Aaron Seigo, I am indeed looking for a desktop replacement system. If more people knew about hardware backdoors, they would be too. If you advertised improv board as no hardware backdoors, there would be more customers. For example, Computrace in the BIOS of Dell and Lenova computers, TPM and Intel's vPRO has a secret ARM processor and secret 3G:
https://www.blockitpocket.com/intel-3g- ... &cPath=135 www.infowards.com/91497/ "3G connections can now occur out-of-band, without dependencies on BIOS" www.intel.ie/.../performance-2nd-generation-core-vpro-family-paper.pd http://www.intel.com/content/dam/doc/white-paper/digital-signage-vpro-amt-3g-paper.pdf TPM has backdoor. http://technoblimp.com/2013/08/22/why-does-windows-ship-with-a-backdoor-that-allows-microsoft-and-others-to-remotely-control-your-computer/ ARM devices are being used as desktop replacement systems. Raspberry pi, cubieboard, udoo and pcduino can connect to a lapdock. Can the improv board? The $12 NOOBS SD card for the raspberry pi has preinstalled Pidora (Fedora remix) which has an excellent firewall GUI but is missing other essential graphical packages such as a PDF viewer, scanner, Gparted, etc. Pibang comes the closest to a full graphical desktop for the raspberry pi but is missing a PDF viewer, firewall, etc. PCDuino ships with Lubuntu graphical desktop flashed on NAND. Debian preinstalled on a SD card is sold for the Olinuxino. Being wary of hardware assisted virtualization (HAV), I searched for a board who's CPU didn't have it. Only board with a MIPS processor is a Ben Nano. I didn't buy a Ben Nano because it lacks graphical linux. I compromised by purchasing a raspberry pi being concerned that both ARM and Broadcom are closed hardware: "Speaking about the ARM cores themselves (as opposed to their implementations, SoCs), the only paper that is relatively open is the architecture reference manual, and only in the sense that you can probably read it without risking being sued, and the complete PDF is only available to registered ARM customers anyway. Most other resources are confidential, and require signing NDAs apart from a costly license agreement, which is not available for individuals at all. ....Of course, sources (VHDL or Verilog ones) of the ARM cores themselves are not accessible to general public, and therefore you cannot learn anything about the innards of the CPU. ....Up to this point, we only talked about the CPU core itself. But modern chips also contain lots of peripherals on the same die, and the whole complex is called System-on-Chip, or SoC. One of prominent vendors of SoCs is Broadcom . . .The Pi has a OpenGL-capable graphics processing unit, which by some strange coincidence is a required and vital component of the SoC. The whole system cannot function without the GPU as it's the first component to boot and controls some vital peripherals, and the GPU can only work with a closed-source firmware. Little is known about the architecture of GPU, and as Broadcom has no intent of releasing any further documentation. . . ." http://whitequark.org/blog/2012/09/25/why-raspberry-pi-is-unsuitable-for-education/ Thanks for the link to your photo of improv's graphical desktop. I recommend updating your almost nonexistent description of Mer Linux on your website to include a graphical desktop. However, a graphical desktop to me implies preinstalled GUI packages. Fortunately, I read owners of beaglebone complaining that all its operating systems are minimalistic and that ubuntu was not even graphical. I joined the udoo forum to learn that linaro ubuntu for udoo does not even have a package manager GUI. Extremely minimal desktop. The specifications of the hardware should include specifications of the software. Fortunately, I researched before puchasing so did not purchase. Could you please answer my question of what preinstalled GUI packages are in Mer linux by including your answer on your website and in this mailing list? Thank you. On Thu, Dec 5, 2013, at 10:03 AM, Aaron J. Seigo wrote: > On Thursday, December 5, 2013 07:56:39 you wrote: > > Several times, I attempted to email from makeplaylive's contact us form > > after entering the characters in the box but my email was never sent. > > Perhaps there is a bug on your contact us form? > > I just checked and it appears to be working well; will have it checked > over > for problems further tomorrow. > > > For over a year, I have been a member of Linux on Smal ARM devices > > mailing list. I have been waiting for a board using Rhombus-tech's > > EOMA68-A20 CPU Card. Congratulations on manufacturing such a board. > > Congratulations on making improv board open source hardware. > > :) > > > I was surprised with your choice of preinstalling Mer Linux on Improv > > board. Neither MakeplayLive's website nor Mer's website adequately > > describe Mer linux. Hence, I joined the Mer Linux mailing list to ask > > for a description. I am even more disappointed reading their answer. > > Sorry about the answer there; I’m a bit behind on emails right now, > including > on the mer list (which I am sub’d to) > > > By not preinstalling a full linux desktop, you are leaving out a > > significant percentage of the population interested in open source > > hardware. > > We are providing a desktop environment: > > https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-U30Vqmc1FMk/Up-EIoKo_yI/AAAAAAAABdA/HDdl9JnjkYI/w1084-h813-no/P1020018.JPG > > Mer OS is a base system from which one can build the desired target > system. It > does not define the limits. > > Moreover, there are two important aspects to the Improv: > > * you can install other OSes on it, e.g. Debian > * there is the open build service at build.merproject.org, and we are > happy to > include packages that make sense on there .. but you aren’t limited to > *us*. > others can also join in and add packages too > > > I am not a programmer. I do not know command line. Even if I did, I do > > not want to struggle installing numerous pacakges that are by default > > preinstalled in typical linux distros. Furthermore, I would not be able > > to checksum afterwards. I need a full graphical linux desktop who's > > download can be checksummed. > > We’re doing one better: it comes pre-installed with a desktop > environment. > > > Who has preinstalled graphical packages > > such as package manager, plain text editor, PDF viewer, printer and > > scanner drivers, scanner software such as simple scan, Disk Utility, > > firewall, etc. > > I think we need to set appropriate expectations: Improv is a not a > desktop > replacement. It is a system designed for people who are willing to do a > little > bit of tinkering and playing around as needed. Complete consumer products > will > be built on/around this hardware, and Improv is a starting point for > that. > > That said ... Package manager -> yes (we use apper on top of zypper); > editor - > > kate; PDF viewer -> okular (touch build is there; I need to double check > that we also have the desktop UI included); > > scanning .. that’s honestly something i have *not* tried on an ARM > machine. > apparently SANE does build and work on ARM (just checked) so that gives > me > hope for skanlite. > > disk utilities and firewall GUIs we indeed do not have; there are all the > command line tools for them, but no GUIs in the packages. i would > question the > utility of a firewall GUI *at all* on this kind of device unless you are > going > to be using it as a router on your network or something similar. this > isn’t MS > Windows. > > so the software you expect is mostly there; what isn’t can be filled in. > > if you are looking for a desktop replacement system, however, Improv may > not > be the right fit for you. assuming Improv is even moderately successful, > we > will be introducing devices that do meet those kinds of needs better. > > -- > Aaron J. 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