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Flat Panel Linux Box for $99?

Posted by Hemos on from the hacking-the-hardware dept.

A reader writes "Found an interesting site which describes a hack to modify the $99 Iopener internet appliance to be able to run Linux. Flat panel LCD display, small footprint, 56K (non-win)modem. No ethernet, but a built-in parallel port (for PLIP?). Just add 2.5" HD. The perfect X terminal! "

11 of 480 comments (clear)

  1. ISP Service Cancellation by borzwazie · · Score: 4

    I just called their customer service line. The operator was a bit confused when I asked her if I could order the appliance without the ISP service, but assured me that I could cancel it at any time. So, you don't need to subscribe to their service. Woohoo!

    --

    "We apologize for the inconvenience."

  2. Respect the hack... by slothbait · · Score: 4

    ...and stop complaining. Putting linux on everything (including Palm Pilots) is just a geek game. Welcome to Slashdot.

    If it wasn't for people with this hackish spirit, we may never have had PC's in the first place. Do you have any idea how useless early systems like the Altair were? All you had was switches and lights, but hackers went nuts over them. Over time, they improved them, and now we have our modern PC's.

    I think its an interesting post. The hack wasn't very technical, but it is kind of cute.

    --Lenny

  3. Re:What is the legality behind this? by stripes · · Score: 5
    I know that alot of people here think the EULAs are junk, but in reality some of them are legitimate. Although I think this is very cool, isn't this a blatant misuse of their device. I assume that there is somewhere where they say you can't disassemble them, and in this case, where they are selling them at a loss, they have a legitimate reason to request this.

    I don't think they did, and the EULA wouldn't be needed. All they need is a cell-phone like contract when you buy that you sign up for X months of their $20 service, or pay a sliding termination fee. Which as far as I know they don't (yet) require.

    Those contracts are enforcable (since you sign them when you buy the product, not "click" them after). And in my opnion they are also fair since you know the terms before you get home. That's the thing I hate about the EULA. You can buy a product and when you get home discover that there are all sorts of restrictions on it. I want to know what I'm buying before I put my money down. I don't want to get home and then decide I have to drive back to the damm store and return it.

    The downside (from netpliance's point of view) is people don't like to make that kind of commitment. Just look at how many more people sign up for the no/low commit moble phones now vs. about five years ago when there were no low commit (let alone no commit) phone plans!

    On a second note, what are the terms of their contract. Assuming you are buying the product, and not just on an indefinate lease, how long are you required to use their internet service before terminating the contract?

    From what I have read here, there is none. Even if there was one this would be nice because it means there would be a use for this $99 box even if netpliance went bankrupt (and face it, this kind of market is really rough, they have to compete with $0 PCs offering the same kind of deal, but with a 2 to 4 year ISP commitment).

  4. Re:Hmm... Slow down now.. by Patrick · · Score: 4
    8.The company assumes they will recover this loss when these thousands of people start paying for their internet service
    9.These users don't sign up for the internet service and the company doesn't make their money back

    If the company doesn't require the purchase of Internet service, it's their own blunder. In capitalistic markets, stupid companies die, and smart ones succeed. Pitying dumb companies is counterproductive for yourself and for the market as a whole. Selling products at a loss without some assurance of a tied-in gain is stupid, and any company that does it is asking to fail.

    Fortunately for Netpliance (and unfortunately for me), iOpeners are only $99 with premium service, a whopping $22/mo. If they allow users to cancel the service immediately, we're back to "It's their own damn fault" territory.

  5. clear up some questions on my iopener hack by linux-hacker · · Score: 5

    the screen is the new sharp dualscan 800x600 16bpp you can fdisk and format the internal flash disk it will boot off the flash disk if there is no hard drive plugged in.. and you can replace the kb it just uses a ps2 plug thats how you get into setup ctl+alt+esc ! i use a dlink de620 par either net adapter and it works well.. the cpu does about 80 bogomips i swaped the winchip whith a itel 200 pre mmx 3.4v core and bogomips when about 3x i will update the page and fix the forum tonight thanks for the ./ codeman

  6. Wireless LCD screen Linux terminal for $200 by TurkishGeek · · Score: 5
    I'm glad this became an article today. I was one of the posters who suggested this should be an article yesterday, on Microsoft X-box thread.

    My plan is to hack one into a wireless LCD screen Linux system for less than $200. I believe this can be done, but I will need some help. Here is the known specs:

    • The box uses a Winchip 180MHz processor.
    • The chipset consists of Trident Cyberglade i7, which is a mobile version of VIA's MVP4 northbridge + integrated UMA video chip. It's fully supported by XFree86, and the person who hacked the i-opener first was kind enough to email me the Xconfig file. The other component of the chipset is a VIA southbridge. The northbridge has the PCI bus interface, and the southbridge has an ISA bus.
    • The modem is an add-on daughterboard, and sits on an interface that nobody has been able to identify yet. If I were one of the engineers of i-opener, I would have used the ISA bus along with a PC/104 type connector. I haven't seen the board myself yet, but I'm hoping it is either some kind of custom connector for the ISA bus, or PC/104, or some kind of PCMCIA connector.
    • If the modem is really on an ISA bus, the modem daughterboard can be removed, and an ISA PCMCIA adapter card can be connected here with the help of a custom cable assembly/an ISA slot from an old motherboard. My plan is to use the card that comes with the Webgear Aviator 2.4 IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN kit. Then you can plug any PCMCIA card to this adapter, Ethernet, your choice of a IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN card, etc. (I recommend the $70 Aviator 2.4)
    • If the modem is connected to a PCMCIA connector(which doesn't make any sense really-the ISA bus is already there, and if they really wanted ISA extensibility, why didn't they just add a proper PCMCIA connector?); then provided that the PCMCIA controller is supported by Linux, it should be easy to connect your choice of PCMCIA card there.

      Will anyone who has seen the actual board, or who knows anything about it, please comment on my idea? If anyone can identify the connection of the modem daughterboard to the motherboard, it's even better. Some people suggested that it was PCMCIA, in this case, does anyone know which PCMCIA controller is used?

      If this can be done, and we have access to the ISA bus or a PCMCIA connector on the i-opener, possibilities are endless. The i-opener has barely enough space inside to house a small ISA card with the metal bracket removed. With an ISA Ethernet board with a boot ROM, you can build a diskless X terminal; or you can try adding a wireless LAN card like me.

      If I can pull this off, I will post it as an article on my Bluetooth Central to share.

    --

    BluetoothCentral.com
    A site for everything Bluetooth. Coming soon.
    --
    Zigbee Central: A Zigbee weblog
  7. Re:Linux flatscreen for $99-- NOPE! by gleam · · Score: 5

    I priced the components earlier (I'm very intrigued by the possibility) and a 2 gig 2.5" IDE hard drive is $72. That's an IBM hdd, too, so it's likely quite good quality. A USB ethernet card is approx $30 for the low end ones, but I didn't check for supported ones. My guess is that the low end ones are the supported ones.

    So we have now a whopping $200, which is what the unit cost originally. So while it's twice the price, it's still undeniably nifty.

    Somewhere below (above?) someone mentioned a parallel port ethernet card which is also supported under linux. That, however, costs around $75 or $100, so now we're in the 275$ range.

    Not nearly $350-400, though. And $275 (or even better, $200) is a fabulous deal for a tiny little terminal.

    -Ed

    --
    this .sig is not a .sig.
  8. Or you could just use its native OS. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4

    Of course, you could just use QNX, the os the iopener is _actually_ using. -William Bull bbull@qnx.com

  9. Flat Panel Linux by a+poor+scribbler · · Score: 4

    For 99 bucks
    Those who dare open the box
    Run Unix for cheap.

  10. Their financial model.. by LetterRip · · Score: 4

    They aren't just making money off of the ISP. If you look at the keyboard, where the function keys are, there is instead hotlinks to various services - shopping, email, even a pizza button. They probably get money from every sale made via those hot buttons, similar to amazon's web partnering.

    LetterRip

  11. Getting into QNX on the I-Opener by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4

    Just went down to Circuit City and bought two I-Openers for $99 a pop (one for me and one for my boss). There wasn't any kind of contract or anything -- just $99 for the thing. Mine has a 180 MHz WinChip, 32MB ram, and a 10" 800x600 display.

    Fun things to do with an I-Opener:

    1. - Plug in a normal PS/2 keyboard (one with an ESC key). Or, you can take a laptop PS/2 "Y" cable and plug in both the mouse and keyboard (the mouse and keyboard are reversed, ie., plug the mouse into the keyboard connector and the keyboard into the mouse connector).

    2. - Wait for the system to boot up and go into the tutorial. Let it get far enough into the tutorial that it waits for your input so that it doesn't keep getting in your way.

    3. - Press ESC-4 a few times. This will bring up a shell with root access. You are now in the QNX operating System.

    4. - The first thing you will want to do is allow root to login.

    : cd /etc
    : chmod +www passwd
    : vi passwd
    (delete the first "x" in the root entry)
    : chmod -www passwd

    now you can login as root without a password. Note that this change is not permanent. To make the change permanent you have to make the change to the passwd~ file. Note, the system won't let you make the change to the passwd~ file, so you have to mv passwd~ to passwd_old and then copy passwd_old to passwd~ and then make the change.

    5. - do a "ps". Probably the very last thing you will see is something like "/app/start-photon".

    6. - kill the /app/start-photon

    You will now be at a text-only screen where you can login as root.

    Notes:

    - Don't delete /app/start-photon ! I did this, and now my system does nothing. I will have to get a harddrive to boot from now.

    - Hitting the power button to power off only powers off the display (it might also put the processor into sleep mode, I dunno). Powering off doesn't "power off". You have to disconnect power to do a hard boot.

    - These things have a telnet daemon and a www daemon running in the background by default.

    I'm sure if you knew QNX well enough, you could just use the underlying system there to dialup to the internet, download a linux kernel and install it onto the flash directly. But seeing as I've pretty much hosed up my system by deleting a startup file, I'm going to have to hook up a hard drive anyway.

    --
    Mark Fassler
    fassler at verinet dot com