4 ms·

Lessons from the Novena laptop project

79 points by tux1968 12y ago

mmastrac 12y ago
I love this project. I probably would have jumped in if there was a more conventional laptop around the $3k mark. The $5k heirloom, more-traditional version was pretty cool, but tough to justify for myself.
jacquesm 12y ago
I wished I had half a reason that I could use to justify buying one of these. As it is I barely use the laptop that I've got, as my eyes are getting steadily worse I love my big screen monitors and associated fonts. Of course I could hook one of those up to a laptop but that would not give me anything I don't have today. Still, this is by far the coolest hardware project I've seen in a very long time. Nice quote from the article: "A company called Myriad noticed that Novena used the same breakout header as its own software-defined radio (SDR) board, and offered to re-spin a version of the board specifically for use with the Novena." Very very neat. The Novena is really what open source is all about and I may end up buying one simply to support the poject (though I suspect that once I have it I'll see my productivity on commercial projects drop substantially).
- keithpeter 12y ago
  > "Interestingly enough, someone in the audience also asked about the price point. Cross replied that the comments break down into two distinct camps: FOSS people say "wow that's an expensive laptop" but FPGA users say "wow that's so cheap for a development kit!" " Above from the comments on the LWN article. So if you got into FPGA development, this would become a cheap option! I quite like the idea of the 'transportable desktop' (the one up from the bare board without the battery board/battery and keyboard &c). I hope they carry that on to the second generation.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    That's mostly a matter of packaging, you could just get the laptop, make a nice case to suit your requirements and call it a day.
  - rjsw 12y ago
    It still looks an expensive FPGA development kit to me. A Parallella board is a cheap FPGA development kit. One think I can't tell is whether the FPGA on the Novena can bus-master back to the main CPU. I'm sure somebody could spin a Mini PCI/PCI Express Mini Card with an FPGA easily enough that would let you do interesting stuff in a laptop.
higherpurpose 12y ago
Any chance they could use RISC-V in the future?
- jobstijl 12y ago
  Andrew "bunnie" Huang is working on the novena and is also on the Technical Advisory Board of lowRISC - a core based on the RISC-V instruction set. So I guess that there is quit a chance they will use RISC-V in the future.
lelf 12y ago
It will look like this https://www.crowdsupply.com/kosagi/novena-open-laptop https://www.crowdsupply.com/kosagi/novena-open-laptop
2close4comfort 12y ago
It is GREAT to the crowdfunding of this eclipse their goal! This project is a great example to show that hard work and know-how can produce something truly fantastic.

79 points by tux1968 12y ago

I love this project. I probably would have jumped in if there was a more conventional laptop around the $3k mark. The $5k heirloom, more-traditional version was pretty cool, but tough to justify for myself.

jacquesm 12y ago

I wished I had half a reason that I could use to justify buying one of these. As it is I barely use the laptop that I've got, as my eyes are getting steadily worse I love my big screen monitors and associated fonts. Of course I could hook one of those up to a laptop but that would not give me anything I don't have today. Still, this is by far the coolest hardware project I've seen in a very long time. Nice quote from the article: "A company called Myriad noticed that Novena used the same breakout header as its own software-defined radio (SDR) board, and offered to re-spin a version of the board specifically for use with the Novena." Very very neat. The Novena is really what open source is all about and I may end up buying one simply to support the poject (though I suspect that once I have it I'll see my productivity on commercial projects drop substantially).

keithpeter 12y ago
> "Interestingly enough, someone in the audience also asked about the price point. Cross replied that the comments break down into two distinct camps: FOSS people say "wow that's an expensive laptop" but FPGA users say "wow that's so cheap for a development kit!" " Above from the comments on the LWN article. So if you got into FPGA development, this would become a cheap option! I quite like the idea of the 'transportable desktop' (the one up from the bare board without the battery board/battery and keyboard &c). I hope they carry that on to the second generation.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  That's mostly a matter of packaging, you could just get the laptop, make a nice case to suit your requirements and call it a day.
- rjsw 12y ago
  It still looks an expensive FPGA development kit to me. A Parallella board is a cheap FPGA development kit. One think I can't tell is whether the FPGA on the Novena can bus-master back to the main CPU. I'm sure somebody could spin a Mini PCI/PCI Express Mini Card with an FPGA easily enough that would let you do interesting stuff in a laptop.

higherpurpose 12y ago

Any chance they could use RISC-V in the future?

jobstijl 12y ago
Andrew "bunnie" Huang is working on the novena and is also on the Technical Advisory Board of lowRISC - a core based on the RISC-V instruction set. So I guess that there is quit a chance they will use RISC-V in the future.

lelf 12y ago

It will look like this https://www.crowdsupply.com/kosagi/novena-open-laptop https://www.crowdsupply.com/kosagi/novena-open-laptop

2close4comfort 12y ago

It is GREAT to the crowdfunding of this eclipse their goal! This project is a great example to show that hard work and know-how can produce something truly fantastic.