3 ms·

Insulting how ? First metrics you mentioned are measurable, 2nd base on philosophy. I can try to convince a rock to split itself with any attitude I believe in

by tdkl 10y ago

Insulting how ? First metrics you mentioned are measurable, 2nd base on philosophy. I can try to convince a rock to split itself with any attitude I believe in, but I'll still be more effective with a hammer.

pasta 10y ago
I am not sure you understand. Opensourse is the philosophy so that's the main metric for a open sourse laptop.
JorgeGT 10y ago
Being open source is quite measurable: * Is the OS, OS? [Y/n] * Is all software OS? [Y/n] * Is all firmware OS? [Y/n] * Is all hardware OS? [Y/n] You can easily count a percentage of open source in your laptop. If your goal is for instance avoid backdoors/surveillance, I would say this is a "very good" laptop, while a COTS laptop would be "bad". As the parent says, good or bad depends on the metric.
chriswarbo 10y ago
"if you want a bad laptop" is insulting for two reasons: - Nobody "wants" a bad laptop, since that contradicts the definition of badness. A more accurate, less insulting phrasing would be "if you can put up with a bad laptop", i.e. there's an associated cost which you may or may not consider worth it. - The laptop's clearly not "bad" in some objective sense, since nobody would have put in the effort if it were. It's probably subjectively bad to many people, in which case it's clearly not meant for them, but that's a property of the person (or person/laptop relation) rather than of the laptop.
- naranana 10y ago
  >The laptop's clearly not "bad" in some objective sense 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display, an Allwinner A64 ARM Cortex-A53 quad-core processor with Mali-400MP2 graphics, 1GB of RAM, 4GB of eMMC storage Everything about that is objectively bad. Those are the regular specs any piece of consumer hardware would have over ten years ago. I'm sure an ancient Pentium 4 would simply crush that processor. >It's probably subjectively bad to many people, in which case it's clearly not meant for them What kind of a public would this laptop have? With those specs you can barely run a web browser.
  - tormeh 10y ago
    Stallman?
  - kmichaels 10y ago
    So fundamentally what the author is saying is that this laptop is bad is a way that it was never meant to be good. And that's what makes the title click bait because the author is clearly aware of this. Clearly it was never meant to be as good as a MacBook Pro. It was meant to be good as an open source laptop (which it is, as one of the few open laptop designs that exists).
    - Dylan16807 10y ago
      It's not clickbait to say "bad" to mean "bad in all other ways".
  - chriswarbo 10y ago
    > 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display, an Allwinner A64 ARM Cortex-A53 quad-core processor with Mali-400MP2 graphics, 1GB of RAM, 4GB of eMMC storage Nothing about that affects what I said. > What kind of a public would this laptop have? Before getting my current libreboot X60, my workhorse was an OLPC XO-1: 7.5" screen @ 1200x900, 433MHz AMD Geode CPU with integrated graphics, 256MB RAM and 1GB onboard storage. That sounds like a similar sort of spec, and it served me very well for many years; the battery life and sunlight-readable screen were especially nice, as I could use it while sat in the local park. > With those specs you can barely run a web browser. Web browsers have been around for decades; I'm sure it's fine for accessing information (the original intent of the Web). Maybe it can't run the latest bloatware, or support spying/ad platforms like Facebook, but I'd count that as a feature ;)

by tdkl 10y ago

pasta 10y ago

I am not sure you understand. Opensourse is the philosophy so that's the main metric for a open sourse laptop.

JorgeGT 10y ago

Being open source is quite measurable: * Is the OS, OS? [Y/n] * Is all software OS? [Y/n] * Is all firmware OS? [Y/n] * Is all hardware OS? [Y/n] You can easily count a percentage of open source in your laptop. If your goal is for instance avoid backdoors/surveillance, I would say this is a "very good" laptop, while a COTS laptop would be "bad". As the parent says, good or bad depends on the metric.

chriswarbo 10y ago

"if you want a bad laptop" is insulting for two reasons: - Nobody "wants" a bad laptop, since that contradicts the definition of badness. A more accurate, less insulting phrasing would be "if you can put up with a bad laptop", i.e. there's an associated cost which you may or may not consider worth it. - The laptop's clearly not "bad" in some objective sense, since nobody would have put in the effort if it were. It's probably subjectively bad to many people, in which case it's clearly not meant for them, but that's a property of the person (or person/laptop relation) rather than of the laptop.

naranana 10y ago
>The laptop's clearly not "bad" in some objective sense 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display, an Allwinner A64 ARM Cortex-A53 quad-core processor with Mali-400MP2 graphics, 1GB of RAM, 4GB of eMMC storage Everything about that is objectively bad. Those are the regular specs any piece of consumer hardware would have over ten years ago. I'm sure an ancient Pentium 4 would simply crush that processor. >It's probably subjectively bad to many people, in which case it's clearly not meant for them What kind of a public would this laptop have? With those specs you can barely run a web browser.
- tormeh 10y ago
  Stallman?
- kmichaels 10y ago
  So fundamentally what the author is saying is that this laptop is bad is a way that it was never meant to be good. And that's what makes the title click bait because the author is clearly aware of this. Clearly it was never meant to be as good as a MacBook Pro. It was meant to be good as an open source laptop (which it is, as one of the few open laptop designs that exists).
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    It's not clickbait to say "bad" to mean "bad in all other ways".
- chriswarbo 10y ago
  > 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display, an Allwinner A64 ARM Cortex-A53 quad-core processor with Mali-400MP2 graphics, 1GB of RAM, 4GB of eMMC storage Nothing about that affects what I said. > What kind of a public would this laptop have? Before getting my current libreboot X60, my workhorse was an OLPC XO-1: 7.5" screen @ 1200x900, 433MHz AMD Geode CPU with integrated graphics, 256MB RAM and 1GB onboard storage. That sounds like a similar sort of spec, and it served me very well for many years; the battery life and sunlight-readable screen were especially nice, as I could use it while sat in the local park. > With those specs you can barely run a web browser. Web browsers have been around for decades; I'm sure it's fine for accessing information (the original intent of the Web). Maybe it can't run the latest bloatware, or support spying/ad platforms like Facebook, but I'd count that as a feature ;)