Slashdot Mirror

Hard Drive DVD ROM Case

Other software:

0. Install DSL to hard disk, reboot, and configure

1. Upgrade (Apps->Tools) to gnu utils

2. Install gcc

3. Install zile (MyDSL) for editing convenience

4. Other software (for building natively and installation):

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.7/linux-2.6.23.tar.bz2

ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/grub/grub-1.95.tar.gz

ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bison/bison-2.4.tar.bz2

ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/m4/m4-1.4.tar.bz2

http://www.oberhumer.com/opensource/lzo/download/lzo-2.02.tar.gz

http://www.zlib.net/zlib-1.2.3.tar.gz

http://www/perl.com/CPAN/src/perl-5.8.8.tar.bz2

http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/autoconf/autoconf-2.61.tar.bz2

http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/libtool/libtool-1.5.24.tar.gz

http://xorg.freedesktop.org/archive/X11R3/src/everything/index.html

`grep bz2 index.html | sed s/^.*\.bz2\"\>// | sed s/\<.*// | sed s,^,http://xorg.freedesktop.org/archive/X11R7.3/src/everything/,`

http://gitweb.freedesktop.org?p=xorg/util/modular.git;a=blob_plain;f=build-from-tarballs.sh

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/expat/expat-2.0.1.tar.gz

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/libpng/libpng-1.2.24.tar.gz

http://www.fontconfig.org/release/fontconfig-2.5.0.tar.gz

http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/freetype/freetype-2.3.5.tar.bz2

http://xcb.freedesktop.org/dist/libxcb-1.1.tar.bz2

ftp://xmlsort.org/libxslt/libxslt-1.1.22.tar.gz

ftp://xmlsort.org/libxslt/libxml2-2.6.30.tar.gz

http://xcb.freedesktop.org/dist/xcb-proto-1.1.tar.bz2

http://www.paldo.org/paldo/sources/pthread-stubs/libpthread-stubs-0.1.tar.bz2

http://www.paldo.org/paldo/sources/xau/libXau-1.0.3.tar.bz2

http://www.paldo.org/paldo/sources/xproto/xproto-7.0.11.tar.bz2

Hard Drive DVD ROM Case

Other software:

0. Install DSL to hard disk, reboot, and configure

1. Upgrade (Apps->Tools) to gnu utils

2. Install gcc

3. Install zile (MyDSL) for editing convenience

4. Other software (for building natively and installation):

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.7/linux-2.6.23.tar.bz2

ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/grub/grub-1.95.tar.gz

ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bison/bison-2.4.tar.bz2

ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/m4/m4-1.4.tar.bz2

http://www.oberhumer.com/opensource/lzo/download/lzo-2.02.tar.gz

http://www.zlib.net/zlib-1.2.3.tar.gz

http://www/perl.com/CPAN/src/perl-5.8.8.tar.bz2

http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/autoconf/autoconf-2.61.tar.bz2

http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/libtool/libtool-1.5.24.tar.gz

http://xorg.freedesktop.org/archive/X11R3/src/everything/index.html

`grep bz2 index.html | sed s/^.*\.bz2\"\>// | sed s/\<.*// | sed s,^,http://xorg.freedesktop.org/archive/X11R7.3/src/everything/,`

http://gitweb.freedesktop.org?p=xorg/util/modular.git;a=blob_plain;f=build-from-tarballs.sh

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/expat/expat-2.0.1.tar.gz

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/libpng/libpng-1.2.24.tar.gz

http://www.fontconfig.org/release/fontconfig-2.5.0.tar.gz

http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/freetype/freetype-2.3.5.tar.bz2

http://xcb.freedesktop.org/dist/libxcb-1.1.tar.bz2

ftp://xmlsort.org/libxslt/libxslt-1.1.22.tar.gz

ftp://xmlsort.org/libxslt/libxml2-2.6.30.tar.gz

http://xcb.freedesktop.org/dist/xcb-proto-1.1.tar.bz2

http://www.paldo.org/paldo/sources/pthread-stubs/libpthread-stubs-0.1.tar.bz2

http://www.paldo.org/paldo/sources/xau/libXau-1.0.3.tar.bz2

http://www.paldo.org/paldo/sources/xproto/xproto-7.0.11.tar.bz2

I'm going to have to temporarily suspend my moral embargo against buying from Wal-Mart if they have a $200 PC with a C7 chip. The C7 is a beautiful little chip with all sorts of hardware cryptography begging to be taken advantage of. Via's Padlock engine is an amazing and underappreciated tool that security geeks would do well to take note of. And if this Linux is using the 2.6.22 kernel it'll have all the tools baked right in to take advantage of that raw cryptographic power. I use an MSI Axis 700 system running Gentoo Hardened for my firewall/VPN package and love the performance.

> The VIA C3 is of the same generation of chipsets

True, but the C7 also provides an RNG. And onboard AES.

http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/processors/c7/

Sorry to rain on your rant, but you do know that VIA is a Taiwanese company... VIA Taiwan homepage. And in case I'm being too subtle, Taiwan isn't exactly a Communist country.

Gee, Taiwan is really screwed, when even foes of China gets Taiwan and China mixed up, there's absolutely no chance that Taiwan is gonna be recognised as an independent country anytime soon.

PS - You're also 30/40 years too late with that Red scare, try using the word "terrorism" instead.

Like the VIA C3 processor?

has nothing to do with being enviromentally[sic] conscious.

In addition to what the parent said about low power, it's also the -D variant of the C7, this one comes with carbon offsets.

http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/processors/c7-d/

World's First Carbon Free Processor

The VIA C7®-D processor is the world's first Carbon Free computer component, helping individuals and organizations reduce their Carbon Footprint. For every VIA C7-D processor sold VIA works with environmental experts to calculate the electricity used over the processors lifetime (assumed to be 3 years). Then from the amount of electricity used, VIA calculates how much CO2 emissions will be released into the environment mainly as a result of fossil fuel burning power plants, and then works with regional offset organizations to "offset" that amount of CO2 through projects such as:

        * Reforestation: Planting trees in different areas around the world that absorb (or sequester) CO2 as they grow.
        * Alternative Energy: By promoting alternative energy such as Solar power, power plants don't need to burn as much fossil fuels reducing the amount of CO2 released into the environment.
        * Energy conservation: Efforts to help reduce the amount of energy used, meaning that power plants don't need to burn so much fossil fuels reducing the amount of CO2 released into the environment.

This computer uses VIA's new "carbon free" processor:

http://www.via.com.tw/en/resources/pressroom/2006_archive/pr060913VIAC7D.jsp

The 1.5 Ghz VIA C7 CPU consumes <20 Watts. So is seems there is a good reason to call it a "green pc"?

Maybe someone should tell the companies that are making PCs out of these boards, such as Systemax.

From Via's technical brief.

VIA VT6047 Pico-ITX mainboard reference design has been specifically developed to
be powered by the energy efficient VIA processor platforms, such as the VIA C7 or
fanless VIA Eden processor.

Slimline 30W Power Supply
Enables fanless silent PC designs due to its low heat characteristics
Reduces overall system costs
Enhances reliability

It does have a fan connector if needed.

http://www.via.com.tw/en/downloads/whitepapers/ini tiatives/spearhead/pico-itx_form_factor.pdf

The C7 has some cool features like one cycle frequency switching and an encryption engine. As much as I use ssh, the crypto engine would be very helpful. Check it out here before you dis it.

http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/processors/c7/

I don't work for VIA and I posted anon b/c I forgot my username and I'm too lazy to go through the recovery process.

-Randall

To follow on from your point that this has been done many times before, it is also shipping in a commercial product and has been for many years. Via have a true random number generator built into their entire line of processors, and there is linux support for using it.

Only game in town? What about VIA?

http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/processors/

You've got Via already. Their newer chips are available at 2Ghz speeds, and work well depending on the application (very low power and low cost) - from what I hear they're in a LOT of computers sold in Asia where lowering cost (of purchase as well as cost of running - ie power consumption) is the absolute #1 priority and speed is way down the list.

Heres #3

VIA http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/processors/

You probably need update your knowledge about those... Normal TV works out of the box with plain mpeg2 (got a hardware decoder for it even!) but for HDTV you will need one of the new boards with support for it... if you wanna offload the cpu for xvid and such you can go with one of the boards with one of those CN400 chipsets that has mpeg4 acceleration...

Just have a look at this chipset...or any of the others...
http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/chipsets/c-serie s/cn896/

Before stating things like that please do a check of what people already are using for this and what's supported on those boards...

Pictures and more info at TR and specs at VIA

Touchscreen?! I'd prefer a WS in there and do away with the "Dock", and then a PCCARD slot for expansion, but anyhow..

Yeah, and I've seen motherboards from both Asus and VIA that supported this RoHS. VIA in particular seems to be right on the edge with environmental friendly (or, at least friendlier) PC components, see e.g. here.

That could be a minor drawback for people wanting to watch tv on television screens. I think I overlooked that because I bought a 24" flat panel monitor in january and use it for both tv and computer needs.

http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/chipsets/c-serie s/cn700/
That is the chipset homepage and it lists the cn700 as having tv-out capabilities.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16813181016 $149.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16813181021 $172.99 both of these have video out but they requie a mini-itx case and power supply.

If you have an old computer lying around with two pci slots you could buy a bigger hdd a pvr150 and a pvr 350(this gives hardware decoding and a tv out). The biggest reason I keep looking at via boards is because they have hardware mpeg-2 decoding and they use less power so you can use smaller fans (possibly none).

My favorites include the Via http://www.via.com.tw/ line of processors and motherboards

Via Technologies, Inc. is shipping a new processor and starting a "Clean Computing Initiative" aimed at offsetting the chip's environmental cost. They claim it is the worlds first "carbon-free" CPU.

This article makes an inefficient computer when there are plenty of available components that use considerably less power. My favorites include the Via http://www.via.com.tw/ line of processors and motherboards and the PICO PSU from http://www.mini-box.com/ claims >90% efficiency for all of its models. Using these components you can make a system that uses about 30Watts instead of the 168Watts in the article. Thats a five fold difference!

Please don't forget the Via Corporation..

http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/graphics/#discre te

They use S3 and IGP (UniChrome) chip technologies.

And even more importantly they are trying to work with the Linux community as well :)

-- The next 'big' thing in tec.. must be something to empower the individual..

Look at VIA's website http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/mainboards/

Linux is already able to encrypt swap and I haven't heard anything about that slowing the computer down too much. Besides, some CPUs already have hardware-accelerated cryptography engines anyway. Finally, all new computers will come with a TPM, if they don't already. Although I don't think it's strictly required that the TPM be a cryptography accelerator, it makes sense for it to be.

Even accepting the premise, how would this make MS a "green" company? The power saving features are really hardware features that are just supported by the software. In the end it is up to the computer owners to save power. The options are already there. If you really want a "green" computer, use the power saving settings. Or maybe buy a computer with a eden processor , or use a normal processor and underclock it!

You dont need a 'full blown' PC in your living room...
(well - you do, but you can do it in a way that doesn't have the drawbacks).

You can use a low power/tiny Mobo from Via to build a system. It uses a completely silent external (brick) power supply. Use silent drives, passive cooling... and voila!

My Mythbox is silent, uses about 20W when idle (less than a dim bulb), very small (smaller than my AV Receiver), and did I mention silent?

I've also added external drives than spin down when not in use.

Actually, if you read the documentation for the VIA Padlock hardware encryption/decryption engine, you would realise that they talk about realtime encryption/decryption, its not a software operation, its a set of on-die commands.

The "2000 bit passkey" is really the disk encryption keys for loop-aes. See http://loop-aes.sourceforge.net/loop-AES.README . They are longer than 2000 bits.

The disk encryption keys are stored on USB and decrypted via passphrase (key encryption key) using a custom init process that mounts the encrypted loop-aes disk(s) and does the pivot_root / exec init into the target. This gives you full disk encryption booting from a trusted read-only kernel+initrd iso image. (or hdd bootloader)

The "instant off" is the key zeroisation mechanism where loop-aes keys (rotated in memory) are flushed and the disks are now inaccesible. A reboot and passphrase auth with USB key device present is then required to get back to a working state.

The use of 8 radios means most of them are in monitor mode attached to different antennas. There are two amplified cards (1W teletronics in line) which can be used for injection / active attacks, but 2 transmitting radios is about the limit practically speaking due to 802.11MAC / CSCA.

The WPA/WPA2 cracking references WPA-PSK dictionary attacks / cowpatty speedup via the Padlock hash engine SHA1 instruction. This gives you about a 10-20x increase in dictionary attack throughput but is still slow compared to most attacks. Many other kernel functions (loop-aes, IPsec, entropy in /dev/random) and user space applications (openssl, openvpn) are also tweaked to utilize the padlock core described here: http://www.via.com.tw/en/initiatives/padlock/hardw are.jsp . Montgomery multiplication offload is still in the works...

[The "breaking SHA1 and RSA encryption in a single processor instruction cycle" line appears to confuse the implementation of these primitives (SHA1/MontMult) in a single instruction. These are not cracked by a single instruction.]

The comment about government sales is likely due to the fact that this system is well over FCC EIRP limits, thus restricting commercial sales to military or emergency services.

Additional images here:
http://s103.photobucket.com/albums/m127/coderman42 /?action=view&current=janusbox.jpg&refPage=&imgAnc h=imgAnch3
http://s103.photobucket.com/albums/m127/coderman42 /?action=view&current=janusbox-dev.jpg&refPage=&im gAnch=imgAnch2

I suggest getting some hardware acceleration: the VIA EPIA boards use electrical interference in their traces to suppy entropy to a hardware encrypt/decrypt enginge that can achieve 25 Gb/s encryption. This is a 1.0GHz passively-cooled board with SATA ports, hardware MPEG2 decoding and all on a 17x17 cm^2 board.

The VIA C7 does have NX-bit support. So a VIA C7 mini-itx fanless motherboard is almost what I need. Only question left is if I can put it in a case with no vents.

Here you are: "VIA Announces Comprehensive AMD Chipset Support for Socket AM2 Transition VIA delivers full line of solutions for upcoming range of AMD products including the latest AMD Athlon(TM) 64 FX-62 and AMD Athlon(TM) 64 X2 5000+ dual-core processors" http://www.via.com.tw/en/resources/pressroom/2006_ archive/pr060523AMDSocketAM2.jsp

nVidia's linux drivers are very solid. They aren't open - get over it - but a given nVidia card in a Linux box has the capability to do everything that a nVidia card in a windows box can do.

So goddamn what? Here's a cluestick for you - Linux can do a helluva lot more then windows. When nvidia's driver supports accelerated 3d, framebuffer, 2d & video out, across all platforms I might be impressed.

At the moment however, I'd rather suck down crappy unichrome chipsets over the offerings from ATI or Nvidia. At least they have Open Source Drivers

I'm curious to know how the PC mentioned in TFA will perform compared to those of VIA's current offerings.

It is good news indeed to see new support for hardware encryption. VIA has offered hardware encryption for some time now, including a very nice Random Number Generator. It's Quantum even. I just hope IBM has a performance increase similar to that of VIA. A lack of backdoors would also be a plus.

It is good news indeed to see new support for hardware encryption. VIA has offered hardware encryption for some time now, including a very nice Random Number Generator. It's Quantum even. I just hope IBM has a performance increase similar to that of VIA. A lack of backdoors would also be a plus.

You totally missed the point of my analogy. Not every PVR is just a desktop box in a small form-factor. There are many such PCs sold as PVRs, but that doesn't mean that a PVR needs all the functionality of a home PC. Why does a PVR necessarily need an ethernet port? or modem? or USB port? That's like saying that because my computer can burn DVDs, that all DVD-recorders, even set-top boxes, need to be full featured PCs.

For instance, VIA has specialized CPUs and motherboards designed specifically for building PVR boxes with. They are much cheaper than Intel or AMD CPUs, yet they are much more efficient because, though their performance in general computing tasks are rather lackluster, they have been optimized for video-encoding/decoding tasks. Their instruction sets and chip architecture are designed with PVR functions in mind. Now, these chips still conform to x86 architecture, so they're still just PC chips marketed towards computer hobbyists who simply want to build a custom PVR box. As such, they are far from fully optimized, but they still sell for far less than AMD/Intel CPUs with similar video-encoding/decoding performance in addition to being much quieter/cooler, and far less energy consuming. Right now you can get an 800MHz VIA C3 for just $26.00 retail.

In case you still don't fully undersand, let me provide a different angle. Panasonic sells set-top DVD recorders in the U.S. for ~$100 retail. Obviously, a DVD recorder needs to be able to recieve TV signals, but it's gonna be through an integrated component, not a PCI tuner card. A DVD recorder also needs to be able to decode the TV signal, and encode it into mpeg streams, and this will also be done through the set-top box's specialized hardware components and integrated design, not through an application layer desktop program on top of a general purpose operating system. This way, the two core functionality of a PVR are covered, and done much cheaper computing-resource-wise, and thus also component-cost-wise. If this were all done in an x86 desktop box (what form-factor you use doesn't really matter), it would require a much faster processor, more memory, and other hardware and software bloat that aren't essential to a functioning PVR.

So if a general purpose x86 CPU only moderately optimized for media-applications and can handle PVR video-encoding/decoding can be sold at a profit for less than $30, and a set-top DVD recorder which features all of the core functionality of a PVR can be sold for $100, then it should certainly be possible to mass produce PVRs for far less than an average PC, and more along the price point of a set-top DVD recorder. And considering that Panasonic sells DVD recorders in the U.S. for $100, I'm sure you can find generics in Taiwan or China for far less--probably closer to $50. And it'd certainly cost less than per unit to manufacture.

If you think that retail PVRs like TiVo are made of the same high-priced consumer components as your home PC, then you're sadly mistaken. You can call any kind of electronic device with a processor in it a "computer," but that is a very generic term covering a wide range of electronics. Most consumer electronics have a much more integrated design than PCs, and are much more efficient. A home-built PVR box is just a PC running PVR software, but that's not what a TiVo is, not even close.

Intel: http://www.intel.com/business/bss/products/client/ vistasolutions/index.htm

AMD: http://www.amd.com/windowsvista

VIA: http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/vista/cpu.jsp

My problem is with the consistently mediocre reporting, when just a little bit more effort would get to primary sources, rather than this persistent blog banality culture.

I don't know about you but all this stuff about HT Technology and stuff is very confusing. Do I have that?

This just proves that Vista is unready for the desktop. I guess that's why they cancelled it. Har har! Har har. Har, har. *sigh*

Seriously, what exactly is DesktopBSD's website supposed to say? The thing you quote seems reasonable to me, anyone who doesn't understand it is unlikely to find any way of wording it useful anyway, unless it was worded in such a way that'd make it useless to an actual computer professional.

It's not like they'll be installing it. They'll be asking us to do it, as usual.

a more elegant solution is to harness the power and disk space of your PC to store and manage your digital media

browsing, selecting, decoding, and displaying all your media is the hard part. You don't need powerfull box to store all that media.

Why not have the "media adapter" connect to a NAS box in your home office?

In fact, why not skip the NAS box, and get a cheaper USB enclosure for the drive?

In fact why not skip the expensive USB enclosure and put the drive in the "media adapter"?

Oh wait...

(PS. how common is it to have a "home office" to put your PC in, instead of putting it in the living room where everyone can use it?)

From the article:
Such multi-tasking makes dual-core processors a necessity, which explains why Intel requires all vendors of Viiv machines to adopt a dual-core processor before gaining certification.

No web browsing and serving a file does not require a dual-core processor. That intel can charge more for a dual-core processor explains why they require it.

I've already got a "media adapter" in my living room, it consists of a tiny silent passively cooled VIA 800Mhz mini-ITX board in a small case with a TV card, 300Gb HDD, and slimline DVDRW. It looks the part and seamlessly integrates with my TV.

I don't see a problem with this "media centre PC taking up space in your living room" at 12.7"(322.58mm) x 2.7"(68.58mm) x 10"(254.0mm), intels forthcoming "media adapters" will probably take up as much.

Via is the king of "rebranding" existing technologies.

Nehemiah C3 has:

* 16 stage pipeline (just like C7 Esther)
* SSE support
* Full-speed FPU

You see, the only real improvement here is that Nehemiah is getting a facelift. It is moving to a 0.09 micron SOI process (about 2 years behind AMD and 3 years behind Intel), is getting a new bus interface, double the L2 cache, and is getting SSE2 support. Other than that, it is the same old Nehemiah.

The bus and cache upgrade are the most important part. People have been stating for years that the bus speed of 133 MHz plus the pathetic 64K L2 cache has held the C3 back. All the SSE2 units in the world won't help you perform if you can't move enough data.

Think of the Pentium MMX. New process and dual voltage (2.8v) meant lower power than the previous Pentium (3.3v). Double the L1 cache and MMX support meant better real and potental performance. Now, imagine the Pentium MMX also included an upgrade to a 133 MHz bus, and you've got the equivilant of Esther. It should perform 30-40% better clock-for-clock over the C3, and should be more scalable, but it is nothing amazing.

Via SP8000 http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/mainboards/mini_ itx/epia_sp/index.jsp

Got two departamental servers running on that. The onboard + 2 Silicon Image Adaptecs (6 disks total) using these enclosures: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?Web ProductID=84948

One caveat - the enclosure does not work with newer Maxtor drives because the idiots redefined the power up SATA spec and the meaning of the LED indicator on the power pinout.

Yeah, well the parent article has a 0 score, due to my being an anonymous coward. This link may help: http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/processors/c7/

Basically the C7 or C7-M is a processor from Via that seems to be a lower power chip that more or less competes with the Intel Celeron (I'm taking about the P4 class of Celerons.)

Most of the articles I have seen on it seem to be based off the VIA announcements, and I have yet to see ANY reviews where someone has actually gotten their hands on one (Say someplace like Tom's hardware guide).

Personally I'd buy a C7 desktop or a laptop if one were available, just because it is different.

Don't forget http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/processors/c7/ and http://www.transmeta.com/efficeon/index.html. Or maybe you would be better off forgetting them, I don't know.

Do you mean like itx boards.

I have a great application for this: a bunch of thin clients on a LAN. Use a 12V battery charger and battery as UPS, route to 30 or so of these little guys mounted on Via's Epia mobo (15 W or so). I could have a fanless computer lab! The Epia BIOS can boot via PXE from a terminal server in a remote, noisy place. We might have to rediscover 12V wiring for the lab. Electricians mostly do not run DC in a public building.

• Kilometers of dark fiber in US
  
• Very low cost computing
  
• Desktop software
  
• Strong storage infrastructure
  
• Opensource software and content
  
• An Estimated 163 million - Go Online
  

Nano-ITX is looking to be a very small package (12cm x 12cm) so we are likely to see some even more abitious case mods over time. Most of my favourite case mods are where people mount Mini-ITX boards in classic games consoles like the NES.

Here's the link for that...
http://www.via.com.tw/en/initiatives/padlock/what_ and_how.jsp

Probably VIA EPIA would do the trick. Maybe something like this:

VIA EPIA NL