[Freedombox-discuss] [Arm-netbook] Single-Core Cortex A9 1ghz, ECC DDR3 RAM available soon

[Gordan Bobic]

 On Thu, 18 Aug 2011 12:33:58 +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton 
 <lkcl at lkcl.net> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 11:07 AM, Tim Small <tim at seoss.co.uk> wrote:
>> On 17/08/11 15:00, Gordan Bobic wrote:
>>> Marvell is pretty good. Whether that is through Marvell's 
>>> contribution
>>> or not I don't know, but in terms of what the end user gets to work
>>> with, it's seldom matched and hard to beat.
>>
>> They are definitely better than some, but OTOH, they don't appear to
>> release any technical documentation at all without going through a
>> stupid NDA process, and I would summarise my recent dealings Marvell
>> regarding their AHCI SATA controllers like this:
>>
>> me> Your hardware doesn't seem to work under these reproducible
>> circumstances
>>
>> marvell> You must be doing something wrong
>>
>> me> Here's a load more evidence
>>
>> marvell> [silence]
>>
>> me> Hello?
>>
>> libata maintainer> Is this broken or what, because it looks broken?
>> Should we disable this functionality on your controllers?
>>
>> marvell> [silence]
>>
>>
>> They also only seem to release errata info very quietly and only 
>> under NDA.
>
>  interesting.
>
>  so.
>
>  with that in mind, why has the marvell CPU been chosen as the
> "flagship product" for the freedombox foundation to honour its
> obligations to its kickstarter sponsors?
>
>  so i'll ask again: with for example freescale's long-standing
> honourable respect of the GPL, community-driven efforts based around
> the MX53QSB, and the reasonable price _and_ the offer of discount
> vouchers (which steve mentioned, which is what fired off this thread
> in the first place), why has the MX53QSB not been chosen as the board
> for the freedombox foundation to honour its obligations to its
> kickstarter sponsors?

 Another thing worth considering is the cost. SheevaPlugs go for about 
 $99, and they don't require anything else to be functional - just plug 
 in and go. The Freescale boards you mention cost 50% more (without the 
 discount), and still require a PSU and some kind of a box to put them 
 into. That gives a total cost of about double what you'll pay for a 
 SheevaPlug.

 Gordan