Would you buy a Integrated Open Source Computer/Hardware?

kernel_script · August 29, 2010, 3:24am

What such thing is good for? Why should I bother?

Imagine a computer that is created specifically to the Operating System, and vice-versa. It would work as one, no imcompatibility issues, performance maxed out. And no, Apple doesn’t do that, they assemble their machines from diferent companies products and technologies, like Intel for the processor, NVIDIA or ATI for videocard, or Foxconn to create the physical case and integration of the components, they don’t have their own Hardware factory and Hardware R&D facility, these jobs are made by third-party companies, which is cool, it’s not a judgment, just a statement. Apple minimize the hardware imcompatibility issues to a minimum, optimizing their Operating System to work flawless with the integrated Hardware build they did, and on top of that, create a great design for the final product. If it is a good idea, and works nicely, imagine machines that is designed, created (manufactored) and assembled specificaly for the one Operating System and that one Operating System is created and assembled specifically for the machine in question, the end result would be fantastic. (Linux kernel would be the best base technology for the OS here, because of it’s high end technology and flexibility, and of course, because of the easy of customizing, and, it been Libre and Open Source).

Been Open Source, means the fail/bug rate would be minimized, since community would spot it, report it, and a design fix would come out very fast, just like it happens with Libre and Open Source Software.

Fast evolution, as in the Libre and Open Source Software principle, with the tight collaboration betwenn companies and the communities involved, changes and improvments suggestions happens all the time, and the best are implemented, everything in a dynamic way.

By been Open Source, means it respects your freedom, and can be adaptable to you or your company, you cam customize it to your needs very easily, since Open Source exist throuth tight collaboration and produces a lot of knowhow and documentation for the methods of dealing with it.

Imagine some series of videocards for these machines, now imagine that one of these series is dedicated exclusively to Blender, imagine how good the performance of such integration would be.

A dedicated PPU.

With so many Open Source aspects, aside from the R&D involved (which sure would be expensive), the final product could be acessible to the majority of people. A fair price for high end technology.

Think about it, then please, vote.

And please, feel free to share your thoughts about it if you want.

DenverD · August 29, 2010, 10:54am

i see you posted the same question to the Debian, Fedora, blenderartists.org and maybe other forums, which causes me to wonder if are you doing market research for a company, a school dissertation or what?

Siminin · August 29, 2010, 1:09pm

So that company would produce it’s own hardware- CPU, graphics etc. They have to be preforming close to AMD/Intel CPU or ATI/Nvidia cards which won’t be easy.
And you are speaking of something that was the 80’s way of computing. A company that’s making a computer and it’s own OS and if you are not satisfied by the CPU performance you can’t just buy a new CPU you have to buy a new PC. I prefer to buy the parts for a PC and build it myself. So i would say " No. I’m just not interested."

martin_helm · August 29, 2010, 2:44pm

Siminin wrote:

>
> So that company would produce it’s own hardware- CPU, graphics etc. They
> have to be preforming close to AMD/Intel CPU or ATI/Nvidia cards which
> won’t be easy.
>
Sounds a little bit like resurrecting something like the “lisp machines”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_machine).
A fancy idea which died after some years.
I prefer choice not only when it comes to software but also when it comes to
hardware and especially for the combination of both.
So my answer is also: Not interested. (Voted just now)
Would be more interested in “Open Hardware”

kernel_script · August 29, 2010, 5:32pm

Market Research. I’m a Business student, and also a FLOSS user for many years, which led me to like the Open Source Business Model very much and study to work with that model.

kernel_script · August 29, 2010, 5:37pm

How you define Open Hardware? My idea is a Open Hardware, but in a way it can be built to work flawless with Linux kernel, integrated.

kernel_script · August 29, 2010, 5:41pm

That’s why I included the “Yes, but only if it have modular internal parts in a Plug’n’Play fashion.” option, so it would be easy to replace any part, or upgrade. But it would have to be created from the same company or a partner company so the hardware design guidelines could match the intergration in question.

martin_helm · August 29, 2010, 6:35pm

kernel script wrote:

>
> How you define Open Hardware? My idea is a Open Hardware, but in a way
> it can be built to work flawless with Linux kernel, integrated.
>
There is no precise definition for it and I used quotation marks. A very
first step into this direction is that hardware vendors make available their
specifications for open source programmers such that it is possible to
achieve the same level of reliability and performance with FOSS drivers as
the vendor can achieve with the proprietary driver.
I think not only about the graphics card vendors but also network adapters,
wlan and whatever else often leads to a situation to use proprietary drivers
and their clashes with kernel versions, xorg versions and so on.
The fact that you may have hardware which is at some time marked as
deprecated and you can only use it with limited capabilities (example
radeon) or no longer at all.
Since that is nothing a community can do (to make available the information
beyond what is available by reverse engineering and the pieces of
information already provided by the vendors).
The second thing is besides the fact that I am a long years linux user, I am
not really interested in a hw platform which is tailored for optimal linux
use (what about BSD flavours, what about minix3, what about the probably
some day developing alternative free operating systems, which we do not even
know about now)?

What I do not mean (therefore the quotation marks) is the completely open
hardware where not only the specs and interfaces but also the complete
design is open and available so that -provided you have the machines for
that - you can produce the cpu, card, mainboard … on your own. This is
more a dream if you take into account that the development of hardware can
cost some millions to billions of dollars and it is unlikely that the
vendors will give that knowledge and the blueprints and the right to use
them away for free to everyone.

In principle everyone with some background knowledge (this means someone
with more knowledge than me) can assemble a special computer in a do it
yourself way by only buying components which are known to work well with
open source drivers.

There was some attempt to build something like such an assembly by some FOSS
organization from existing components, but I do not find who or where it
was.

martin_helm · August 29, 2010, 7:22pm

It was this one http://open-pc.com/ not one of the FOSS orgs.

kernel_script · September 2, 2010, 6:42pm

I’m satisfied with the research results. Thanks to everybody that voted and commented. Thank you very much for taking the time to help with my research.

alexdbars · October 20, 2010, 9:41pm

Certainly I Will whatever its ask!!