Interestingly, their pictures are of existing Allwinner based Android products that are available for purchase now from any number of sources, and that there are plenty of documentation on getting Linux running for.
So making a good Linux distribution seems to be what this project is for. It's very unclear what they're actually offering - it seems that any donations will go towards work on a very limited set of missing functionality for existing Linux ports for these devices.
Personally I found the page very misleading.
EDIT: Here's details on Linux on the MiniPC they show:
I'm sorry if you find anything misleading. We try to be as accurate as possible without making the page too dry for non-technical folks. For example we list the features of the Allwinner processor as our work will be portable to many devices beyond what we sell. This lead to confusion were people were saying "I wont buy it, it has a resistive touch screen". The devices have capacitive touch screens and the chip has a built in resistive controller, but we are not using it. Our attempt to show the technical merits of the A10 confused many and so we must be careful how in depth we go. I'm happy to accept feedback about points we need to clarify.
I think this most important work will be doing is to setup and maintain repositories of available packages for the A10 and tablet based improvements. Also we also providing device preloaded and maintaining images for people who don't have time, or don't yet have the skills but would like to run GNU/Linux on their device.
I realize you can buy these devices at cut rates directly from China. Since we have to flash and test these in the USA, we have to pay livable wages to our staff. I realize its not great for the bottom line. It allows us to ship with the latest work we have completed without delaying the production run. This will help to avoid running into Chinese new year and a long production delay.
"By using crowd funding to consolidate the orders we will be able to achieve the prices listed in the rewards and upgrades to the hardware become possible."
Then why is the PengStick/Mini MK802 twice the price of Amazon?
If they're actually planning on specific improvements of the Linux distro, I might be willing to pay extra for it... But, yeah, it does seem like they're at the very least not doing anything at all to prevent confusion over what this is about.
Things move fast in China, when we started planning this project the cost was based on a bulk order. In the 6 weeks or so since the retail prices have come much closer the wholesale price. This is typical of Chinese goods once they are available long enough.
So the order quantity is not as important now but we still need the bulk to provide enough funds for the software work.
You're addressing the wrong issue: The price is not the problem. The extremely misleading page is.
And with regard to price: I bought one of the tablets you list from Amazon in the UK for less than your stated price many months ago. A single one, via a UK reseller.
Maybe it would help if they pitched this similarly to http://www.emperorlinux.com/ - taking other people's hardware, making sure it works well with linux, and selling an out-of-the-box linux experience.
Comments
Interestingly, their pictures are of existing Allwinner based Android products that are available for purchase now from any number of sources, and that there are plenty of documentation on getting Linux running for.
So making a good Linux distribution seems to be what this project is for. It's very unclear what they're actually offering - it seems that any donations will go towards work on a very limited set of missing functionality for existing Linux ports for these devices.
Personally I found the page very misleading.
EDIT: Here's details on Linux on the MiniPC they show:
https://www.miniand.com/forums/forums/2/topics/1
And here's details on Linux on one of the LY-F1 tablet models they show pictures of:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyVarHgHMWg
I'm sorry if you find anything misleading. We try to be as accurate as possible without making the page too dry for non-technical folks. For example we list the features of the Allwinner processor as our work will be portable to many devices beyond what we sell. This lead to confusion were people were saying "I wont buy it, it has a resistive touch screen". The devices have capacitive touch screens and the chip has a built in resistive controller, but we are not using it. Our attempt to show the technical merits of the A10 confused many and so we must be careful how in depth we go. I'm happy to accept feedback about points we need to clarify.
I think this most important work will be doing is to setup and maintain repositories of available packages for the A10 and tablet based improvements. Also we also providing device preloaded and maintaining images for people who don't have time, or don't yet have the skills but would like to run GNU/Linux on their device.
I realize you can buy these devices at cut rates directly from China. Since we have to flash and test these in the USA, we have to pay livable wages to our staff. I realize its not great for the bottom line. It allows us to ship with the latest work we have completed without delaying the production run. This will help to avoid running into Chinese new year and a long production delay.
Seems fairly close to a scam to me.
"By using crowd funding to consolidate the orders we will be able to achieve the prices listed in the rewards and upgrades to the hardware become possible."
Then why is the PengStick/Mini MK802 twice the price of Amazon?
If they're actually planning on specific improvements of the Linux distro, I might be willing to pay extra for it... But, yeah, it does seem like they're at the very least not doing anything at all to prevent confusion over what this is about.
Things move fast in China, when we started planning this project the cost was based on a bulk order. In the 6 weeks or so since the retail prices have come much closer the wholesale price. This is typical of Chinese goods once they are available long enough.
So the order quantity is not as important now but we still need the bulk to provide enough funds for the software work.
You're addressing the wrong issue: The price is not the problem. The extremely misleading page is.
And with regard to price: I bought one of the tablets you list from Amazon in the UK for less than your stated price many months ago. A single one, via a UK reseller.
Maybe it would help if they pitched this similarly to http://www.emperorlinux.com/ - taking other people's hardware, making sure it works well with linux, and selling an out-of-the-box linux experience.