Chumby developers building open source laptop
The goal of the "Novena" project is the production of a laptop, which is made entirely of open source hardware and software. Open hardware means that the schematics and specifications are royalty-free. While the open source movement has established itself in the field of software for years now, the so-called open hardware is also at the present time with current PC components not yet widespread.
The father of "Novena", Andrew "Bunnie" Huang wants to build for himself a DIY laptop, which consists of open documented hardware. Huang has become known as one of the first Xbox hacker and developer of the Chumby. Other enthusiasts Huang wants the opportunity to recreate his laptop and modify. To this end, he has let his team finished with a motherboard board. Only hardware is selected, the specification and driver are disclosed. The name is borrowed from a Novena subway station in Singapore.
The CPU is a Freescale iMX6 used, which has four Cortex A9 cores at 1.2 GHz. For the graph is the Vivante GC2000 GPU used. The connections and specifications of the laptop are similar to other netbooks and average: up to 4 GB DDR3-1066 SO-DIMM RAM, SATA II interface, USB 2.0 ports, HDMI-out and Mini PCI Express. A dual-channel LVDS LCD connector can provide a QXGA resolution of 2048 × 1536 pixels at 60 Hz.
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For hardware hackers but are the "fun features" a lot more interesting. Through a second Ethernet port, the laptop can be used as a packet filter (firewall) or a router. Via USB-to-Go is the laptop as Ethernet-Spoofer/Fuzzer or can be connected as a USB device with a computer. Likewise, a Spartan-6 FPGA-packaged CSG324 is housed in the laptop. To eight analog and digital FPGA-Ein-/Ausgänge and again eight PWM header for direct connection of RC motors or servos. In addition, the laptop is Raspberry Pi-compatible.
An overview of the progress and status of the project can be found on the wiki page of the project. The current goal is to develop an open source firmware currently, thus the software driver of the laptop are also open source. Part of the hardware created the first motherboard prototypes in June. Power has been transferred so-called one daughter card. It uses commercially available types of LiPo batteries 2S1P or 4S1P.
If enough people are interested in such a laptop, considering Huang one Kickstarter Campaign to open in a few months, once the components have been tested sufficiently. There would then be no cheap laptop. He is more concerned about the exclusivity of such a "hand-made" product.
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