PocketBeagle – A $25 open-source USB-key-fob computer

Re:PocketBeagle – A $25 open-source USB-key-fob computer by Animats on Thursday September 21, 2017 @02:19PM (#15306080)

Looking more closely, is that thing for real? It started as a Kickstarter. The site says "Note: PINEBOOK next shipment date will be on August 25th, 2017. Ship from Hong Kong." and "We will fulfill the BTO queue based on first come first served basis and starting on 28 March 2017. Our sales team will email when it is your turn in the queue." Not good, considering they announced in 2015. Is there a real product like this, as in "you order it and it shows up without any nonsense?"

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Re:PocketBeagle – A $25 open-source USB-key-fob computer by khedoros1 on Thursday September 21, 2017 @06:11PM (#15307795)

The Pine A64 board was a 2015 Kickstarter. The Pinebook was announced November 2016, and apparently starting shipping last April. The "you order it" step sounds a little convoluted, though. You sign up to their waiting list, and when they've got a production slot for you, they ask for Paypal information, your address, etc. You'll apparently receive the device a short time after the production date.

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Re:PocketBeagle – A $25 open-source USB-key-fob computer by iancarroll on Thursday September 21, 2017 @02:51PM (#15306330)

I ordered a PINE64 and IoT stamp on June 10th and received it on June 24th. YMMV, but they seem fine.

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Re:PocketBeagle – A $25 open-source USB-key-fob computer by Animats on Thursday September 21, 2017 @04:08PM (#15306902)

That's just a board. Anybody can get boards made easily. What about the laptop?

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Re:PocketBeagle – A $25 open-source USB-key-fob computer by mkroman on Friday September 22, 2017 @02:28AM (#15309838)

I own the 14" Pinebook. I don't recommend it. Almost all of the distribution images with support for the device is done by a single guy[1], and the keyboard is terrible at registering key presses. This is a known issue[2], but there's no support or warranty on the device so if you buy it before it's fixed, you're out of luck.

Besides that, the quality and the feel of the device is pretty nice.

I bought it because I figured it'd be a decent netbook to break out when there's a network issue or that I could use it for IRC or programming while traveling. Instead it's just collecting dust.

[1] https://github.com/ayufan-pine64 [2] https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=4729

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Re:PocketBeagle – A $25 open-source USB-key-fob computer by prophesi on Friday September 22, 2017 @03:52PM (#15315220)

11.6" Pinebook owner here. This version doesn't have the keyboard issue, but they've had trouble sourcing the screens, so it can take ages before the 11.6'' is produced and shipped. I was lucky to order it not long after it was announced.

And yeah, it's mainly Ayufan busting his butt with all of the pinebook distros, with a little help from two or three others. But he's pretty much hammered out all the issues that Ubuntu had upon the pinebook's initial release, and he's active on the Pine64 IRC if you ever run into any issues.

I run xenial ubuntu with i3wm, and it's fine for on-the-go programming. I've been using it to learn Common Lisp at coffee shops. Don't bother if you're a React/Angular/Vue etc developer; the build tools will take too long for it to be productive. I'm not even sure if it can handle ruby sass, for scss scripts.

So yeah, it's great if you want to tinker with a cheap ARM notebook. But not great as a daily driver, or any complicated dev work.

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Re:PocketBeagle – A $25 open-source USB-key-fob computer by iancarroll on Thursday September 21, 2017 @08:06PM (#15308351)

From what I have read they have a very slow queue so I don’t imagine they’re over committing.

And frankly the rest of the laptop is not very complicated.

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