.22_.282014.2C_28_nm.29

P.S.: The basic model has been announced for 129 USD, including five (!) years of warranty. So, I guess there's room to make a cheaper product, for instance, without a case or reduced warranty or lesser margin than CompuLab's (in the past, they had pretty high-taxed products, so I wonder how they managed to get something out that doesn't look overprized the first instant you see it this time; maybe component prices have really reached an incredibly attractive low level by now).

[JohnS]

Where is the $129 please?

Their site is awful in case you know how to tell them that.

John

[qq]

Where is the $129 please?

Their site is awful in case you know how to tell them that.

It is mentioned on the product page for the fitlet-B model (see last sentence): http://www.fit-pc.com/web/products/fitlet/fitlet-b/

About their "site being awful", if you could specify the semantics of that a bit more clearly, I guess you could tell them via the user forum (http://www.fit-pc2.com/forum) or try to find some contact info on their main web site (http://www.compulab.co.il/). For the user forum, if I remember correctly, I think you need to know that "IPC2" is their latest Intense PC model to solve the anti-bot captcha.

Regarding the 129 USD price, note that this is for the fitlet-B only, which is only dual-core and with no extras. The i- and X-models are more featureful and with quad-cores (see the Wikipedia link in my earlier post). Looking at their past product prices, I would not expect the better models to be as cheap. Still, the form factor is great (it literally fits in your hand and at 10.8cm x 8.3cm x 2.4cm, it is smaller than my home internet router).

However, they can't make them too expensive either. I expect the X-model still to be cheaper than, for instance, Jetway's JBC373F38-525-B, which costs 208 EUR here (I expect that CompuLab's 129 USD model would still cost close to or slightly more than 129 EUR here) for the 4-port GbE configuration (the 8-port GbE configuration costs 328 EUR though, mind you) despite the hardware being rather outdated. In the past, Jetway's barebones (http://www.jetwaycomputer.com/Barebones.html) used to be much cheaper than CompuLab's for comparable configurations, but Jetway doesn't give you a 5-year warranty.

Fortunately, other manufacturers have started to offer compact, fanless barebones recently, which will hopefully lead to good prices due to competition. For instance, the DS437 from Shuttle (http://www.shuttle.eu/products/slim/ds437/overview/), has a good number of ports, allows 16 GB of RAM and its CPU supports VT-x with EPT and was offered here for a little less than 200 EUR when it was released about a year ago. These kind of machines, I'd really like to see as OSHW. I wonder, how long we still have to wait for the first one to make a corresponding offer.

[JohnS]

Thanks.

I followed the Buy links and never found $129.  Swamped with far bigger amounts, but none at $129.

I'll probably stick to ARM h/w.

John

[qq]

I followed the Buy links and never found $129.  Swamped with far bigger amounts, but none at $129.

They're usually pretty expensive. Alas, no exception with the quad-core A4 Micro-6400T models fitlet-i and fitlet-X, whose prices have meanwhile shown up in the shop ($246 and $262 respectively; add another $68 for A10 Micro-6700T models).

I'll probably stick to ARM h/w.

Olimex should really have a look at AMD's "Project Skybridge", as it would allow a single board design to use either x86- or ARM-based SoCs (pin-compatible). Corresponding SoCs are expected this year. Maybe I should create a new topic for it.