Author Topic: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available  (Read 7771 times)

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Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Many years ago a Lemote Yeeloong laptop was sent to Richard Stallman, and he liked it. Unfortunately it was difficult to buy one of these fully-opensource (from the bios up) laptops, and the hardware was not so powerful.

Today, things are different. There are new MIPS laptops around, and the new Loongson 3A5000 laptop is available.

This time, a piece of very rock-hardware

Curious? would you experience an "unboxing"?

watch

I want one, I want one, I want one, please take my money and send me one!  ;D
The opposite of courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow
 
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Offline PKTKS

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #1 on: August 07, 2022, 07:11:49 pm »
I will have no problems changing the x86 wintel  stodgy  platform....

As a matter of fact ... unless some real leadership with balls enough to change the dull game...

x86 platform is nowadays nothing than a repetition of old really stodgy past maidens game...


Good tho have a viable alternative ahead ::)
Paul

 

Offline james_s

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #2 on: August 07, 2022, 07:13:59 pm »
I doubt they'll enough of these to even break even. Sure it's a cool idea, but probably less than 0.1% of computer users care one bit if the hardware of their laptop is open source. I have absolutely no desire to modify my laptop.
 

Offline SiliconWizard

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #3 on: August 07, 2022, 07:22:01 pm »
More variety is good. For sustainability, independence and innovation.

While the chinese are certainly working towards that goal, I'm not sure we should particularly rejoice about their own work. We should just do the same.
 

Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #4 on: August 07, 2022, 08:34:04 pm »
I have absolutely no desire to modify my laptop.

do you specifically need some x86-binary software?
Windows application or something like that?

It's my case, but I can have three laptops
1) for Windows 10 and windows-specific applications
2) for MacOS M1/2 and M1/2-specific applications (e.g. Finalcut)
3) for Linux ... here a MIPS laptop is great!


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Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #5 on: August 07, 2022, 08:39:08 pm »
We should just do the same.

we should work on a RISC-v laptop made in Europe. It would be great :D
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Offline abquke

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #6 on: August 07, 2022, 08:42:12 pm »

3) for Linux ... here a MIPS laptop is great!


Hopefully cross-compiling for ARM is no harder on MIPs than it is on x86...
 

Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #7 on: August 07, 2022, 09:25:50 pm »
Hopefully cross-compiling for ARM is no harder on MIPs than it is on x86...

eh, ... on MIPS32 and MIPS64 there are several problems with uclibc, MUSL, glibc, plus other issues with llvm; Loongson 3A5000 is not exactly "MIPS64", it's not 100% compatible, but it has support from several Chinese companies, I hope they will fix stuff.


Anyway, I will order one of these laptops for October  :D
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Offline oPossum

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #8 on: August 07, 2022, 09:33:21 pm »
We should just do the same.

we should work on a RISC-v laptop made in Europe. It would be great :D

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.
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #9 on: August 08, 2022, 07:33:19 pm »
do you specifically need some x86-binary software?
Windows application or something like that?

It's my case, but I can have three laptops
1) for Windows 10 and windows-specific applications
2) for MacOS M1/2 and M1/2-specific applications (e.g. Finalcut)
3) for Linux ... here a MIPS laptop is great!

Yes, several, otherwise I'd have moved completely to Linux years ago. I use Win7 for stuff that needs it and Linux for everything else. Any Windows stuff that won't run on 7 is one more thing I try to find a Linux solution for. Used x86 laptops are cheap and plentiful.
 

Offline eugene

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #10 on: August 08, 2022, 08:58:45 pm »
Used x86 laptops are cheap and plentiful.

And they work well enough running linux. When they don't, it's typically a problem with drivers, etc. Porting to another platform, even one that's open source, is not likely to improve the situation.

Don't get me wrong, I do think options are good and even necessary. It's a little disheartening how MS seems to be dictating the HW, but that's nothing new. As long as I can keep running linux stably on x86 HW, and exploit all the features of that HW including GPU etc, then I have no problem with x86.
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Offline rob77

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #11 on: August 08, 2022, 09:46:43 pm »
power button as a regular key and absence of dedicated insert key means "NO NO and NO" .. sorry..
 

Offline Halcyon

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #12 on: August 09, 2022, 12:15:31 am »
Aside from being (partially?) open source hardware, it just looks like another cheap Chinese gadget to me... am I missing something significant?

I'm a bit dubious about any product that has ties to the Chinese Government and the Chinese Communist Party. In this case, it's a joint venture involving the Chinese Institute of Computing Technology. 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? Devices that "phone home" to China are pretty common. I'm not suggesting this is the case with these particular machines (I haven't looked into them in any great detail), but can anyone be confident that they aren't, or don't have some kind of deliberate design that would allow for eavesdropping?
 

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #13 on: August 09, 2022, 01:56:54 am »
Aside from being (partially?) open source hardware, it just looks like another cheap Chinese gadget to me... am I missing something significant?

I'm a bit dubious about any product that has ties to the Chinese Government and the Chinese Communist Party. In this case, it's a joint venture involving the Chinese Institute of Computing Technology. 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? Devices that "phone home" to China are pretty common. I'm not suggesting this is the case with these particular machines (I haven't looked into them in any great detail), but can anyone be confident that they aren't, or don't have some kind of deliberate design that would allow for eavesdropping?

Perhaps many people do not know the fact that Hu Weiwu, the boss of Loongson(Godson), is a loyal fan of Mao!


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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #14 on: August 09, 2022, 02:12:42 am »
Aside from being (partially?) open source hardware, it just looks like another cheap Chinese gadget to me... am I missing something significant?

I'm a bit dubious about any product that has ties to the Chinese Government and the Chinese Communist Party. In this case, it's a joint venture involving the Chinese Institute of Computing Technology. 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? Devices that "phone home" to China are pretty common. I'm not suggesting this is the case with these particular machines (I haven't looked into them in any great detail), but can anyone be confident that they aren't, or don't have some kind of deliberate design that would allow for eavesdropping?

Perhaps many people do not know the fact that Hu Weiwu, the boss of Loongson(Godson), is a loyal fan of Mao!

That's wonderful, but how does that have any relevance to my comments?

I'm just trying to tell everyone that this company does have ties to the CCP, and their boss is an extreme Maoist. (meaning I won't buy any of their products)

Offline brucehoult

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #15 on: August 09, 2022, 03:05:33 am »
We should just do the same.

we should work on a RISC-v laptop made in Europe. It would be great :D

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.

4x 1.5 GHz A53 is the same as Pi 3 and quite far from the ARM SBC state of the art (2.4 GHz A76, RK3588 boards), let alone x86 of course.

It's basically the same specs as the best RISC-V SBC you'll be able to buy this year, the ~$60 (with 4 GB RAM) Pine64 Star64. Or the now out of production HiFive Unmatched.
 

Offline rsjsouza

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #16 on: August 09, 2022, 03:33:16 am »
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.
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Offline SiliconWizard

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #17 on: August 09, 2022, 03:39:52 am »
We should just do the same.

we should work on a RISC-v laptop made in Europe. It would be great :D

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.

4x 1.5 GHz A53 is the same as Pi 3 and quite far from the ARM SBC state of the art (2.4 GHz A76, RK3588 boards), let alone x86 of course.

It's basically the same specs as the best RISC-V SBC you'll be able to buy this year, the ~$60 (with 4 GB RAM) Pine64 Star64. Or the now out of production HiFive Unmatched.

Yeah. Get a cheap SBC, a nice IPS panel, a decent keyboard, and there you go.
Go for a not-so-cheap SBC for much better performance and M2 slots. (You can find some for $100 to $150.)
 

Offline brucehoult

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #18 on: August 09, 2022, 03:47:52 am »
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.
 

Offline Halcyon

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #19 on: August 09, 2022, 06:10:42 am »
I'm just trying to tell everyone that this company does have ties to the CCP, and their boss is an extreme Maoist. (meaning I won't buy any of their products)

Sorry, I completely misread what you wrote initially. My mistake. I guess I'm more tired than I thought I was. I've removed my previous post.
 

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #20 on: August 09, 2022, 07:29:28 am »
I'm just trying to tell everyone that this company does have ties to the CCP, and their boss is an extreme Maoist. (meaning I won't buy any of their products)

Sorry, I completely misread what you wrote initially. My mistake. I guess I'm more tired than I thought I was. I've removed my previous post.

It's ok, English is not my native language, I use google translate and it's hard for me to grasp the subtleties.

Offline james_s

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #21 on: August 09, 2022, 05:52:13 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?
 

Offline rob77

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #22 on: August 09, 2022, 06:57:06 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.
 

Offline brucehoult

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #23 on: August 09, 2022, 09:29:51 pm »
apparently you're not a linux guy if you never used the insert key

I've been using Linux since ... 1996? ... much of the time as my main desktop system (it was for many years before the M1 Macs came out, but I switched to MacOS (with Linux in a VM [1] while waiting for native Linux there) and others such as Sun before that.

I'm sure I have never knowingly used the Insert key for anything. I'm not even sure how it relates.

[1] see, for example some tests, including Linux in a VM on M1, I ran in November 2020 https://hoult.org/arm64_mini.html
 

Offline DiTBhoTopic starter

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Re: OMG this is happening !!! Loongson 3A5000 laptops finally available
« Reply #24 on: August 09, 2022, 10:38:18 pm »
am I missing something significant?

Yup, it's a MIPS64-- that you can buy in laptop shape! That's the value!!! :D
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