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Little Linux Systems For Whatever Ails Ya
An Anonymous Coward writes: "Looking for small pre-built systems for custom Linux-based projects or products? Look no further. LinuxDevices.com has assembled a handy reference list of small systems that can serve as ready-made platforms for prototyping applications, or as the basis of application-specific Linux-based systems and devices. The style, performance, and costs of these systems vary greatly."
How good is the open designed processor in comparison to AMD or INTEL chips?
Desirable features of dual-ethernet modles:
- Small size.
- Self powered with small batteries or easily concealed ac adapter.
- Easy to conceal in a corporate network. (Above suspended ceiling tiles, or behind faceplate of ethernet jack, inside of service pole between multiple cubicles.)
- Priced within teenager's or intern's budget.
Ideally, such a device would have an optional downloadable specialized 31337 skr1pt k1ddi3 distribution...- tools specialized to "phone-home" in the wee hours with sniffed data
- remote controlled attacks, MITM, dns/arp spoofing/poisioning, etc.
- transparent bridge to help make it hard to detect/locate, because you have to insert device "inline" between an ethernet port and the desktop workstation serviced by that ethernet jack.
(Please don't reply with "I could get arrested". I'm way past old enough to know better than to ever do this.) I just find the potential amusing. And it will inevitably happen -- including the part about being within the budget reach of said users. Just for penetration testing -- honest. Don't try this at home. (only at work)I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Looks as though he'd taken one blue-screen too many before he got to the venue...
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
And I envoke the law of you are stupid for not knowing what Godwin's law is. It does not censor useful discussion where Nazi's are mentioned, like this one. It simply states that when political arguments get long in the tooth, they seem to bring up Nazi's for emotional effect.
Contrast that with this poster mentioning that charisma is often a well weilded weapon. Indeed Hitler studied for months on exagerated poses to increase effectiveness with large audiences, Balmer must have also.
Now as an intelligent (notice the contrast here from you) poster mentioned, he should have contrasted the motives. Where Balmer is motivating a workforce, Hitler was motivating a malicious army to commit heinous acts. That is a real and notable difference. Balmer might not be holy in his intentions but they are far from being like Hitler.
Never the less, it is an accurate and fair warning that sometimes popular masses get entranced with charisma and do stupid things. For more enlightnement on this topic, watch 'The Prisioner' series. Envoke a intelligent response with allegories from it or the Simpsons instead of calling for censorship. Or just ignore it.
So in dear memory of Godwin's law, to blankley envoke a usenet flame control guideline as a method of censorship are the very same steps down the very path that Hitler lead a nation down and did very stupid things. I chose not to follow them, therefore I do not follow your envoking of Godwin's law.
I understand Mandrake works real sweet on the thing. Check out the Mandrake Forum for the details for the work around needed to install it. Basically during install you need to pass the parameter :
linux mem=128
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
I've been wondering, why do people post to articles if they have nothing to say? Then I reflected, most of these truly crap posts are early posts. Obviously if the post is really early and a crap post, it was a shot at F1R5T!, and if it was relatively early & a crap post, it was just a hope for eyeballs (of moderators) and consequently, karma. So please, moderators, stop promoting this crap, and don't moderate posts that don't deserve moderation. Not every post needs moderation!
~jawad
Damn. Now I'm really puzzled. A GeForce, even on a slower machine, should get over 45fps. Yet, with 3D disabled, the Voodoo3 on the PII ~466 here can do only ~20.
Maybe I'll pick up the same model card that you have just to figure it out. If it doesn't work for games, I'll eat the restocking fee and hunt for something else.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Lineo sells just this for around $350. I have been using one with IPSecs for a couple weeks now.
References: google.com, search "bt869 bt871". groups.google.com comes up short.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
For the reasons already mentioned, 3DFX cards aren't what I'm personally looking for. They're still good, though, and available if unsupported. Query Pricewatch for "Video Cards Voodoo 3500" and quite a few show up for ~$70usd.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Damn. The bt869 doesn't support tv-out from a 1024x768 source like the bt871. At best, it'll scroll.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Several ways you could get the aldwell system up to spec:
1) there is a model STB3036N-CF(see bottom of page)that has CF
2) use the PCI slot for a multiport ethernet card; there's a bunch of these available, for example the ANA-62022 Two-Port Card by adaptec.
3)the STBII5012 has 2 ethernet interfaces integrated + 2 pci slots; this should easily give you all the options you need.
you have moved your mouse, please reboot to make this change take effect
I bet you're not half as tired as I am of the winmodem repeatedly cutting out on my parents new WinME Dell... New drivers, new modem, still the same old problem. And this kind of crap ONLY happens in Windows.
http://www.plathome.co.jp/products/openblocks/inde x.html
Also check out
http://www.axis.com I've used their embedded linux ETRAX100LX boards, they work great. Single
ethernet, but it comes with entire cross compiler
and flash boot loader that works over ethernet
go check out nvidia's cards, as new as you want. Find a card that has a RCA/svideo out (option on all models). Now go grab nvidia's drivers, and read the TWINVIEW readme. It has directions for getting the TV out and the VGA out both seen by X, and the ability to run each display independant of the other.
If that was real IDE it might be interesting. I'm basically looking for what will essentially be a very small system. But I do want dual ethernet (it has) and IDE (maybe not), all in a nice (this isn't) case with space for a regular IDE drive (doubtful) and well ventilationed (doesn't look like it).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
YHBT, YHL, etc. It was a troll, albeit a lame one.
By the way, why does slashdot insist on 2 minutes between posts? 60 seconds would have been sufficient.
~jawad
Okay, I'm not that sure about this. But I think my Elsa Gladiac with the Geforce MX400 does 3D and TV at the same time. I am not sure because I don't really play 3D games, but at least a few 3D xmms plugins got significantly faster after I installed the card and recompiled them (without changing the cpu, which is a 333 MHz P2). And the card drivers at least claim to be "NVIDIA_GLX".
Nope, it's on a slower machine. :-) It's a 333 MHz P2, and it's my media machine. The only reason why I have the Geforce in it is that it's the only card I could get with TV support in Xfree.
Sure but the question is : do you know any better ( or more just) place to live on that planet ?
I really have only one thing to say:
3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV.
Support for 3D is pretty obvious, and open source. Support for the TV-out (and in) is HERE, and the sourceforge project page is HERE. The code is pretty hairy, but it works. Not only that, but the TV out works at the same time as the 3D. I've seen it myself on my box. Only one problem - good luck finding one of these cards, considering that poor 3dfx is defunkt.
Hey,
For video, there are no choices that are compatable with Linux and support both;
I. 3D (good, current-generation)
II. TV-out (RCA and/or S-video)
You could try a VGA to TV converter. The Guillemot VGA-to-TV
Converter Deluxe-2 is good, according to this article. And only $120.
It might be worth your taking a look. You should be able to get 3D through it, because it just deals with the VGA output.
Michael
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
How long did you spend to make that amazing picture? And did you model it after yourself?
but by being more and better (mo' better?)
Hmm, perhaps we should follow in the footsteps of the Mo Better pioneers, Mo Better Meaty Meat Burgers on the corner of Pico and Fairfax in beautiful Los Angeles.
Just take the thing anywhere, insert a special compact flash card with game, and plug it in! Instant server! Slap in the Lintendo card, hook up to your tv, and attach the usb joystick - instant game console. Take it to work, plug into ethernet, attach firewire drive, connect to monitor and usb devices, and it is an instant X11 workstation!
What a flexible gizmo this would be. Imagine a Beowulf cluster of them...
Clickety Click
You're right. They don't. I'm actually typing this on a machine with a Voodoo3 2000 installed, and have liked it...but try and run Tribes 2 on it. Anyone who has tried knows why a Voodoo3 isn't going to work.
The touchy 'bought up, closed up' aspect of the company itself is another factor.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
I think the trick is not to convert vga-to-tv but to convert rgb-to-tv. A simple method like: ADV476 ramdac (256 color?) and AD725 RGB to PASL/NTSC ($4.50 + 5.31).
I've often been asked this question, and I hesitate to respond. Often times, people use the wrong tools for the job. A classic example is using IIS for website hosting. Dozens of exploits expose the fallacy of that. My hesitation, however, stems from the fact that once before I suggested Linux for a server, and the SysAdmin (MCSE, no doubt) couldn't handle the installation, and ended up shooting himself through the head.
I digress.
The percieved issue at hand here is running linux on your pants, or running windows on your pants. Apparently you have already closed the door on other options, and I invite you to reexamine those options. May I suggest, instead of Linux OR windows, to simply pour hot grits down your pants?
Thank you.
Update (after a bit o' checking): The ethernet is SIS 900, and the driver package (including Linux driver) can be dowloaded from ECS Here. The motherboard remains too large for most of what people are talking about here.
If that fails, maybe you are running 2 different versions of gears? Try using locate & which to determine what you have, and manually try both to see if you can duplicate the hang. Ex;
locate gears
(list of files named 'gears' appears)
which gears
(the program named 'gears' that will be executed when you don't specify a path)
/usr/local/bin/gears
/usr/X11R6/lib/xscreensaver/gears
(two possible locations for gears found from using locate)
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
"Americans differentiate WINNERS from CHEATERS."
whoa, i almost forgot that.
Vanderbuilt, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Perry, Watson Sr, Watson Jr, Murdoch, Trump, Perot, the Burean of Indian Affairs, JP Morgan, the FBI, Tammany Hall, US Grant, the CIA, Huey Long, the Bureau of Narcotics, Gore/Bush, Gray Davis, the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, David Duke, Thomas Jefferson
you're so RIGHT, it's NOT like all of those individuals and institutions have ever been able to profit from the well-documented and accepted lying, cheating, stealing and worse law-breaking that they all did, it's not like the individuals named aboved have largely solid reputations and/or large fortunes or died with such.
or that the institutions like the Bureau of Indian Affairs which nearly brought about the wholesale destruction of American Indian Culture (OH, not to mention those pesky American Indians) didn't pay for their crimes....
OH, wait a minute, All of the individuals mentioned above, proven cheaters all, live now or died fabulously wealthy and/or powerful...
OH, and all the contemporary institutions mentioned above, despite documented behaviors ranging from murder to kidnapping to extortion to drug peddling have great power and influence....
If you're waiting for the moral outrage of the American public to effect change (other than the channel or the bottle) take up a hobby that requires plenty of time....you're in for a long, dark, lonely time...
..and if you find anything in my earlier post that you thought construed any moral or ethical endorsement of Ballmer or MS, read it again....it don't, it ain't, it won't
Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
I suppose you think you're some sort of genius.. He only typed it up for spam filters, buddy.
Someone else pointed out the MiniBook PC, which is also sold as the Capucino G1
RedHat is an option, but I wonder how well everything works. And it's fairly expensive (about 1000USD), but you get lots of goodies in a very small package:
6.2 x 5.8 x 1.8" x 2 lbs
Dvd or cd drive
10/100 RJ45 Ethernet
irDA port
AV/SVideo/VGA(1280x1024x24bit) video out
Stereo out, microphone in, internal speaker
Up to 256M ram
MPeg2 decoder w/motion compensation
2 USB, 1 serial, 1 parallel, ps2/ mouse & keyb
V.90 modem (winmodem?)
PIII to 1GHz, Cel @ 700Mhz
10-30G HD
Amazing specs. Anyone have any linux experience with this thing?
These are still expensive for something that is just going to be used for DNS or NAT or some such. Thus i wouldn't exactly exclaim these things as perfect for mundane tasks like DHCP or DNS serving. A second hand Cisco box is *perfect* as a NAT or Firewall and if you're so concerned with a price a single 1U box can perform alot duties like DHCP and DNS. Besides these aren't exactly embeded systems per se. They've got alot of cool factor and could be really useful for some applications. I think their desktop render farm is a pretty cool one actually, something I think they're more suited to than webserving on the cheap.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Another possibility for the near future would be something built on Via's ITX form factor. Their reference board (Vt6009) looks perfect for these kinds of application, and real products should be on the cheap side. Built for fanless operation (except for the power supply), it consumes max 6w with the via C3 (cyrix's) processor, making it a option to leave on all of the time as an appliance. Linux support of course is iffy at this point, but it looks like a promising basis for a hackable multimedia hub.
Feature highlights: 1394, usb, dvd motion hw, trident blade 3d, audio i/o, video out, microphone in, socket 370, 1 pci, 1 comm slot, 2 ata 100, ps/2 mouse,keyboard. Size should be something like 10x3x8 inches.
Slap a video/radio tuner in the pci slot, and ethernet or wireless in the comm slot, tack on some powered speakers, and replace your tivo, mp3 jukebox, dvd player, and stereo. Not the mention the possiblities for home surveillance, video intercoms, video editing, and other fun stuff.
Been there. The TWINVIEW_README file has no mention of RCA, TV, or S-video. Like Yetti stories, there are comments about support Real Soon Now, and some who say specific GeForce cards could do it...but no eyewitness accounts.
Another downside is that different Geforce cards use different chipsets to program the TV-out. Here are a couple comments on this (grabbed from Usenet via. a groups.google.com search);
...or this...
I can't get it working. Twinview works fine, but because the windowmanager is not able to detect 2 screens, windows are generally opened across both screens. I'm tired of moving every window to its right place. So I want two sessions on two independent desktops (kde 2.1.1). Is it possible?
Unfortunately, no followups on either thread. An extensive search showed more of the same; lots of second-hand sightings, but no Yetti.
ATI cards -- also promising -- come up short as well. The TV-out hardware hasn't changed on these cards in years, yet nobody can figure out how to enable it...and ATI isn't helping. The Gatos project has most of ATI's special video features working but still no video out.
One ray of hope comes from the comments of Dalinian (previous message) who seems to have peppy XMMS visual plugins. That's promising. Yet, Dalinian doesn't play 3D games, so couldn't confirm -- yet! (hope!) -- that 3D is actually enabled or that the card is simply faster with the new drivers.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
It was at -1, Something. A moderator then moderated Interesting. The end result is 0, Inte-ma-resting.
www.soekris.com has a great one.. same as www.embsd.org
You're trying to waste money young Padawan. The 2,500$ model is a 400MHz G4 with 128 megs of RAM and a 10 GB drive. For less than half that you could pick up a Netra with the same specs. Granted a Netra is a traditional 19" rackmount chassis but unless space is REALLY confined you'd be wasting your money with a tower full of 5.25" systems. An 8 node Centricity will set you back almost 30 grand while an 8 node Netra set-up will set you back about a third of that. I'd rather have a high capacity SMP box for 28k$
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
I work for a large organization in a large corporation. Many if not most of the new products under developing will be Linux based. The product that I am currently involved with should be running Linux within a month or so. It is currently using another RT OS ( non-MS!). I just got a look at our main competetors solution. It uses Windows NT. I was absolutly appalled on one hand but happy that they made such a stupid mistake on the other. Unfortunatly I am not sure what I can openly talk about, such as the name of the company I work for or what the products are. But most of the more technologicly oriented readers of /. would recogognize the mane and everyone involved with communication hardware would be familiar with the products.
all these mini "systems" are cool, but what about something sub-$400 and ultra-portable with screen and runs linux and win95/98 decently. I'd like something that I can lug around (no old "laptop bricks" thank you) from site to site for network troubleshooting and Citrix access to VPN. thanks
Triple ethernet that one. But then it fails on another requirement: standard IDE interface.
Basically I need:
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Too bad /. doesn't have a "funny but yet serious at the same time" rating. You'd get it. Indeed, such a device could well be used for that. And there are a couple SBCs out there that might meet the need.
And of course, if you happen to know someone on the inside within the right department of your favorite law enforcement agency, they might know where they get theirs.
For my own needs, I'm building something somewhat larger, intended to be a little more obvious. It will have a web cache proxy (probably squid) and a mail server or proxy. My intent is to make this function with NO direct data paths between the internet and the protected LAN whatsoever (not even originated from inside). This is clearly not a box for geeks to play with (at least not with this configuration), but it can be for geeks who are making a business to provide security consulting to small businesses that barely know enough to know they need someone to protect their network for them. And heaven knows we need to have more geeks controlling businesses than being controlled by businesses.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
My project requires a standard IDE hard drive. That then requires a fan. And I don't want to be the builder of it; I want to get these from a company that will build them. Also, the purchase will be incremental as opposed to bulk; i.e. instead of buying 100 all at once, I only need them to gradually flow in at the pace I deploy them, which will start slow and ramp up.
Right now the design is built on a microATX motherboard and a small microATX style mini-tower case. The design of the case is poor for cooling purposes, and larger than I want. A rackmount would be fine (1U preferred, 2U absolute max) as long as the depth does not go beyond 16 inches (that will require something smaller than microATX to fit the drive and power supply at the same time).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Along those lines, I found another limit; normally, the TV out supports 640x480 or 800x600. If the GeForce card has a Conexant CX25871 (aka "BT871") TV signal decoder, it can also output 1024x768 to the TV.
This means that if the default desktop is 1024x768, then switching to a TV display will show the same desktop. Since TV (PAL or NTSC) can't handle 1024x768, the signal they actually get will be modified; text won't be as clear, other artifacts of TV display will appear (fuzzy, lower color accuracy), but otherwise will display the full image witout scrolling.
I've fired off a few emails to different manufacturers, asking them what chip they use, but so far...no responses.
Q. Does the card have RCA & S-video outs?
Q. Do you have any idea what your card uses?^
^. Issuing the command...
...should return something like "NVIDIA(0): TV Encoder detected as BT871"
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
"LinuxDevices Mentions a product called the STBMX1030, which meets all of these requirements, and much much more. But it seems as though the company that makes them, Allwell, has stopped making them."
Really? I went to http://www.gctglobal.com/ and sent mail to them, asking for a price on a sample STB1030N. Got a quick response with a price, said "I want it", and have one due to be delivered COD tomorrow...
But I do notice that GCT-Allwell's website has changed slightly in the last couple days, so maybe some changes are afoot...
Ed
It really depends on the application -- most of the applications that these devices are being developed are more effective with a linux environment.
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
Funny I was thinking the same thing. The problem with these sorts of little boxes is they can be pretty fucking useless. If you've got an ethernet port or two you can turn it into a little server or number cruncher or some such (like the Centricity made out of briQs) or use it as a router. Other than something headless you're sort of SOL with these because they've got really limited interfaces which aren't included in the purchase price. Turning anything from this list into a little X term costs more than buying a full fledged PC. I could always use the pre-formed SBCs for robot brains though. I've been working on one that I can talk to with my Powerbook with an 802.11b card. A robot with a .plan, that's sort of scary.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Agreed. Yet, there are so many downsides to either box that it's hard to list them all. Off the top of my head, both are either costly (needs developer kit), unavailable (unreleased, released in Japan to a limited audience), can't run 3D commercial Linux games (Tribes), and for what you get are costly+underpowered+inflexible.
There are also dozens of VGA-to-NTSC converters, some of them listed here.
Not cheap (an old complaint mentioned in the original message). Why spend usd$100+ for a VGA-to-RCA converter, if the video card already has S-video out?
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
gears -fps
...report at 640x480 and 800x600?
Bonus question: :) Does the card have the ability to scale larger screens down using the aa features of the GeForce? (Ex. Simultanious display of a 1024x768 desktop on both TV and monitor. Same image appears on both, but the TV is of course not nearly as crisp.)
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
I don't think a VooDoo 3500 comes under the heading of 'current generation' 3D tech, I'm afraid. They're about 3-4 generations behind now...
www.soekris.com, excellent for such a truley awesome and secure os such as BSD... If you want security, i certainly wouldn't recommend Linux... But that's ovious by now...
non-mechanical IDE.. a lot faster, and a lot more stable in a sense... Not to mention very little heat produced from this unit. Why would you even need a fan???
i went back and re-read the TWINVIEW_README, and its been updated since i last read it. The current one seems to only find at creating a large virtual screen with the dual heads, but not driving them seperatly for 2 screens as i had thought. The older one was more vague in its wording, and thats prob where i got the idea.
No dual ethernet models?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Is there speech recognition software available for linux? Would be cool. You don't want to use the name of the song/author I suppose. 'Up','Down', etc. commands should work better..
The K7S5A is a full ATX board (5 PCI, 1 AGP, 1 CNR), and the built-on ethernet runs off a SIS chip; although the SIS 900 driver might work, I haven't heard any sucess stories yet.
Now I'm sort of wondering if I can finally have a thin client Java box that isn't tied to a Solaris server (for no other reason than I can't afford an Ultra 5S just to have a couple internet terminals laying around). Well maybe.
Has anyone actually hacked one of these toys and maybe used GTK+ FB on it? It seems like writing directly to the frame buffer would be more efficient than mucking around with X, especially on a small system with limited resources. I just want to run a lightweight Gecko based browser on something small and kinda cool looking.
Oh yeah, for the MP3 player people flooding the thread, look into a NIC. It is fairly easy to stick whatever stuff you want onto the data disc which means ypclient and your favourite MP3 player. A couple of edits of the Boa config file and a CGI script and you can have a web based MP3 player sucking files off whatever box stores them. It seems like the easiest hack out of all of the boxes on the list.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
I've an Elsa nVidia geForce2 <guaranteed to have screwed up the FunnyCaPs>, and am running a more-or-less factory RedHat 7.0 (i.e. with security enhancements, some of my own devious rolling), using the nVidia drivers.
You know, I wonder if you could fit those 5 1/4" systems into a regular (but tall) computer case. Imagine, your own Beowulf cluster, under your desk... Seriously, though, it would come in handy for corporate server/low-U rackmount applications. Have all the cables/connections made inside the generic PC case, fill up the rest of the space with some network-storage (SnapIT type drives) hard drives, and you've got a server room in a tenth of the space. Of course, the servers in question would have to be DNS/DHCP/X/whatever that don't use large quantities of disk space (unless the disks are mounted via NFS, but then you pretty much need Gigabit Ethernet).
This
This link was posted in the comments to the embeded linux article: http://www.soekris.com/
It's the 21st Century Do you know what your government is doing
You wouldn't even neeed 200mhz. I have a p90 I use for mining p2p that runs win98 and Morpheus - even under that crufty load, it plays mp3s without skipping. Sort of.
An optimized linux miniboard boxed with a standard laptop IDE drive and an LCD display from those black&white Nuts & Volts ads and a couple of buttons would be a pretty hip guerilla rio. I would opt for the optional duct tape trimming.
I am glad to see Linux find it's niche market. It seems every other day I see a story about a device that will be using linux because of OS and it's stability. If linux can capture that market decicively then it's survival will be assured. At least in some form or another.
This is one place that can make a buck with Linux. Embedded stuff is required and not having to pay a tax per unit sold is preferable to what has been the way.
So far it's been a bit painful, but an OS as a give away is going to be the way to go. Hardware and service all the way.
DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
UNIX - Not just for Vestal Virgins anymore
It looks like a great place to start looking, for sure. Because of this, I'm definitely going to be looking at all of these models, and it made the choices easier (esp. having the reviews linked in).
My only wish, though, is to have an approximate PRICE listed so I can compare everything at once. And perhaps a chart of specs, comparing all the apples and oranges for me.
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
st
It's nice to have a reference list, but unless I have some anecdotal evidence as well, I'm always reluctant to set out for uncharted territories and leave behind what's been tried and true.
Does anyone have any realworld experience with these systems? Often, what looks good on paper turns out to be a complete waste of time and money because of some small inconvenience or incompatibility left unspecified in the specs.
I'd love to hear what anyone has to say.
Read the rest of this comment...
I`m seeing linux in all sorts of devices everyday. One of these products could be just the thing for my mp3 car player project.Now if I could just find a way to manage the playing of mp3s while driving without dealing with keyboards and stuff.Any ideas?
-------------------------
Is an SBC with NTSC outputs, plus Audio and Ethernet. It would make it alot easier to start up or maintain a homebrew TiVo project.....
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
Speaking of this, anyone know where I can buy a cheap board like the pic @ www.embsd.org that has three (3) NICs and CompaqFlash IDE? Need it for a small OpenBSD firewall unit, with third NIC for DMZ or Transparent Ethernet Bridging+packet filtering, and third NIC would be used as internal only for admin purposes..
Thanks in advance!
Steve Ballmer dances around stage making monkey noises! http://www.ntk.net/ballmer/dancemonkeyboy.mpg ...
This comment is dedicated to Looge and free weed.
I am not try ing to flame anyone here...well maybe I am. All of you people who make outrageous claims about linux bringing your computer down for a week or taking 5 hours to configure a modem are just strait dumb. I don't know that much about computers or linux and i had it fully functional cdrw, webcam, internet connection, flash and java in 2 hours . everything right out of a how-to or a search engine. You people must not try very hard in other aspects of your life either. your wives/girlfriends must not (censored) very often either. But whatever. S/F Cpl Laque
It's all Politics
...a Linux box dedicated for, say, nonlinear video editing? I know that there are NLVE apps for Linux out there, although I couldn't say how they shape up against Premiere (or Ulead MediaStudio Pro). Such things would include 1394 support and a 100GB hard drive, maybe even a flat-panel display...
Honorary Member of Jackie Chan's Kung Fu Process Servers
IQ is in no way proportional to your ability to run the worst OS ever created besides AmigaOS -- Linux.
Personally, I think the trouble to get the hardware working initially under Linux beats the heck out of the lifetime of fustration that Windows drivers tend to give me.
Amiga OS ROOLS!! Boo ya ;-) ;-) ;-)
Does anyone know any kind of premade linux box that could possible be used an mp3 player? Yes, I know it would probably be easier to just buy one, but i want to be able to put in vorbis support and other such stuff. So what I would probably be looking for is something with: Hard drive or flash or something i could store the files on Sound (no mp3 decoding chip, I plan on doing that in software) Some sort of display mechanism and at least 2-3 buttons A relatively small size (maybe about 4"x6"x.5") A reasonably fast processor (I'm not sure what is needed, but probably about 200mhz) And of course, the ability to run Linux :)
A nice looking case is NOT a requirement :)
If anyone has any ideas please post here or email me.
Thanks a lot :)
p.s. My email address in the profile is messed up... its "-ends-with-oo" not "-ends-w"
Does anyone know any kind of premade linux box that could possible be used an mp3 player? Yes, I know it would probably be easier to just buy one, but i want to be able to put in vorbis support and other such stuff. So what I would probably be looking for is something with:
:)
:)
:)
Hard drive or flash or something i could store the files on
Sound (no mp3 decoding chip, I plan on doing that in software)
Some sort of display mechanism and at least 2-3 buttons
A relatively small size (maybe about 4"x6"x.5")
A reasonably fast processor (I'm not sure what is needed, but probably about 200mhz)
And of course, the ability to run Linux
A nice looking case is NOT a requirement
If anyone has any ideas please post here or email me.
Thanks a lot
p.s. My email address in the profile is messed up... its "-ends-with-oo" not "-ends-w"
This is a very good start. As with every great company, you start little and work your way up. Marketing and word of mouth are what will bring people to your company. Be Os should pay head to this advice.
has anyone tried to purchase one of these units? I would like to build a nice little firewall box or something... so where can I get one of these little gems? Of the ones that DO have any sort of place you can buy them they are waaay overpriced. I mean the darn PPC bRIQ (or whatever it is called) is $2,500!! I can get an iBook for almost half that complete with CD, monitor and keyboard.
It is all very well that these devices seem to be available but if they aren't easy to get or are priced prohibitively... what is the point?
"Don't sweat the technique."
Ok I would like to take a moment to ask for a new feature in banjo.slashdot
All I am asking for is bit of code that will identify this little ascii art and stop it from being posted in the first place. Its such a simple thing to ask. All it would take is a regex checker for the damn thing and if it where properly done it wouldn't matter if they changed its scale or the chars used.
Or maybe a goat moderation option. If three people say its a goat pic then it gets moded to -2.
Ascii artist &
At work, we've been searching for a product that we can use as an IPSEC-enabled router.
So far, we've just been giving out PC's with FreeS/WAN. But this gets a little bit expensive, so we've been trying to find an embedded solution. Any such product would have to meet the following requirements:
* Cheap
* Small
* Reasonably powerful (At least 200MHz for x86 processors)
* And hopefully, sleek looking.
LinuxDevices Mentions a product called the STBMX1030, which meets all of these requirements, and much much more. But it seems as though the company that makes them, Allwell, has stopped making them. Anyone know of anything else that fits the bill?
- James
While I'm still learning about design, I sometimes question the effectiveness of trying to put linux onto anything you can get your hands on.
Wouldn't it be more effective to for some of these smaller devices to move more of their functionality to a hardware level? This is not a rhetorical question. I actually would like to know...
The list is fine as far as it goes, but all of it refers to commercial hardware. Some of us are working on easily customized reference designs for linux based controllers and micro systems.
At http://www.openh.org/ there are several ongoing linux controller projects released under free licenses.
At http://freeio.org/ we are developing and posting frequent updates to linux based controllers based on the ColdFire processor, released under GPL. The conceprt is free hardware designs for the free software community.
For those interested in rolling their own systems, or better yet contributing to free hardware designs and porting / building drivers, these are pretty good opportunities.
Free the mallocs!
II. TV-out (RCA and/or S-video)
That's why you see tech sites talking about how to make your own TIVO-style device, or how to make a traveling MP3 jukebox, but none that mention 3D games. Only Nokia's planned Media Terminal is supposed to have both, and adding a VGA-to-RCA converter isn't cheap.
Think that Nvidia, ATI, or Matrox have this fixed? Nope.
At first glance, most of the /. minions out there will probably say "big deal". Well, smarty pants, I dare you. I dare all of you all. Find such a card. After much searching, it turns out that you can have either 3D or TV-out, but not both.
Any GeForce, Radeon, or G400 can pump out great 3D. Some -- but not all -- can be tweaked to output video to a standard TV using the Linux frame buffer...but in the process, you loose all 3D hardware acceleration.
Yow. Scratch 3D.
Enable 3D, and the TV-out ports aren't supported.
As for projects that are actively attempting to address the TV-out problem, they do exist. Sourceforge hosts a few, and Freshmeat has pointers to a few more. None have it licked, though. Most TV-out ports have some propriatory muck that makes supporting them difficult at best. If we're lucky, one of these companies will release a Macrovision-encrusted, binary-only, x86, version sometime in the next couple years.
How depressing...what was the story about the Zerox printer driver? How is it that 20+ years later, something so trivial is still a sticking point.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
George W. Bush has an IQ of 91 and he has no trouble running Linux.
Does everything you require, plus a whole bunch more, and it's portable.
Plus it has a sexy case :)
It's perhaps not the cheapest option, but then, you do get a free, very powerful PDA thrown in with your MP3/Vorbis player...
I am looking for a very tiny linux based system with wireless internet so that I can hook it to that new camera in a pill and do live video confrencing from the inside of my large intestine. Let people know what I REALLY think of their ideas.
The best part would be the puns that would naturally form from this system, I leave you to figure them out yourself...
"Better hurry up with your briefing, I had taco bell for lunch and the bottom of the toilet bowl gets poor recpetion..."
Papa Legba come and open the gate
Yeah, I'm sure you would love it if someone contributed anything to this discussion Did anyone realise this comment has no actual content before moderating it as "Interesting" just because it was the higher score thus far except for Steve Ball-me?? Please mark overrated and keep Slashdot sane. Thank you.
Well, even if he isn't, my spam engine just picked it up. I hope he doesn't mind getting a few hundred more this week. ;-)
the worst OS ever created besides AmigaOS
Dude, you must be off your game - you forgot to denigrate Macs. (Not to mention VMS.)
Who ever marked the parent as offtopic needs to read the moderator guidelines. Just because you disagree does not mean you mod down.
The AC brings up an issue that is central to the point I raised and you should have marked both of us as offtopic not just the AC.
Censorship is not allowing some one to communicate an idea. So what I am suggesting is censorship. At the same time here in the USA we have what the FCC calls "community standers". I doubt that any person with more than 0 karma wants these posts to be part of their community.
Ascii artist &
and useful.
That video is frieghtening. Balmers been to way too many Tony Robbins seminars, and has managed to evoke some sort of cult leader persona set to Gloria Estefan.
Although, the G3/G4 in a 5 1/4" drive might slot into a dashboard nicely for other uses. :)
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
in Jurassic Park They're too busy trying to figure if they could to stop and think if they SHOULD. Moving functionality to hardware shouldn't make a practical difference. It's more of a keeping up with the industry thing. If you spend sooooo much time in making specific chips for ever app. without some flexible software level, (alot of companies did(still do?) this for a while)then your competition literally beats you to market. Eventually more things get put in to hardware like you want as they become affordible.
You know the Microsoft destroys the night, Linux devides the day...
I am so tired of this bullshit sheep mentality...
It's a Celeron/P3 based computer about the size of a largish portable CD player. $445 in barebones form with CD drive (add your own memory, HD, and CPU), $100 more with a DVD drive. To see pictures, click the "See it" link. There are about 5 exterior and interior pics that you reach through the "next image" buttons.
Try the net4501, $250 or so, three ethernet ports, compact flash, etc.
http://www.soekris.com/net4501.htmFucking jews, stop being so naive.
How does 'N' stand for 'Unix'? CAJUN is an acronym for 'Car Audio Jukebox Using NetBSD'
It's being used in the emBSD (aka embedded OpenBSD) project as a great firewall box.
John 17:20
The same kind of logic applies to many embedded Linux applications. Rather than spend resources designing custom hardware and custom software, it makes sense to use an off-the-shelf and well-understood hardware platform, along with an OS which comes with source, which allows it to be customized and stripped down as small as you need it, to the point where it can fit on a floppy or even a watch.
Instead of wasting time reinventing the wheel, smart designers will choose and customize components that already do most of what they want, which frees up resources to focus on the specific functionality they need, rather than on features that don't have much to do with the application, like memory management and task scheduling.
On some technical level, it might be appealing to have a machine that's been designed from the ground up to do one function, and only one function, with nothing extraneous. But in practice, this tends to be expensive, and the end result is often less flexible.
I think Runix, the Linux for the Sony Playstation 2, was released recently. The X Box should be out before Christmas, and I'd think Linux will be ported to that soon as well.
There are also dozens of VGA-to-NTSC converters, some of them listed here.
I have a little linux device in my pants. It is very stable, but sometimes it is too fast and I have to change my pants. Should I run windows in my pants instead?
Now, all you gotta do is put linux on one of those camera pills, and you'll have the smallest linux system in the world!
gears -fps -root gives me about 45 frames per second at both 640x480 and 800x600. I don't know about the screen scaling features of the card.
Trust me on this, wait 6 months, and you'll be v happy. That's all I can say.
It doesn't look like TV-out is getting full use of the 3D hardware. For reference, the Voodoo3 2000 I'm using right now (no TV-out) can do ~40 fps in hardware with a PII 466. The Voodoo3 is a 16-bit color depth card with AGP 1x support. The Geforce you have is probably on a much faster machine and uses AGP 2x or 4x.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Thanks for the tip. Unfortunatly, I'm going to have to get something now. In 6 months, I'll take a look around again and if need be buy more hardware. So far, ATI Radeon DDR 32mb is the most likely card I'll get. With ATI, there's only 1 type of TV-out hardware, and the drivers are mostly open source, so the chance of getting something that will be abandoned later is lower.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
If you want one, it's the Elsa Gladiac 511 TV-OUT with 64 megs of memory, with the Geforce 2 MX 400 and with S-Video output (check out the Elsa site for the European version that I've got if you're European; I don't know if the US etc. versions of the card are any different, though).
As I said earlier, the card does indeed have s-video output (and obviously a standard VGA connector too). grepping /var/log/messages didn't return anything, but /var/log/xdm.log did:
(--) NVIDIA(0): TV Encoder detected as Brooktree 869
So it is not a BT871, but a BT869.