Comments on: $149 RK3288 Chromebooks from Lenovo and Asus coming soon according to Digitimes

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 09:38:00 +0000

In reply to Marius Cirsta. As they said ,the design files will be opened.As to the Mali GPU,is engaged in Rockchip. Ast to upgrading ,you can update from their website.

By: Marius Cirsta

Marius Cirsta — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 18:37:00 +0000

In reply to Andy. Popper yes but fully open source I doubt it. RK3288 has a Mali GPU which is not open source and I'm not sure when if it will ever be. This is a serious problem when upgrading to future versions of Ubuntu or other Linux distros.

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 07:04:00 +0000

In reply to Marius Cirsta. I seems the rockchip is working on it. Rockchip and Google are working together on RK3288.So I’m quite confident Chrome OS will be ported with proper VPU and GPU support. But the ubuntu,I am not sure about it .

By: Marius Cirsta

Marius Cirsta — Wed, 19 Nov 2014 14:59:00 +0000

In reply to Andy.

Yes but with no open source GPU driver you’re goint to reach a point when you don’t have the video driver needed for the new Ubuntu and your video driver is not compatible with that kernel or Xorg.
All in all not worth it IMO when you can get something like this :

http://138.2.152.197/2014/11/16/49-barebones-bulk-intel-x86-pc-mele-pcg03/

Or similar devices.

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 19 Nov 2014 03:58:00 +0000

In reply to Marius Cirsta. It is supported by Ubuntu14.04 and android 4.04 now. I heard the rockchip has made the Chrome OS and Android 5.0 on the RK3288. Maybe we will get the source code of Android5.0 and Chrome OS soon. Then you can do it by yourself.

By: AllWaysTalking

AllWaysTalking — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 04:13:00 +0000

Until Rockchip and Allwinner wake up and release the blob I’m not buying anymore ARM based products, I blew $130 three months ago and am stuck with Ubuntu 14.04 and Android 4.4 with limited boot options. The crap about being able to boot from a USB drive really upsets me, that should have been done first then the NAND and SD. I’ve been told that the upgrade to Android 5 may not happen for the RK3188 products yet there is a willing market to eat up the RK3288 and get stuck with the current OS’es.

By: Marius Cirsta

Marius Cirsta — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 10:13:00 +0000

In reply to Andy.

Indeed but the problem is that this lacks flexibility. There’s no easy way to upgrade the OS on this one.
It’s much easier to update a Linux OS on a 5-6 year old Intel PC than it is to update the OS on a 1 year ARM box.

By: Andy

Andy — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 09:42:00 +0000

In reply to Marius Cirsta.

You said you are a linux fan. Then you should take a look at the Firefly-RK3288 http://www.t-firefly.com/en/ .According to the armdevices.net I guess the firefly will be supported by ubuntu, android lollipop and Chrome OS .

By: Andy

Andy — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 09:34:00 +0000

I‘m looking forward to it . Because it means my Firefly-RK3288 will supported by Chrome OS.

By: Marius Cirsta

Marius Cirsta — Fri, 14 Nov 2014 16:12:00 +0000

My only problem with this is that there’s no open source driver for Mali and converting these machines to a Linux one would be hard because of this.
Chrome OS might be OK for the general public but it’s not for me as I’m a power user and Linux fan.
For about $200 I expect I’ll be able to bet an Intel powered Chrome OS which would probably be more powerful and Intel has very good open source Linux drivers.