Recent events have rocked the mobile computing world to its core. OpenBSD retired the zaurus port, leaving users in desperate need of a new device. And not long before that, Microsoft released the Anniversary Update to Windows 10, but increased the free space requirement needed to install the update to exceed what’s possible on devices with only 32GB, leaving users with cheap 32GB eMMC equipped devices such as the HP Stream series searching for a new operating system. With necessity as both mother and father, the scene is set for a truly epic pairing. OpenBSD on the HP Stream 7.
The HP Stream line is a series of budget computers in a couple form factors. The Stream 11 is a fairly typical netbook. However, the Stream 7 and 8 are tablets. They look like cheap Android devices, but inside the case, they’re real boys, er PCs, with Intel Atom CPUs.
To install OpenBSD on such a device, we need a few parts.
It’s the Open Pandora, since 2011.
The new model will be called the Pyra. 2X 1.5GHz Cortex-A15, 4G/LTE/GPS, 3 SD slots.
I think what the article meant was, a handheld touch screen device that runs OpenBSD, not just another RISC portable. There has been little to no interest in the OpenBSD community for the Open Pandora and its successor, due to firmware blobs necessary for booting it (the same issue that hinders an OpenBSD port for the immensely popular Raspberry Pi, though that is changing with Broadcom slowly opening up the platform). If you aren’t familiar with them, the OpenBSD folks are hardcore against any firmware blobs and will aggressively reject any hardware without fully open specifications. For example, booting with an Nvidia card under OpenBSD is not only not accelerated, it’s like having a CGA card from 1982.
That said, I believe just a few months ago the armv7 port of OpenBSD finally gained a generic but working boot loader, so there is some progress being made. Still, the author’s point was that the Stream 7 is a highly accessible quad core x86 touch screen device that is ripe for some OpenBSD hacking right now. I agree, having owned one until recently and playing around with various OSes on it.
And just so you know, I’m not frowning upon your enthusiasm for the Pandora, I think it’s one of the greatest portable hardware projects of the past 10 years, and if not for the exorbitant price tag I would already own one or two of them.
You don’t need any blob to boot the Pandora.
Also, you can have them starting at 180€, which is a low price considering the quality of the device.
Not to mention that the second-hand market is active on their forums.
I’m wary of buying a used Pandora, only because I’ve been burned in the past with used obscure hardware. I’d rather have a 100% chance of obtaining the real thing. I may actually save up for the Pyra and by the time it’s released I’ll have enough to get it; I’d run Linux on it and deal with proprietary graphics as I do now with my Nvidia card and with Raspberry Pis.
Hell, if it’s decent enough I may even carry it instead of my iPhone, assuming one can do voice and SMS on the modem it includes.
Luckily core stability has been restored.
(I am guessing you could have just installed the anniversary update anyway, or used an SD-Card if you had storage-issues)
That’s what you get for guessing. The update is, literally, too big to be installed at least to the default Windows that comes on these tiny machines. Understand that you only have about 4 gb free, what with all the shit that HP puts on there. You might, and I do mean might, be able to work around this by using a clean Windows install with just the necessary drivers. But if you’re going to have to reinstall the os anyway, why not at least be adventurous if that’s what’s on your mind?
That said, anyone who buys a device with only 32 gb and expects to have any sort of experience with Windows (one of the largest operating systems currently available) is an idiot. And, on top of that, OEMs are idiots for selling these with anything less than 64 gb at minimum.
Type “how to install anniversary update on 16GB tablet” and you’ll see its a grand total of 4 steps and requires nothing more than an SD card in the device…big whoop.
I think Win 10 is a POS just as much as the next guy but slinging FUD helps nobody, especially when it can be disproved with 10 seconds on Google.
I made this point on the HN post about this article. With my Stream 7 I accepted the update to 10 in 8.1, then rebooted with a USB OTG –> USB hub –> flash drive with Win10 installer and keyboard/mouse connected to the microUSB port. It installed perfectly fine, and when I rebooted into 10 I actually had more free space than I did in 8.1 (likely due to the hidden restore partition being nuked during install, which is no longer unnecessary with 10’s excellent recovery options).
Windows 10 ended up being a bit slower and buggier on it, but after a few updates the bugs started going away. I ended up giving it away as I didn’t need it and the novelty wore off after a while.
Edited 2016-09-14 00:08 UTC
We’ve got a Lenovo stick lying around at home with the same problem; even on a clean windows 10 it just pretended there were no updates available (because there wasn’t enough space to do the update). It seems to be a side effect of how MS bundles updates together; updating in several smaller stages would have worked fine.
Generally speaking, quietly dropping support (and even security updates) in a way that normal users won’t even notice on a fairly recent still-for-sale device that was within the minimum requirements when launched doesn’t seem great. Sure, it’s possible to make it work (we installed a single-language windows 10 instead of the multi-language version it came with; that freed up enough space to update it) … but that’s kind of beside the point.
Edited 2016-09-14 09:46 UTC
How small was that Lenovo stick? 16 GB?
Microsoft has 2 kinds of updates now within a branch (update) and a new branch (upgrade). So far there are 3 branches: 1507 (10240), 1511 (10586) and 1607 (14393). Every branch just received security updates yesterday and is basically just as big as the previous one (8 GB for a clean install) so if you are already running 1507 or 1511 you should still be entirely up2date with security issues provided in nice small, cumulative packages (about 500 MB in total).
If you are very tight in storage (< 10 GB free space) and still want to upgrade to a newer branch for more features you can just insert/attach and SD-Card or USB-Stick and Windows will use that automatically as free space
(repost from a previous answer)
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows…
It’s not so easy. I had to do it. We’re talking about HP, you do realize. Have you ever had to deal with everything they load on their cheap machines?
I bought mine direct from Microsoft as a “Signature” device, just so I didn’t have to deal with that crap. The price is the same, so if you consciously chose the crapware-ridden version there’s no help for you.
Yes, and I developed an almost perfect procedure for it:
Step 1: Export drivers (dism /online /export-driver /destination:Z:\HP-Driver)
Step 2: Restart from the lastest Windows USB/DVD and start a commandprompt with Shift+F10
Step 3: Make a backup (dism /append-image /imagefile:Z:\UselessBackups.wim /capturedir:c:\ /name:Yet_Another_Messy_HP)
Step 4: Wipe the disk (diskpart, select disk 0, clean, create partitions depending on UEFI/BIOS)
Step 5: “Install Windows” (dism /apply-image /imagefile:Z:\sources\install.wim /index:1 /targetpath:c:\)
Step 6: Make Windows bootable (bcdboot c:\windows)
Step 7: Import drivers (dism /image:c:\ /add-driver /driver:z:\HP-Driver /recurse)
Feel free to use it. These are just the basics but that already works extremely well. For myself or my company I perform dozens of extra tweaks, but if a friend bought a non-signature device with crapware this would make him happy in about 30 minutes instead of wasting a day like I used to do in the XP-era.
Windows is 4 GB as a .wim and 8 GB unpacked. 25% less for the 32bit version. 32 GB isn’t a lot but is workable, especially with an SD-Card. I would say it is comparable with a 16 GB iPhone/iPad but you pay next to nothing for this device.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows…
Edited 2016-09-14 10:09 UTC