Adorable Little Linux Boxes

An anonymous reader wrote in to tell us about an article describing the CerfCube. 192Mhz StrongArm, 32MB RAM, 16MB flash, ethernet, CompactFlash, 3 serial ports and a USB port. Not impressed? Well how about that it's only a 3 inch cube? The box runs Linux and Apache. We did a previous story about it, but this is much more informative about the internals.

Comments

More Pictures of the Cube (and its guts)

[dew]

I went to the RSA 2001 Conference up in San Francisco, and the Embedded Systems Conference was just across the street, so I dropped by with my digital camera. I managed to take several pictures of these boxes in various form factors. You may (or may not) be interested.

• box in hand
• cute red thing running windows
• the guts of the box
• the backside of the cute red box
• box and board
• backside of cube (fuzzy)

David E. Weekly

Re:It's not really a cube...

[Rinikusu]

take a look again. They offer a Reference Board, a Developer's station thingie, AND the cube.

And yes, the reference board is for integrating into *other* devices.. Nice nifty setup.. I can think of half a dozen projects right now..

Ehh, compare to iPaq?

[magi]

What's so amazing about the cubes, except that they look cute?

The iPaq 36xx handheld models have about 206MHz StrongARM processor, with 16-64MB Flash and RAM. They have USB, they have everything. The price vary between $300-$600. ...and the size is about 5x3x0.6 inches, which is much less volume than the cube has.

But, of course, the iPaqs come with LoseCE preinstalled, although Linux works too. I don't know if Apache has yet been ported, but it might have.

While they are not cute cubes, they fit much better in your pocket.

What I'd like to see is server farms based on tiny ipaq-sized low-power processor cards. Just stuff one 4U box full of those and whheeee....

product website

[mr_gerbik]

Only $379... not too shabby!

http://www.intrinsyc.com/products/referenceplatfor ms/cerfcube.html

Re:Neaty Keeno!

[ackthpt]

That, too! (c=

You run in to a gravel hauler.-more-
40 other vehicles plow into you.-more
You have died.

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All your .sig are belong to us!

Re:Neaty Keeno!

[Darth RadaR]

Get a 2 of them, cover in fur, paint some little dots on them, and you'll be the 1st on your block to have fuzzy dice webservers hanging off your rear-view mirror. :)

Re:It's not really a cube...

[grammar fascist]

I just want it in a toaster. Everybody's been telling me that one day I'll have an Internet-enabled toaster, and I want one.

Build Your Own?

[Aztech]

You could built a 'similar' system from standard off the shelf PC parts which would be cheaper and faster, grab a MicroATX case for $25, uATX m'board for $110, a Celeron $60 (?), Hard Drive (~$100), and some RAM which is ridiculously cheap right now $30 (one benefit on an economy balancing on the edge). It adds up to about $300 if you need to buy everything, but any self-respecting techie has a box they can salvage components from.

The board has audio, video, Ethernet integrated, granted integrated components are often lacking, but this wont affect anything if you use it as a small server or NAT/Firewall box.

This is obviously different to the actual Cube, that being a true embedded system.

There's smaller FlexATX and NLX kit about too. The parts and thermal solutions are scarce though.

Stick It Up a Tux

[rohar]

If someone started marketing a teddy bear sized Tux doll, with one of these stuffed inside...
We could all curl up to a linux box at naptime.


It's easy to write songs, you just sit down and write them.

The neat thing

[4n0nym0u53 C0w4rd]

Not only could you have a beowulf cluster of these things, but you could accidentally misplace it as well...

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