
PineBook Pro (open source ARM laptop) - tosh
https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/Pinebook_Pro
======
antsoul
Thanks to Alyssa Rosenzweig and the Panfrost team for reverse-engineering the
Mali GPU.

We can start moving out of the Intel/AMD backdoors and start to equip
ourselves and our communities with trustworthy computers : ARM-based for now,
RISC-V-based for later.

~~~
pinewurst
What assures the trustworthiness of this RK3399 platform?

~~~
stonogo
The same thing that "assures the trustworthiness" of every other computer ever
made: nothing. What is the purpose of asking a question so vague as to be
unanswerable?

~~~
pinewurst
It's not "so vague as to be unanswerable". It's an explicit response to the
implication that non-Intel/AMD systems somehow lack backdoors. What's the
absolute proof that this laptop (or some future RISC-V based one) lacks a
backdoor?

~~~
rowanG077
That question isn't better. Of course there is no absolute proof. That doesn't
mean the situation isn't significantly better then on AMD/Intel.

------
isleofvoid
Stefan Schaeckeler wrote an excellent review of the PbP[0]. The following
excerpt might be interesting to some.

 _The Pinebook Pro is an open laptop but also a black box at the same time. It
is not possible to debug early boot problems without a serial console cable._

The cable costs $6.99 currently and is a separate product[1].

Personally, the only reason stopping me from getting this laptop is the import
tax. A quick search on the Pine64 forum revealed it to be around $100 for my
country. Adding all the expenses, $350 for this machine is much more than what
I can spend.

[0]
[http://students.engr.scu.edu/~sschaeck/misc/pinebookpro.html](http://students.engr.scu.edu/~sschaeck/misc/pinebookpro.html)

[1] [https://store.pine64.org/?product=pinebook-serial-
console](https://store.pine64.org/?product=pinebook-serial-console)

~~~
panpanna
I think people interested in early boot logs are also able to build their own
debug cables for $0.

~~~
isleofvoid
I meant the cable is not included with the laptop.

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numberwhun
I had ordered one of the other models early last year and it did take 2-3
months before I heard that it was shipping, and then it was another 2-3 weeks
before it arrived. Their packaging was good enough to protect it, being in a
plastic case. I have no issues with the one I have and, pending seeing other's
experience with this new model, will definitely consider one of these. Be
patient, that's all I can say.

------
dang
This project is well-known enough to have had several big threads on HN:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=%22PineBook%20Pro%22%20comments%3E10&sort=byDate&type=story)

...so the project wiki page is probably too generic to make a good HN
submission. It would be better to wait for SNI (significant new information).

I wrote about this issue recently:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23071428](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23071428)

------
hagmonk
I ordered two of them (one by accident, LOL) two months ago. Haven’t heard
anything since. No order updates. Emails to their sales team have gone
unanswered. Not sure if my case is typical but that might have been $450 I
never see again …

~~~
ndsipa_pomu
I got mine in the UK a while ago and it did take a while to arrive, but I'm
sure you'll be fine and get yours soon.

Got mine running Manjaro XFCE (installed on internal storage) and it's great.
The screen is really nice.

~~~
AsyncAwait
Is it running the mainline/current stable kernel or is it something with out
of tree patches that's behind?

~~~
stonogo
The latter, but they're actively trying to get those patches upstreamed, which
is more than most arm vendors do.

~~~
AsyncAwait
That's awesome. I've ordered the PinePhone and I know that's already mainline,
so I trust them more than most other vendors to keep their word.

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fmajid
It's worth mentioning they should be fully supported in OpenBSD 6.7, which
came out this week. I haven't tried converting mine yet, but it's good to have
options.

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xondono
Anyone with one can comment on performance?

Because the pro made me think “enough to be a dev machine” but the price
suggests otherwise.

~~~
clarry
Whether ~$50-$100 ARM SBCs are powerful enough to make a dev machine for you
depend on a lot of things. I wouldn't want one for my day job, but these would
be sufficient for nearly all the coding I do on my free time.

It's in the same ballpark with Raspberry Pi 4. A bit more powerful.

~~~
karatestomp
Things that make an Rpi4 + 4GB memory unsuitable as a development machine:
needing to use more than one webshit thing at a time (heavier versions of
gmail, Jira, Asana, Slack), needing to use a heavy Java IDE, or needing to run
more than one or two very small VMs locally. If you _do_ need those things but
can offload them to remote VMs with X forwarding or VNC or whatever, then
they're still fine.

A Pi4 is downright _spacious_ and plenty capable if you can avoid that junk.
Which are also the same things making old 4GB laptops "too slow" for modern
development, and even 8GB machines feel cramped.

~~~
NikolaeVarius
Answer is don't load those.

I use a Jetson nano with 4gb RAM. Vim and Firefox has been fine for writing go
and python.

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andrew_eu
I ordered one of these just a few days ago after months of being on the fence.
Very excited for it to come, though from friends' experiences (and it appears
many people in this thread) I expect a tantalizing wait.

------
anonymfus
_> Only use one power input at a time, barrel jack OR USB-C_

This looks very problematic as user may not expect or not know if the device
they connect to USB-C will provide power or not.

