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Maybe this is the wall-wart killer.

(1) Probably not. The plugs generally don't have video, and are intended more for server-type work. They also have more CPU power, RAM, and flash than this thing.

(2) IMHO, plug computing has already been killed. Marvell did a bad job of promoting the concept, never identified a "killer application" or market niche, and partnered with a really awful contract manufacturer to build development kits.

Maybe this is the wall-wart killer.

"Even more important, the Pine Trail platform will have a seven-Watt TDP and require an average of just two Watts"

That's after the improvements on an upcoming chip release. The article goes on the say the setup will cost more for Intel to produce. Good luck to them though, I'm still rooting for the race to the greatest performance out of milliwatts.

I was curious about one of the prototypes listed, so I searched for it. One of the pictures, for example, shows what seems an okay sized keyboard displayed on a touch-sensitive screen, but one wonders how it would feel to actually have to type very much on it. One of the reasons I've been waiting for prices to drop on the Asus EEE PC 1000HE Netbook is that I wanted a small-form laptop with quite long battery life which also offered a keyboard large enough to allow a decent amount of typing before my fingers would suddenly thrash around and reach for my throat.

I do like the idea behind these "smartbooks", especially with Linux distributions, but just how small is it possible to make keyboards (virtual or real) on what looks like a small laptop before people will simply balk at them (sometimes without quite knowing why)?

How has this worked for other common ultra-portable devices with semi-full keysets that haven't been explicitly marketed as "smartbooks/netbooks/notebooks"?

Who needs 20A?

Not me, that's who!

Who needs 20A?

Not me, that's who!

android has already been hacked onto non-google hardware using a variety of linux distros including poky, angstrom and ubuntu.

the news first broke in January at linuxdevices

The iPhone is the desktop PC market now?

Those "1%!" statistics were worth anything?

Maybe you want to take a look at these.

But definitely don't look into any of the millions of embedded linux devices. What a fucktard...I hope you were paid for that post.

So VIA has a reason to optimize for power consumption. They are not that far from 15 watt even with the top models. A table I found on http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS5394618593.html, May 2008:

VIA Nano L2100 1.8GHz 800MHz 25.5W
VIA Nano L2200 1.6GHz 800MHz 17W
VIA Nano U2400 1.3GHz 800MHz 8W
VIA Nano U2500 1.2GHz 800MHz 6.8W
VIA Nano U2300 1.0GHz 800MHz 5W

With the next shrink, at least the 1.6 GHz model should make the limit. And with the above table being a year old, maybe it will even happen before Windows 7 gets released.

Even the copyright on GPL-licensed content? Ooopsie...

While I'm not the original poster, allow me to express that I personally support neither commercial, RIAA style copyright nor the EFF's GPL copyright. I believe that no author ought to have control over what happens to information once it has become publicly available — be it to exact profit, or to attempt to lock people into certain ideological publishing models.

I submit that censorship is wrong, even when the EFF perpetrates it; and I call upon as many /.ers as will follow me to commit to opposing censorship and copyright in every form.

... kindly fuck off.

Wow! If that's not an insightful response, I don't know, what would be!

Copyright is an amoral law that concentrates power over culture into the hands of profiteering publishers.

Even the copyright on GPL-licensed content? Ooopsie...

I imagine it wouldn't take too much tinkering to lop off the AC power supply
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2356496718.html gives us a picture, it seems the PSU is a seperate part (under a metal cover) connected via a 4 pin connector.

The schematic ( http://www.plugcomputer.org/data/docs/sch/Sheeva-final%20Schematic.pdf page 5 ) tells us the connectors pinout, that it is a 5V, 3A supply, and that it's designator is J3.

Unfortunatley the bill of materials ( http://www.plugcomputer.org/data/docs/sch/SHEEVA_V6.0_BOM.xls ) does not give us a part number but i'm pretty sure it's a type i've seen before and I could probablly find it in a parts catalog if I had the connector in front of me and the inclination to find it. Alternatively you could just cut the wires.

and wire it to run off 12V DC.
BTW if using electronics in a vehicle make sure you use a power supply designed for vehicle use. While vehicle power is nominally 12V it has a wide voltage range and is often very dirty.

Hook up an external hard-drive or NAS and one of those USB displays http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9676037801.html to create something like this: http://technewsline.net/displaylink-for-linux-turns-a-humble-wireless-router-into-a-beautiful-pc/. I'd build myself a nice BitTorrent client for which I don't have to leave my computer on all the time. Other than that I'd use those as fileservers and for routing/processing duties. Any bets on when the first Beowulf wall cluster will emerge?

It's an interesting point you make.
Currently it's worth avoiding netbooks that have the following hardware:

1. Intel GMA500 aka Poulsbo graphics chipsets. There is no FOSS driver for these. That's because there's a PowerVR core in them. The Fedora Project's Adam Williamson seems to have found some partial drivers hidden away in a quiet little Ubuntu repository where they were dumped by the Intel team. But success seems partial. So for now avoid anything with GMA500.

2. Broadcom wireless. Again avoid these Broadcom 4322 like the fscking plague. Dan Williams (again a Red Hat / Fedora person) has a fairly scathing take on them based on his experiences of trying to get suspend/resume and wireless to work consistently.

3. Elantech touchpads. Bastien Nocera (what is it with all those Red Hat people, don't they like closed-source binary drivers?) may have had some success at wringing some code out of Ubuntu and Intel people to share with the rest of us, but it still seems uncertain.

4. CPU. The Intel Z-series draw less power than the N-series apparently.

5. RAM expansion. Lots of the netbooks have a single, soldered slot. So if you like being stuck with 1GB of RAM while you try to run OpenOffice.org-3 then go ahead, have fun.

So, the bottom line is that the Dell Mini 10v might be OK as regards the graphics (it's GMA950) which in turn means that it doesn't do HDMI and has an unfortunately lower vertical resolution than the Mini10v, but the wireless sucks and the touchpad probably sucks, the RAM is fixed too low.

Looking at the HP Mini 1000s its difficult to tell what wireless they use. Graphics are GMA950 unlike the older HP2133 which used Chrome9 graphics chipsets for which VIA has failed to release FOSS drivers.

Seems like a lot of the netbook producers (even those such as Intel, Dell and Ubuntu that pay lipservice to "Open Source") are having a hard time being honest and straightforward with us.

The following survey disagrees with your perception of Debian not having a significant presence in the embedded market: http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT7065740528.html . I suggest you back up your statement with relevant information if you wish to use it as an argument.

Also, Ulrich Drepper does not have "every right" to disregard the ARM platform as long as it is listed as a supported architecture. My request to the steering committee can be seen here: http://lists.debian.org/debian-glibc/2007/10/msg00038.html

There is a nice TED talk about Pleo. Unfortunately the thing comes with proprietary software and you can only customise it using motion profiles and sounds. I am not sure how much this has affected sales, but you can get much more hacker friendly robots from Robosavvy.com. I am still waiting for a walking robot with onboard ARM processor and Linux, actuators with hackable controllers, sensors (resolvers, accelerometer, maybe gyroscope, contact sensors). It doesn't even need to be able to pick up objects. There are several robots listed on Linuxdevices.com (even Pleo although I think Pleo OS is not based on Linux) but they are either not that powerful yet or they are somewhat expensive.
But it is certainly not easy to get your act together and do a proper design including mechanics, electronics, and software.

64-bit flash already exists, and has been around for a while.

Interview with Steve Mosher from Openmoko about current state of things (7 minute video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d8Tsvj2TdQ

Sean Moss-Pultz's presentation at openexpo (30 minute video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFuwhPXYxxI&NR=1

Head FreeSmartPhone developer, Mickey Lauer's take on things.
http://www.vanille-media.de/site/index.php/2009/04/04/back-from-switzerland/

LinuxDevices article: Openmoko: Next-gen phone bites the dust, FreeRunner lives.
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS8568412362.html

There's also the Zaurus, but that actually shipped too. There are the Nokia Internet Tablets as well.

Take a look at the LinuxDevices.com list of PDAs and mobile Linux devices that includes ebook readers, data terminals, media players, IM/SMS terminals, watches, and more that run Linux as designed or have had Linux ported to them.
 

Linux already runs on a pacemaker programmer, we are getting close:

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS6482197877.html

I as a disclaimer, I work with Red Hat on a regular basis for a major government entity. I think that the patenting of a messaging protocol - like AMQP and IBM's MQ are necessary to protect the integrity of the protocol. It helps prevent someone like Microsoft or IBM from coming in an taking over control of of an open-source project. In my opinion, it's similar to the issues that Dr. Victor Yodaiken had with the RTLinux patent.

Nokia N800.

Handheld Linux machine (the nerd's iPod). Small enough to go in a pocket. Mozilla browser. Big bright 800x480 screen. WiFi. ~$200 if you can find one.

Like the Wall Wart ? ;-)
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/24/1918217

http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS9634061300.html

Read a part of the MS EULA to your customers, without telling them which OS it applies to. At the point when MS disclaim every liability and all warranties, ask them if they would buy a car or kitchen appliance if it had a similar warranty? Only when they gasp with horror, reveal it's the MS EULA.

Ask your customers how many people have independently audited Microsoft's code and published the full results?
Ask them whether MS's code hasn't leaked out, so that its insecurities can't have been explored by untrusted parties (answer: no).
Ask them how long critical security vulnerabilities have typically lasted in Windows, especially IE, before being patched. http://secunia.com/advisories/product/11/

Ask your customers if they know how many people across how many companies have worked on the linux kernel and have verified code quality independently. http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS6925891609.html
Ask them if they know how long the average security flaw in Firefox has lasted before being fixed?

Indeed, one can purchase a few vital components (boards) and create a SDR (software defined radio) and from there, you write your own radio, as in code. Here's one http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS3911104852.html for US $85k. Too much? Try this: http://www.flex-radio.com/ where you'll find lots of options.

Quite honestly, when you look at what a SoC can achieve these days, I wonder why you would even look at an "embedded computer". See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuVwh_VrIxk for example.

I think we are getting to a point where we should starting to draw a line between PC and Embedded Device. Yes, both run Linux, and the support for say, ARM architectures is extremely good (go to http://packages.debian.org/stable/allpackages and pick one package at random, and fine one that's not available on ARM or ARMel). An embedded device is as powerful as a PC was a few years ago, and I don't really see that trend changing. I don't think anyone expects an embedded device to run as fast as a desktop computer, so the real quality is going to come from the applications that people are going to develop for them; regarless of the form factor. One example is the NIT http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS3555890464.html

What do you guys use instead of C7s then?

WYSE models, though it looks like they've done a redesign since we got ours.

This one looks closer to what we have, but our's don't have linux on them.

Today it should be a lot easier, given that they can rely on much cheaper off the shelf components and don't have to squeeze everything into minimal amounts of RAM and flash (for the first version we were working with Opera to get it running with a custom GUI in 16MB or 32MB of RAM total, and about the same amount of flash)...

Hope they make it - I want one.

From the original poster:

Imagine a visionary like Steve Jobs (by the way, enjoy your leave of absence and please come back). He goes to his team and says "I don't care what it takes, build me a computer which boots in one second".

From http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS5429881813.html:

Yet, most BIOSes available for x86 chipsets were built for the desktop market, and thus have not been optimized in this area, according to Steve Jones, General Software CTO.

When Steve Jobs is not around, leave it to Steve Jones!

here:

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS5429881813.html
http://lwn.net/Articles/299483/

Well its about damn time! It is my opinion that the reason why the Sharp Zaurus (specifically SL-5500 and onward) never had much of a following is because in order to do GUI applications on the platform you either write GPL software or you must buy a QT license from TrollTech. So, I couldn't legally write a freeware app that wasn't GPL/open sourced without a QT license even though I wasn't doing anything commercial with QT. You might ask then why didn't you use a different GUI toolkit on the Zaurus? Well because there was no such thing as an alternative cause all Linux distributions for the Zaurus used QT (Qtopia) for the GUI, all of them. Even the X server running on the Zaurus was GPL'd and written by TrollTech that had no exceptions clause.

Ever since I looked up all the license material and realized what was going on I have hated TrollTech ever since for being so damn monopolistic on the Zaurus PDAs. Either you do GPL software or you pay a license, there is no option three basically.

Now that TrollTech has been bought by Nokia and for seeing the light of day we can now add QT to the list of WxWidgets and GTK+ of GUI toolkits that are acceptable to be used by any licensed software. And hopefully we can now finally end the license bullshit TrollTech caused on mobile platforms.

http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT7751365763.html

Without knowing your exact parameters though, it's hard to debate any specific advantages.

Alternatively, you could stick with "standard" Linux (like DSL on your SBC and then run another GUI than X11 + Gnome/KDE/etc. I played five years ago with an Agenda PDA (remember those??), which was running a tiny Linux with FLTK (Fast Light ToolKit, pronounced "fulltick") on top. Developing in FLTK was very straightforward, which is probably important for your Industrial Contol application. And it is pretty portable, I ran the same applications on my Agenda PDA, a Linux Desktop or on my Windows PC.

Now you could also argue that Android on your SBC would give you a better choice of GUI-ed apps on your device like a browser and email. I guess that that's what finally will drive your decision, do you prefer "standard Linux" with all its tools, as long as they are non-GUI, or are the GUI-ed tools that come with Android the right ones for you.

NASA robot to use Linux

Go straight for consumer devices running Linux.

Yeah, I expect HP will roll right over and do whatever Microsoft demands in the netbook marketplace, they've always done that right, and never ever been disappointed by the outcome.

(well, I don't think they'll be disappointed when the compensatory award comes from the "vista ready" court case)

PS. This article suggests they nuck the trend with offering more powerful Windows netbook versions:

But, in an interesting reversal of usual practice, purchasers of the Mini MIE get 2GB of RAM, rather than the 512MB and 1GB configurations featured on Windows XP versions of the Mini 1000.

Damn, just checked and though they offer Ubuntu netbooks (which looked very nice in Currys),the Mini 1000 is not yet available with HP Linux :(

or the HP netbook instead. A little "you lost sales" works wonders in the current climate.

I saw a couple of netbooks in a local shop last week, the HP one with ubuntu impressed me and my friend more than the asus ones.

Realtime priority causes lockups if the program isn't written properly. Believe me, I've tried it out on several programs (the X server, mplayer, and others) with disastrous consequences.

What you probably want is the nice value. Giving the X server say -5 or -10 does seem to help a little. Then again, what you want is immediate response, which tuning the kernel's number of timer ticks per second (CONFIG_HZ) and turning on kernel preemption helps much more. I think both are new in kernel 2.6.x. This increases overhead and possibly risk unstability, but your perceived speed will increase.

With mplayer, back when I had the ticks per second at 100, I noticed frames would sometimes stall then skip through really fast for a split second. At higher speeds (300 or 1000) the problem disappeared.

You may be interested in: Which is better -- the preempt patch, or the low-latency patch? Both! .... Feature: Robert Love Explains Variable HZ

1.69 seconds to be exact

It already exist: http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS8417344656.html. However, their solution runs a custom RTOS for modem control and a Linux kernel for the multimedia and MMI.

It looks like Linux has got a place in the Sky

http://www.linux.com/feature/119544 (October 2007
"The Linux-based eX2 in-flight entertainment system (IFE) from Panasonic Avionics was the big winner at this year's Avion Awards, sponsored by an IFE trade group. The Best Overall IFE awards went to Emirates, Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific Airways, all running variants of eX2"

"About the awards

The World Airline Entertainment Association (WAEA), based near Washington, DC, sponsors the Avion Awards. This year's winners were chosen based on a worldwide poll of 36,000 air travelers, says Elinor Kinnier, public relations manager for WAEA. Poll-based awards were given for overall and regional excellence -- a change from prior years, when a panel of judges chose winners in a variety of specific categories as well as an overall winner."

Panasonic uses redhat as a basis of their in flight Entertainment Systems with over 3000 planes fitted with them and as you can see they have been getting better

http://www.panasonic.aero/innovation.html

Panasonic seems to be doing well, with their inflight systems as Quantas has ordered 4 more systems for airbus 380's

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS5534592156.html

Virgin have an inhouse system called RED for trans atlantic flights.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/10/mega-hands-on-virgin-americas-airbus-a320-with-red-in-flight-e/ again Linux based.

Seems like Linux is taking off all over and a commercial success story.

I wonder what the suggested number of used OSs is when comparing the 2..

If what they've done for the iPhone is [to get] a Java ME runtime running on the iPhone

Opera Mini has already been ported to non-Java version(s), stated by haavard here, referring to a Opera press release from as far back as 2007. Gruber speculates that it's because a JavaScript intepreter would clearly break with the SDK Agreement, however as seen in this interview, Opera Mini doesn't have to interpret JavaScript at all, nor render web pages - this can all be done on the servers.

$100 Linux based MIPS laptops are much better but don't have the CPU power of the others. That is the $100 laptop I might buy.

Ubuntu is bloated and doesn't support ARM

Au contraire:

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2097004728.html

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MobileAndEmbedded/ARM-EL-port

"they" in the sense of the big guys, aren't likely to do so anytime soon; but there are some random pacific rim outfits that you've never heard of that are shipping EEE PC-esque boxes based on ARM or MIPS:
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS9413803799.html
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS2361851277.html
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS4650708621.html
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS9047481010.html

Somewhat more expensive; but in my opinion more exciting, is Pandora: http://openpandora.org/

"they" in the sense of the big guys, aren't likely to do so anytime soon; but there are some random pacific rim outfits that you've never heard of that are shipping EEE PC-esque boxes based on ARM or MIPS:
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS9413803799.html
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS2361851277.html
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS4650708621.html
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS9047481010.html

Somewhat more expensive; but in my opinion more exciting, is Pandora: http://openpandora.org/

"they" in the sense of the big guys, aren't likely to do so anytime soon; but there are some random pacific rim outfits that you've never heard of that are shipping EEE PC-esque boxes based on ARM or MIPS:
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS9413803799.html
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS2361851277.html
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS4650708621.html
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS9047481010.html

Somewhat more expensive; but in my opinion more exciting, is Pandora: http://openpandora.org/

"they" in the sense of the big guys, aren't likely to do so anytime soon; but there are some random pacific rim outfits that you've never heard of that are shipping EEE PC-esque boxes based on ARM or MIPS:
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS9413803799.html
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS2361851277.html
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS4650708621.html
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS9047481010.html

Somewhat more expensive; but in my opinion more exciting, is Pandora: http://openpandora.org/

It's actually shared source licensed.
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS6932977445.html
"The company has thus far declined to submit the license for approval by the Open Source Initiative as an open-source license."