Too Long; Don't Read (or, the story so far)

I early-adopted an Acer AspireOne, got ticked at Firefox/Linpus/SSD/slow and replaced it with a Lenovo S10 running WinXP. Then my brother needed a computer at the same moment that I developed a crush on a friend's Dell Vostro A90. Sent the S10 to my brother, replaced it with an Ubuntu A90, put CrunchBang Linux on it, and that's what I've been using since.

I've learnt (prepare for a shock) that inexpensive netbooks are not built for durability. That fact is juxtaposed against the Atom chipset, whose greatest feature (really) is the way that it forces a user to stop thinking about the cutting edge. Once you're behind the curve and choose to embrace your situation, you're suddenly free to consider all the things your hardware CAN do, instead of constantly suffering through all the things it almost CAN'T do.

I think it's too bad that my A90 probably won't last for 10 years. It's already beginning to have some physical problems from age, at less than 3-years old. Since I don't have the kind of time each day I devoted to my Apple IIgs when I was 8, I feel like this machine and I are still at the beginning of what will likely be a short-lived relationship. This will not do.

My initial idea was to use prior experience as a machinist and toolmaker to build a portable personal computer based on commodity x86 electronics (one of the smaller ITX variants maybe?), probably to run a minimal Linux like DSL, or something homebuilt like a back-yard Stali. My part would be constructing the housing in such a way that it would deliver superior durability and serviceability while being a pleasure to have and use.

After working on that approach for a while I learned about TI's ARMed BeagleBoard because people from OpenPandora were using them as dev kits. As long as you don't mind depending on a proprietary SoC built on a proprietary architecture, the rest of that system is very open, to the point where you can have a BeagleBoard built by whoever you please. That seemed like a step in the right direction...

Buuuut, after I'd waited several months longer than I wanted to get my Pandora (they're still hanging tough and I may yet decide to get one), I cancelled my order and bought a Ben Nanonote instead. Had a bunch of fun messing around with it, playing with binary-compatible Dingoo software, etc. The Qi Hardware crowd is very committed to openness, even moreso than TI (surprise surprise), and I started wondering if the OpenWRT/MIPS-based Nanonote platform might be an even better fit.

To be continued...