[fedora-arm] Any inexpensive ARM tablet w unlocked bootloader known to work?

[Fernando Cassia]

Hi there,

The market is flooded with $100 or less ARM based tablets (usually
7"), but finding one with unlocked bootloader is a quest....

So any brand/model I should know about?

I was about to buy an ages-old HP touchpad just because I read in the
forums that dual booting android/linux was possible, yet the thought
of just 1GB ram makes me feel uncomfortable, as I know today's Chrome
browser can easily eat up 1GB all by itself.....

And brand name ones (eg Samsung) are way out of my current budget.

I know there must be a niche player somewhere in Shenzen pumping out
ARM tablets with unlocked bootloader....

Any leads/ideas? thanks in advance...

FC

--
During times of Universal Deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary
act
Durante épocas de Engaño Universal, decir la verdad se convierte en un Acto
Revolucionario
- George Orwell
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[Peter Robinson]

Post by Fernando Cassia
Hi there,
The market is flooded with $100 or less ARM based tablets (usually
7"), but finding one with unlocked bootloader is a quest....
So any brand/model I should know about?

There's a bunch of AllWinner tablets that are unlocked that should
work. I say should because with all the cheap tablets it's a constant
moving target because they'll change screens, touch interfaces, sound
codecs and wireless chips so it's a tail chasing process and we really
don't have the resources, both financial to buy all of the various
revs and human to work out the changes, write the bits needed, and
test it all, so it's not really a market we chase. I think this is
felt similar by other traditional Linux distros as well as other more
focused on that market such as LineageOS and their similar level of
support for such devices.

Post by Fernando Cassia
I was about to buy an ages-old HP touchpad just because I read in the
forums that dual booting android/linux was possible, yet the thought
of just 1GB ram makes me feel uncomfortable, as I know today's Chrome
browser can easily eat up 1GB all by itself.....

I'm not aware of a cheap tablet that offers over a gig of RAM that we support.

Post by Fernando Cassia
And brand name ones (eg Samsung) are way out of my current budget.
I know there must be a niche player somewhere in Shenzen pumping out
ARM tablets with unlocked bootloader....

All of the AllWinner tablets are in this category but see issues
above, if there's tablets based on the Rockchips 32xx SoC they might
be an option but I'm not aware of any. There's a handful of AllWinner
reference devices (they appear on the market in many iterations but
have the issues mentioned above) that we have enabled and have has
reports of levels of success but you'll likely need to roll your
sleeves up and deal with kernel stuff to get the last mile.

Post by Fernando Cassia
Any leads/ideas? thanks in advance...

Honestly not really, it's not an area we focus on, not because it's
not attractive but with limited resources we need to focus on best
bang for buck (whether that be project/company/personal) in terms of
usage and that is currently the SBC/IoT/Server/Embedded style device
and to a lesser extent Chromebooks/Laptops as that where the
users/contributors are interested.

P

Post by Fernando Cassia
FC
--
During times of Universal Deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary
act
Durante épocas de Engaño Universal, decir la verdad se convierte en un Acto
Revolucionario
- George Orwell
_______________________________________________

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[Fernando Cassia]

Post by Peter Robinson
There's a bunch of AllWinner tablets that are unlocked that should
work. I say should because with all the cheap tablets it's a constant moving target

Thanks Peter, I will keep an eye for Allwinner SOC based tablets and
see what I can find.

It puzzles me to see high end quad core and octa core SOCs, shipped w
2GB and 3GB of RAM but only as "tv boxes", yet no one seems to bother
to install those SOCs on a tablet form factor. Puzzling,indeed.

Most of those use AmLogic SOCs... eg
http://www.ebay.com/itm/XGODY-DDR4-Android-7-1-Octa-Core-S912-TV-BOX-2-16GB-17-0-Fully-Loaded-3D-Sports/332167202797

Linux kernrl seems to ne available...
https://github.com/LibreELEC/linux-amlogic

Why no one seems to be making tablets based on this SOC is beyond me.
I can only think of thermal issues and power consumption...

Oh well...
FC
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