[Discuss] EOMA68 Computer

[smallm at sdf.org (Mike Small)]

IngeGNUe <ingegnue at riseup.net> writes:

> This computer right here:
>
> https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop
>
> Eco-friendly, upgradeable, portable, secure, affordable, no NDAs, no
> proprietary anything (except for MALI, if you insist on it), fully
> documented hardware. Can be used as phone (maybe phablet), tablet,
> laptop, desktop, "low-power co-located servers", anything you can fit it
> into.
>
> This is one of those projects which will change the way we do computing
> on GNU/Linux. Please read and if you like it, I hope you will support it!!!

Hmmm, I wonder if it would turn out to be as eco-friendly as intended in
practice. The people who want to reduce their footprint I think should
keep whatever they have now running and not buy anything new. Plus when
you need a computer their tonnes of old crap to grab cheap before it
hits landfill. I could see something like this letting me trick myself
into buying before my current machines are fully consumed or buying new
when I should look to used.

It would be nice if it influenced the industry to move to machines where
you can upgrade just the thing that's lacking maybe. Or would it? I find
my old laptops remain perfectly adequate and I haven't looked into
upgrade options: their upgradability certainly is not a feature anyone
has advertised to me. Having cheap upgrade options and having those
options publicized might also make me more tempted to consume more not
less. Of course, if it's really more fixable when one component fails
that's plainly good.

My own experience with hardware was to be an upgrade junky in the
90s. With some headaches you could get a new motherboard, change the
video card add SIMMs or DIMMs, upgrade the modem, etc. I'd end up
getting all this stuff I didn't really need cause you could do it
somewhat incrementally. Then I splurged and bought a powermac. Partly I
paid so damn much (at one time) for the foolish thing I didn't want to
buy new hardware for years. But also it lacked upgradability (or that
was my perception maybe combined with an irrational feeling that it was
a unit with a single identity less so than an aggregate of parts)
compared to the PC clones I'd previously dealt with. That helped me kick
the habit. And as mentioned above the limited upgradability I have now
with old laptops instead of desktops helps. Odd, somehow this old crap
just keeps running and running. Do computers still break? ;)

My cynical side fears this is a little like Macintosh or automobile
marketing, as in it's a computer whose first purpose, the purpose
sparking the sale, is to satisfy the soul who wants to express who he or
she is via purchases or in effect it working out that way despite the
good intentions of the founders. Hmmm, if that gets more people to use
GNU+Linux, okay, but maybe the way it works out in the market would not
end up being a net plus on the environmental or conflict mineral side.

-- 
Mike Small
smallm at sdf.org