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Portable Linux Box
libertynews writes: "Last night at the Kitsap Peninsula Linux User Group meeting we had one of our members bring in a new Linux product that he's been working on for the last year. It is a hardbound-book sized Linux PC. Complete with sound, video, touchpad, SVHS output, docking bay for floppy and cdrom, 2 USB ports. It's called the Nano PC by a local Washington State company called Linux-Works. It was running with a 533MHz Celeron and 128Mb of ram and Caldera's Linux distribution (dual booting with win98).
And its only $799!" This thing has wearable potential no doubt.
Very cool looking, and under a pound. Wow. Good to finally see these things (almost) in the wild.
Power draw on this thing is probably way to high for any hopes of using it as a wearable. Unless you want to tote around 20 lbs. of batteries that is.
-Vercingetorix
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
PCMCIA would allow for a modem, ethernet card, or even better an Iomega PocketZip. Granted you can get USB version of any of these periperals, but USB modems and etherenet cards are notoriously slow and buggy. PCMCIA cards are easier to transport.
The SONY Glasstron glasses (the cheap TV version without the VGA) have an SVHS in, which is sweet, 'cause it just happens this little bugger has a matching SVHS out... The power draw is a bear though.
Their power supply output is 15v DC @ 3A (45W).
Now, Sealed Lead Acid batteries (the best power per volume i have been able to find for my wearable) run about 13 Watt Hours per Pound. Now i figure the average draw of the machine is probably slightly less than half the supply rating, (although we still want to source the peak current when needed i'm more concerned with average when figureing out how long the batteries will last), so to be save we call it 20 W. So we need just under 2Lb of battery per hour of battery life. That's something to think about. Right now if i carry all 8 pounds of my wearable battery bank, i get 12 hours out of it (WITH DISPLAY!), wheras here we're talking 4 hours, not even counting that we'll need another 18w according to SONY's specs, so call that 2 hours with display carrying 8 pounds of battery. That sucks.
Now for plan B. We go for high capacity Li-ion batteries, more expensive, larger, but bettwer power-weight. Okay, now we get 34h/battery, and i can't find the weight spec, but i think they are a little more than a pound, but they cost $114/each so 8 pounds gets us 4 hours or so with these, but that's probably over $1500 in batteries. No good =:-( Doh!
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Play Six Pack Man. I
>>2) want a quiet low profile firewall in your >>server closet (what? you mean everyone doesn't have a server closet?) :), but I put together a quiet low >profile firewall (granted not this low) for $350.
:)
>
>I've got a server corner of the room, which means >I'm jealous
Don't be too jelous. My server closet is under my desk. I wish I had a corner
>This is a great idea!, but what a niche.
I think they realized this, which is why the next generation (available in Japan already according to an earlier slashdot article) incorporates a NIC card, and the floppy/DVD drive into the unit. The device is bigger, but I can see where it would be useful.
1) Telecommuter who doesn't need the device while in route (Corporate executive?)
2) Security orginization. This would essentially allow them to have people work at 'real' computers, and then check them in to a desk or lock them up in a safe at night.
3) Sales Presentations/Conference Demos. Just add projector. Why bring a laptop? the integrated pointer is perfect for giving demos, (all you need is a mouse durring a presentation), or add a 'happy hacker' keyboard (as small if not small then a laptops. Heck, with the size of projectors nowadays, you might be able to put the device, keyboard, and projector into the same size as a laptop, but with more flexability (being able to give presentations also, or project onto the nearest whiteboard to do some work).
Granted most of this is still a niche market.
Heck, if I knew someone on a budget, for 800 they get a decent computer in a small space. I know one or two people who would jump on that. Add a flatscreen, keyboard, mouse, and low profile speakers, and this might be nice for anywhere where space is at a premium (Int. Space Station?).
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
It doesn't run on batteries. Sure, you could hack something together, but it wouldn't be as pretty.
When it was first mentioned (as the Espresso) that was the biggest problem everyone had with it.
It's neat, but not yet portable.
I'm not sure if this is the smallest but it does rock and it is *very* small.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
You end up on this site, and the "device overview" and "Networking" links show you this USB Networking frame.
All that means is that they are charging you full price for both operating systems. :)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Since it's so small, it looks awfully useful. However, if only it had a 10/100 ethernet port, I'll bet that these would make great servers. Sure, they don't have any redundancy at all, but if you can probably shove a dozen or so (or I guess about 20 even) into 2U of rack space, it'd probably catch someone's attention.
Even better - if you need to work with it, just remove it from the rack, and there's its display, right in front of you.
Am I missing something here? Looks like they offer up to Celeron 766, 6GB hard drive and up to 256MB memory. Hell - doesn't sound too far off from a low-end server, except for all the redundant parts.
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
The thing pulls ~45W, going by the power specifications (probably padded) of 15V, 3A. Sure, you could rig this up as a wearable, but you'd have to truck around a backpack full of batteries to get any use out of it at all. I guess it's kinda cool that they made a computer that's small like this, but with that kind of power consumption, it's really not all that useful.
All information in this post is true in some sense, false in some sense, and meaningless in some sense.
The cool thing about it is that it's a nice little machine that managed to get little without using a whole bunch of hardware that isn't compatable with Linux. Pretty much there really isn't anything all that great about it except that it's a small, sharp looking case that isn't locked into WINCE or something equally nasty.
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I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Besides, whether it's a Linux box or not, it still looks like something I'd like to find under my Christmas tree!
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
Although I have no intention of getting one, I've seen a few expressos at conventions demoing software, and they are neat little boxes.
As for the sound, I read that review as well, and it turned out that the person doing the review had either reinstalled Windows, or otherwise screwed with the sound drivers, and that the sound hardware itself was great - the drivers (not the ones that came with the unit) were what was causing the degradation in quality.
But don't even begin to ask for a URL - I just remember reading the same review and the retraction/ update.
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Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
I've been using these (under the EspressoPC name, yes, slashdot found them for me a year ago) at tradeshows for some time.
While it isn't a mobile machine, it is a portable machine.
Think about it. If you're like 90% of the laptop users out there (myself included), you take your laptop to work, where you plug it in to a real keyboard, mouse and monitor, then carry it home, where you plug it in to a real keyboard mouse, and monitor.
So tell me why I'm carrying four pounds of LCD, keyboard and battery, when I all I need to carry is one pound of CPU and HD?
-Z
You have violated Robot's Rules of Order and will be asked to leave the future immediately.
Bingo!
While I think this is a step in the right direction, the problem is that it is in fact a traditional PC masquerading in a very large PDA's body. The absence of character input, battery power, and display simply makes it a lighter desktop box. And is it me or is the touchscreen input useless when you consider that if you need to carry around a keyboard, monitor, and power plug you had might as well carry a mouse or trackman with you.
I think I'd rather have a nice slim Vaio or Portege running Linux.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
As for power usage on this PC, even if it was the same as a regular laptop (which it isn't since it doesn't have the same kind of power management as a laptop), you'd still only get a couple of hours of use out of it. A wearable needs to get a minimum of eight hours of continuous usage.
-Vercingetorix
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
This is such an obvious troll. Did Signal 11 get bored being an AC?
I do not have a signature
Isn't the average Linux user in need of a little more than basic hardware? The ability to use a ton of RAM, solid PCMCIA, decently big disk... I think you may get more at a pretty reasonable price in a real laptop and end up happier down the line with the power and flexibility.
Just my opinion though.
Evan - needs to hit preview before submitting
Power draw on this thing is probably way to high for any hopes of using it as a wearable. Unless you want to tote around 20 lbs. of batteries that is.
Slightly off with that comment.
It depends what you plug into it. Maybe the full sized HDD might draw more power than a notebook sized HDD. But there's no monitor, which uses most of the power. Otherwise, it is essentialy a moble Intel PC in a small form factor.
Does Linux support ACPI 1.8? Does the kernel power down the HDD, or enter the Intel STPCLK/SLP/DPSLP during the idle process? If not, Win2k/98 can effeciently use power saving features.
I don't see how this is any different than a mobile PC w/o a monitor and (it looks like) a battery connection.
Why would you wear it? Not a jab, but I'm curious. I haven't seen any affordable eyeglass-mount optics (like ocular HUDs, etc...)...
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https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Unless I'm missing my guess, this thing has no built in display, making it pretty useless as a portable device. This puts it in pretty much the same category as the G4 cube: Pretty, but as much under the hood as we were led to beleive.
Come on, guys! Let's see some low-priced tablet computers!
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
"-600-800Mhz Pentium® Celeron or Pentium® III Processor"
well, if you bothered to actually look at the page, you would see that the fastest cpu they sell it with is a PIII 700.
they also list the hard drive as "6gb upgradable to 18gb", but have an option for a 20gb drive on the order page.
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This is far from the ultimate MP3 player. Something built around compactflash cards or IBM's microdrive would be much closer to that goal.
- A.P.
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* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
All it really needs is two NIC slots and it would be perfect for lots of applications.
:)
1) want to set up a linux game server for an impromptu Network game?
2) want a quiet low profile firewall in your server closet (what? you mean everyone doesn't have a server closet?)
3) I know someone who works in security. He lugs around two laptops, so he can test things out. Having one of these with an ethernet interface would be lovely. Just set it up to boot a terminal off of the serial interface. Assign it an IP address, and then telnet into it, and Viola. A much smaller solution to needing to lug around two laptops.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Since when is ESR the "king dork" of Linux? First, I wouldn't refer to anyone as well-armed as ESR as a "dork", if I were you B-), second I think Linus would have dibs on "king anything" of Linux, third the validity of an idea has no relationship to the stock price of a company seeking to profit from that idea.
Network Associates stock has fallen to about one tenth of its peak value. Does that mean that firewalls, virus scanners, and PGP are only one tenth as good ideas now as they were two or three years ago?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
You know, you can click on links .. to read the website ;)y =Nano&preadd=action
You can customize your pc at: http://www.linux-works.com/cgi-bin/shopper.cgi?ke
Before you email me, remember: "There is no god!"
You can put any OS on it, Caldera, Win 98/2000, a dual boot (Caldera and Windoze) or you can get it without a preinstalled OS. So what's the big deal?
You can't handle the truth.
I've got to believe that the designer of this sexy little toy intended it to be the "big ugly putty box" killer. That's what the nano-PC should be marketed as: the future of the desktop computer.
And about friggin' time too. Computer cases in general are my pet peeve. Why is it that I can buy a piece of home audio equipment for $200 with the most kickassedly(tm) designed case you've ever seen, but when I spend $2000 on a computer I get some putty-colored moster made out the cheapest, crappiest, ugliest plastic the manufacturer could find? OOH IT HAS A BLINKING GREEN LIGHT I'M SO IMPRESSED. Meanwhile, my crappy $300 car stereo can do this waay-fscked-up laser show that makes it just about impossible for me to see oncoming traffic at night. What is wrong with this picture?!?
Why do you think Apple has been so successful with the iMac? They managed to come up with a case design only slighty less vomit-inducing than your average PC case, and the entire computing world lost its collective mind like a pre-teen staring at a copy of "Plumpers Magazine" for the first time.
I think it goes without saying that the nano-PC is only about 1,000,000 times cooler sitting on your desk than an iMac. Actually, even one of those stupid miniature fridges from thinkgeek is cooler sitting on your desk than an iMac, but that is not my point.
For once you've caught the big desktop manufacturers with their pants down. Your Prime Directive is clear: destroy them all while there is still time.
And while you're at it, would it KILL you guys to put a real video card in the thing?!?
DaC
Would that use the conventional notebook style battery or is the case too small for that? If it is too small, would the battery life be too short for the unit to be useful?
This has been posted before. This company is just rebranding an Espresso PC. They didn't even change the case or anything...just made up a new name.
According to the article itself:
-600-800Mhz Pentium® Celeron or Pentium® III Processor
-64MB Ram upgradeable to 256MB
And now for the part that made me spit my coffee over the monitor: Based on the all new Intel® i810 series chipset.
Now I've got nothing against Intel, but the 810 just doesn't cut it like it should. Does anyone have a clue what they mean by 3D Accelerator Integrated Graphics Chipset? AFAIK an S3 Virge fits that description as well, so...
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Along with the internal speaker, does it have a line-out or headphone jack? 'cause then just combine it with a paid of those monitor-in-your-glasses, speakers-in-your-ears headsets, and you could get a few looks watching movies on a plane or whatever...
Hrm. Needs a good portable keyboard, too... what's the smallest keyboard available these days?
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