Author Topic: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available  (Read 7782 times)

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Offline james_s

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #25 on: August 09, 2022, 10:38:40 pm »
power button as a regular key and absence of dedicated insert key means "NO NO and NO" .. sorry..

I've never owned a laptop that has the power button as a regular key, but even so, you can just set it to do nothing unless you hold it down. I have never in my life used the Insert key, it seems like one of those vestigial keys like Scroll Lock. What is it even for?

apparently you're not a linux guy if you never used the insert key ;) for a opensource laptop the majority of the users would be linux guys...
power button as a regular key is annoying because you can hit it by accident and sleep your laptop in a middle of something important.

I've been using Linux in some capacity for >20 years, pretty heavily for the last 3 or 4, in fact the system I'm typing this on right now is running Linux. I've never used the Insert key, ever.
 

Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #26 on: August 09, 2022, 10:47:57 pm »
It mentions that these machines are designed to be used with "free software" from the "BIOS upwards". Free does not necessarily mean open source and even if it was completely open source, what about the hardware "below" the BIOS level? Does anyone truly know what those Loongson processors are doing?

I am fixing stuff for the Olimex's Teres1, based on the Allwinner SoC A64, basically ARM64 + OR (bugged) MPU, 2GB of ram.

u-boot is full of blobs for the boot-stage2, and Allwinner doesn't provide all the drivers, so forget about the GPU-acceleration and forget about the Thermal Unit support (battery-save mode, done by the bugged OR MPU inside the SoC) if you want run a recent kernel because these features are NOT provided as OpenSource, otherwise ... you are limited to a very ol Linux v3 and their binary blobs.

At least Loongson 3A5000 laptops don't seem to have these hassles, and it's a largely better laptop.

I mean, talking about the quality, the Teres1 has the look and feel of a plastic toy for kids.
« Last Edit: August 09, 2022, 11:13:53 pm by DiTBho »
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Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #27 on: August 09, 2022, 10:55:11 pm »
subset of MIPS64 is a turnoff for me

It's not a problem. By applying their patches to a dedicated toolchain, I am willing go create dedicated LoongArch-GS464V-stage3 and stage4

Already done several times for MIPS4 that is more problematic.

regardless of the specs themselves - the amount of developers on this ISA is quite limited in comparison.

Small audience, even smaller devs, all good, for me it's a sign of distinction from the mass :D
« Last Edit: August 09, 2022, 11:26:40 pm by DiTBho »
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Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #28 on: August 09, 2022, 10:58:51 pm »
Yeah. Get a cheap SBC, a nice IPS panel, a decent keyboard, and there you go.

SBC + IPS panel + keyboard don't make a laptop!
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Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #29 on: August 09, 2022, 11:09:23 pm »
I've been using Linux since ... 1996? ... [..] I'm sure I have never knowingly used the Insert key for anything. I'm not even sure how it relates.

I have been using Linux since 2005 when I switched from BeOS to GNU / Linux. Never used the ins key, I recently bought an old HHKB (ps / 2) keyboard (membrane base, not topre), and I'm really happy to have the CTRL key instead of the CAPSlock.

To be honest, I would like to have it, but also a shorter space bar.

In my wish list ... the hope that with an open-hardware laptop, in theory, you could remap keys at the keyboard firmware level.

With the Teres1 laptop it's possible since the keyboard controller is a module that you you can replace or reprogram  :D

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Offline rsjsouza

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #30 on: August 09, 2022, 11:10:24 pm »
power button as a regular key and absence of dedicated insert key means "NO NO and NO" .. sorry..
If it is a similar approach as a Chromebook, several key combinations overcome the absence of these keys - however, both Google and Loongson will be watching every step of the way. Also, a subset of MIPS64 is a turnoff for me, regardless of the specs themselves - the amount of developers on this ISA is quite limited in comparison.

So, no thanks. Not for me.

I get the impression Loongson machines are for government use (as Elbrus is in Russia), where they're quite happy to have something a bit unusual. Not so much that it stops outsiders from running or understanding their software (qemu can run Loongson), but probably much more importantly, make it more difficult for staff to run unauthorised software.

The commercial world in China seems to be going heavily for RISC-V.
Interesting datapoints. I wasn't aware of that but it makes perfect sense to have a non-mainstream platform for strategic/security reasons.
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Offline rsjsouza

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #31 on: August 09, 2022, 11:12:04 pm »
I mean, talking about the quality, the Teres1 has the look and feel of a plastic toy for kids.
Have you ever seen one in the wild to feel the quality? Images can be deceiving.

Not that it is a bad quality laptop because of that, but the opposite might not be true either. I was fooled in the past by stunning photographs and videos of computers of varied backgrounds and breeds.
Vbe - vídeo blog eletrônico http://videos.vbeletronico.com

Oh, the "whys" of the datasheets... The information is there not to be an axiomatic truth, but instead each speck of data must be slowly inhaled while carefully performing a deep search inside oneself to find the true metaphysical sense...
 
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Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #32 on: August 09, 2022, 11:21:19 pm »
Not that it is a bad quality laptop because of that, but the opposite might not be true either. I was fooled in the past by stunning photographs and videos of computers of varied backgrounds and breeds.

Good point! I think we need an Amazon way to test the Loongson 3A5000 laptop!
Something like this: feel free to try it on and return it within 30 days of payment if you are not satisfied!
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Offline rsjsouza

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #33 on: August 10, 2022, 12:33:34 am »
Not that it is a bad quality laptop because of that, but the opposite might not be true either. I was fooled in the past by stunning photographs and videos of computers of varied backgrounds and breeds.

Good point! I think we need an Amazon way to test the Loongson 3A5000 laptop!
Something like this: feel free to try it on and return it within 30 days of payment if you are not satisfied!
Indeed. If that ever reaches these shores and Amazon picks it up, Prime customers would probably benefit.
Vbe - vídeo blog eletrônico http://videos.vbeletronico.com

Oh, the "whys" of the datasheets... The information is there not to be an axiomatic truth, but instead each speck of data must be slowly inhaled while carefully performing a deep search inside oneself to find the true metaphysical sense...
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #34 on: August 10, 2022, 03:23:40 am »
I have been using Linux since 2005 when I switched from BeOS to GNU / Linux. Never used the ins key, I recently bought an old HHKB (ps / 2) keyboard (membrane base, not topre), and I'm really happy to have the CTRL key instead of the CAPSlock.

To be honest, I would like to have it, but also a shorter space bar.

In my wish list ... the hope that with an open-hardware laptop, in theory, you could remap keys at the keyboard firmware level.

I use Caps Lock occasionally, but not nearly as often as I bump it by accident. It would be nice if it were a small obscure key, say up there where Ins is, maybe in place of Scroll Lock, I never really understood what that was for even back in the days of the IBM PC, it must be the least used key ever.

Remapping keys would be useful, as long as the keycaps are interchangeable.
 

Online SiliconWizard

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #35 on: August 10, 2022, 03:35:03 am »
Yeah, I personally never use the Caps Lock or Insert keys whatsoever except when I accidentally hit them, to get back to the normal state.
 
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Offline brucehoult

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #36 on: August 10, 2022, 04:32:57 am »
Yeah. Get a cheap SBC, a nice IPS panel, a decent keyboard, and there you go.

SBC + IPS panel + keyboard don't make a laptop!

This is true, but then I've had little or no use-case for a laptop for ... nearly a decade?

I've got an M1 Mac Mini, and before that came out I had an i7-8650U (quad core 4.2 GHz) NUC running Linux -- which, incidentally, performed *much* better on things such as long compiles than the exact same CPU in a Thinkpad X1 Carbon that my employer supplied, for example 20 minutes vs 30+ minutes on building riscv-gnu-toolchain, because of the better cooling.

Mac Mini or NUC serve my "can use it in multiple places e.g. home and office" needs very well, being as portable, if not more, as a laptop. The NUC literally fit comfortably into my jeans front pocket.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EBZ7HO7UEAAfAAX.jpg

If I need to check email or slack or eevblog or reddit or whatever on the go, my phone does just fine. I don't spend hours a day on a bus or train or plane wanting to get programming done -- if I'm going somewhere then driving is usually the only option anyway. Except inter- or trans-continental travel, on which I'm sleeping as much as humanly possible, not working.
 

Offline brucehoult

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #37 on: August 10, 2022, 04:38:03 am »
power button as a regular key and absence of dedicated insert key means "NO NO and NO" .. sorry..

OK, so that's half a dozen rather knowledgable and experienced Linux users who never use the Ins key and in general don't know why you would.

Care to enlighten us?
 

Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #38 on: August 10, 2022, 07:06:35 am »
This is true, but then I've had little or no use-case for a laptop for ... nearly a decade?

Well, for computer-insensitive things I won't use a laptop except as X11 and Vt-terminal to a big IBM POWER10, which is *THE* computer.

Intel and AMD simply MUST die once and forever, for me it's only garbage and hate. Don't get me wrong, I have to use their shitty architecture because some software is x86-only, but I am not happy when I have to put my money on x86.

Anyway, speaking of why you don't need high computer power under laptop skin (1), when I visited the last hack meeting in Estonia, the best idea ever seen was an optic-fiber KVM in laptop shape. That's the kind of object that really makes sense as "cool thing" that you will also really enjoy use if you are the kind that needs a keyboard and a video with all the computer power (and noise made by computers cooling fans) running somewhere else, remotely.

I tried this for two days, all the computers were 800 meters far, inside a camper, while the KVM-laptop in a tend, and the optic link really thin and light and of the complementary color of the grass so that no one tripped over the cable.

For C-coders and hackers, well ... it was insanely great  ;D


(1) unless you are a traveling photographer or a Youtuber, or someone who needs to edit video in a hotel room or on the train

I mean, like YeahRussia, Bald And Bankrupt, or the Satanej Setgalievna Kazanova's husband, especially when he did a video shoot in Siberia ....
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Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #39 on: August 10, 2022, 07:12:25 am »
(1) unless you are a traveling photographer or a Youtuber, or someone who needs to edit video in a hotel room or on the train

and for those who need the battery-charge last as long as possible on the road, there is only one choice: an Apple M1/M2 laptop with Finalcut as software.
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Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #40 on: August 10, 2022, 07:37:39 am »
Yeah, I personally never use the Caps Lock or Insert keys whatsoever except when I accidentally hit them, to get back to the normal state.

Yup!!! Give us the keyboards for devs!

I don't have to write a new script for Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte, or any other smart and dynamic New York-based woman who sticks together through the ups and downs; my girlfriend loved that things and since she "writes" she loved keyboards with those damn CAPS, Grrr @ ~! $% $ £

(you guess who had the last word, on buying a laptop, when we were students, with so limited  budget that we had to share the second hand laptop ... a damn laptop with a keyboard made for writers, I mean journalists, so you can forget UK/USA layout  :palm: )

The best of today's economy is that things are so damn cheaper than years ago that you can emphatically state that you can buy a dedicated laptop where you don't need a CAPS keyboard because you don't have to write any literature on it, no news of war, no story of Neuromancer.

Cyberpunk is live, give us a keyboard for C devs! for C libraries, kernel stuff, UNIX scripts! Gnat-when-you-can, otherwise Octave and tcltk/expect scripts, whatever "expect" is (wtf is? dunno, but it has just emerged)

Give us HHKB on a laptop  :D
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Offline brucehoult

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #41 on: August 10, 2022, 07:49:23 am »
(1) unless you are a traveling photographer or a Youtuber, or someone who needs to edit video in a hotel room or on the train

I mean, like YeahRussia, Bald And Bankrupt, or the Satanej Setgalievna Kazanova's husband, especially when he did a video shoot in Siberia ....

That's a very different use-case to mine, for sure, although on-phone editing software is pretty powerful now. And the phones too.

btw, the first one has been "Natasha's Adventures" for a few months :-)  Also check out Zangieff, Anastasie Vaskevich, Dari Step. Used to watch Baklykov but he got a bit unbearable. Also I seem to have caused his 40 minute rant against Natasha year or so ago. Извините пожалуйста, милая Наташа!
 
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Offline rob77

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #42 on: August 10, 2022, 10:49:55 am »
power button as a regular key and absence of dedicated insert key means "NO NO and NO" .. sorry..

OK, so that's half a dozen rather knowledgable and experienced Linux users who never use the Ins key and in general don't know why you would.

Care to enlighten us?

shift + insert to paste into terminal.... if you never used the insert key means you never needed paste into a terminal. so how on earth are you a "experienced linux user" ? sorry...
 

Offline brucehoult

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #43 on: August 10, 2022, 11:38:41 am »
power button as a regular key and absence of dedicated insert key means "NO NO and NO" .. sorry..

OK, so that's half a dozen rather knowledgable and experienced Linux users who never use the Ins key and in general don't know why you would.

Care to enlighten us?

shift + insert to paste into terminal.... if you never used the insert key means you never needed paste into a terminal. so how on earth are you a "experienced linux user" ? sorry...

There must be dozens of terminal applications in use on Linux.

On *my* terminal, I use Ctrl-shift-V to paste or, more usually, middle-click, since I probably just used the mouse to select it elsewhere. Or, if I'm editing text within the terminal using keystrokes alone then it's C-y the same as in my text editor.

I can't see any reason to move my hands from home position (or left hand in home position and right hand on the mouse) to go and look for an Ins key.
 

Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #44 on: August 10, 2022, 11:50:24 am »
Yeah, xrterm-like has Ctrl Shift Keys, ins is for Gnome terminals and alike, not better or something, simply different habbits

P.s. on Tekronix x11 terminals you have Ctrl Shift Keys, that is why I find it comfortable, because I spent a lot of time on Tek before switching to xrterm on Gnu/linux
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Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #45 on: August 10, 2022, 11:56:02 am »
middle-click, since I probably just used the mouse to select it elsewhere. Or, if I'm editing text within the terminal using keystrokes alone then it's C-y the same as in my text editor.

I can't see any reason to move my hands from home position (or left hand in home position and right hand on the mouse) to go and look for an Ins key.

Here, you would probably like keyboards like Yoda and YodaII  ;D
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Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #46 on: August 10, 2022, 01:16:40 pm »
shift + insert to paste into terminal

Code: [Select]
edit /root/.Xresources
XTerm*vt100.translations: #override \
    Shift Ctrl <Key> C: copy-selection(CLIPBOARD) \n\
    Shift Ctrl <Key> V: insert-selection(CLIPBOARD)

xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources

this will make xterm (invisible-island X11 terminal emulator) able to use Shift Ctrl C and V for copy and paste  :D
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Offline rob77

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #47 on: August 10, 2022, 02:32:59 pm »
shift + insert to paste into terminal

Code: [Select]
edit /root/.Xresources
XTerm*vt100.translations: #override \
    Shift Ctrl <Key> C: copy-selection(CLIPBOARD) \n\
    Shift Ctrl <Key> V: insert-selection(CLIPBOARD)

xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources

this will make xterm (invisible-island X11 terminal emulator) able to use Shift Ctrl C and V for copy and paste  :D

you just provided further proof you're not a linux guy... apparently you have zero clue about terminal control characters and the meaning of Ctrl+C
 

Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #48 on: August 10, 2022, 03:27:23 pm »
you just provided further proof you're not a linux guy... apparently you have zero clue about terminal control characters and the meaning of Ctrl+C

Oh, and what is a "Linux guy"?  :o :o :o

is anyone with a special tattoo tatted on his penis?
is anyone who doesn't drink coffee if he/she doesn't have a cup signed by Linus Benedict Torvalds in person?

Just to say, who cares, enjoy my ignore list  :-//
The opposite of courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow
 
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Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #49 on: August 10, 2022, 03:38:22 pm »
https://mntre.com/media/reform_md/2020-05-08-the-much-more-personal-computer.html
https://twitter.com/minut_e/status/1447966316741206016
Made in Germany.
CPU and RAM are on a card so you can have ARM, MIPS, RISC-V, FPGA, etc...
Currently a shipping product with ARM CPU.

I really really like the concept! I don't care about performance, nice post, thanks :D

FPGAs ... well, to be honest, unless you use a very expensive Virtex FPGA, you will be limited about the clock speed. So, probably an FPGA-CPU-module is interesting, but only for a kind of X11-terminal in laptop shape to export DISPLAY (via ssh + x11 forwarding) from other remote machines.

I mean, my Tektronix XP400 is powered by a 60Mhz MIPS R3000 CPU (Toshiba), it runs WxWorks + MWM Windows Manager, and the user experience is fluent enough ... therefore a 400Mhz Softcore should be enough with a minimalist environment .

I am the kind who likes this kind of stuff :D
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