[ocdtrekkie]

Got my Pinebook Pro preorder in. Will order a PinePhone when it opens as well. Using both as a way to test the waters of using Linux as my daily "consumer PC" replacement, since the price makes it fairly painless to do so.

[cartoonworld]

Don't forget about the open source community designed PineTime! (est price: $25)

They are also developing an open source tablet, PineTab. They already have several full lines of SBC Raspberry Pi killers as well. Several are designated LTS Long Term Support with guaranteed availability (See offer for details, restrictions apply, Pine64 can not be held responsible for any sweet hacks or enjoyable Sundays caused by its devices. Hack Responsibly.)

[hobo_mark]

However, from what I can see [1] there is just some prototype hardware and some datasheets, is there an SDK somewhere? Or at least a toolchain?

[1] https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PineTime

[bluGill]

No, your job is to write the SDK. Eventually someone will write one and then you can go to the next level.

Note that they have carefully looked for the type of people who will write a sdk for it, and ensured they have a pinetime. Thus in a few months/years I expect to see a couple different SDKs come out. Once there is a useful SDK with a useful app ready for release they will start selling hardware to anyone with it. Until then they will only make the pinetime hardware available to the type of person who is likely to take what currently exists and move it up a level. (note that the first set of hardware has shipped, they might or might not make a second round for more developers)

[cartoonworld]

This thing is slated for possible production in Q1 2020. In the mean time, they are seriously considering producing their pre-production devkits for general availability in the Pine store, as they are rather easy to produce. If you are interested, send them a message. There is more details about PineTime in the latest update: https://www.pine64.org/2019/11/05/brave-heart-edition-pineph...

Also the wiki at the bottom lists the SoC Datasheet, specs, schematics, etc. You might be able to find a similar platform (nrf2840) on alibaba or something. I'll bet the PineTime people can tell you on IRC or Slack.

[ocdtrekkie]

Oh, I definitely haven't forgotten PineTime. I'm wearing a Fitbit Ionic right now, and I've basically committing to never intentionally giving Google my data, so a change of wristwear is now assured in the near future.

[52-6F-62]

I hadn't even heard of the PineTime. I'm really intrigued...

[cartoonworld]

Get involved if you have the time :)

PineTime is a community project and its hardware will be produced and sold by Pine64. The Pine People are gaining some great experience in this space, it is truly a pleasure to join in!

[teekert]

A bit unfair since your win10 counterpart was probably not an ARM processor, so keep that in mind :)

[ocdtrekkie]

I'm far less worried about raw performance, as I am in the workflow and software availability in general. I need to see if I can take out a Linux machine where I would take a Windows machine, and not go "darn, I can't do what I need to because I'm not running Windows". (And if I hit "darn, I can't do what I need to because I have an ARM chip", that's not a knock on Linux as an option.)

I can always get a more powerful Linux machine at another time. ;)

[type0]

> (And if I hit "darn, I can't do what I need to because I have an ARM chip", that's not a knock on Linux as an option.)

Some binaries might not be available depending on what you do or what distro you use, but generally you could always compile the software yourself, it could take a while so as long as you are not in a hurry.

[btschaegg]

This. The fact that very few extensible editors came prebuilt with Arch for my Chromebooks a couple of years ago was the reason I picked up Vim, for example.

Though this probably is less of a problem now if you like VS Code.