The Efika MXDE 2.0 was basically a bare-board model of the Efika Open Client, geared for developer use. It was based on the production prototype ("ER1") and was verified to a certain level of quality assurance for operation with Linux. Wire fixes were added to solve certain problems where necessary and for this reason it was VERY developer-oriented.
However, late in the stage of development (after it had passed initial verification), we found that certain features did not work as well when pushed for performance.. Parallel ATA needed a heavy hardware fix, sometimes caused random corruption, and some features on the board were otherwise unreliable in operation (VGA for example) and did not give the performance or features we initially envisioned. Fixing these problems would require far more than simple wire fixes.
We also decided that shipping developers one version of the board and "consumers" another version of the board was not fair on the developers who may have to deal with several problems which would impact development of their solutions, which would in turn affect consumer usage of the design.
You might notice we didn't ship too many of them for the above reasons! We apologize to everyone who is still waiting for a system but we really do want to give everybody the BEST POSSIBLE solution with as few problems as possible. It is for this reason alone that we postponed shipment. We do appreciate your support and your patience :)
Anyone who did not receive their board yet, will now receive an Efika MXDE 3.0 - this is a PCB fixed version of ER1 (no wire fixes required) inside the same case as the Open Client and will ship just before the Open Client ships. That is a $50 extra value for the price you already paid. Everyone who already received a 2.0 board will receive a 3.0 system too.
- The hardware difference between the MXOC and MXDE is a bundled JTAG & UART dongle with the developer board. They are the same price, same board.
- The software difference is that the MXDE has a developer environment installed and the MXOC has a desktop environment installed. Both of them are Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala Beta) but to fit the distribution on the board we had to cull a few "useless" features for the developer edition, while still giving all the tools (build-essential, debugger etc.) and ample space for development (we do not envision many people using Brasero CD burner anyway..)
- The VGA port has been dropped - we will only provide HDMI in future models. While this means developers with no digital monitor are going to have to buy a new monitor, these are very affordable these days (<$100).
- HDMI - in contrast to the VGA solution - will allow 1920x1080@30Hz (1080i) operation where the VGA support would only run at "WXGA" which is tantamount to 1024x768 or 1366x768. We deemed this too low resolution and too few displays could be supported.
- The Efika MX Open Client and Efika MX Developer Edition no longer come with Bluetooth but it is an easily installable additional module. We can provide this in special circumstances but otherwise it may be on the store as an additional product. Considering a USB Bluetooth Dongle can cost little more than $10 we do not feel that it is useful to provide this module when most people would not use it, although the internal module has the benefit of integrated coexistence signalling for better radio performance. Wireless 802.11n is still standard.
- Due to the extra development the Efika MXDE will come with a first version of the Aura firmware rather than alternative open-source boot solutions. This means developers and consumers get a better experience out of the box.
