Slashdot Mirror
Tiny Boxen
swg101 writes "These people (openbrick.org) have developed a small computer designed for open source and free software. I quote: "This great little Linux box can be used as a firewall, micro-server, PABX, thin client, multimedia, almost anything imaginable. It contains a fanless 300 Mhz x86 compatible Geode processor and 128 MB SDRAM. Software can be installed on a Compact Flash or on an optional Hard Disk." Sounds like a nice solution for many applications."
... does it run XP?
Seems there is quite a big trend lately on the order of "Smaller is better".
Boxen still isn't a word.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
This would of never happened if he didn't use a 300 baud modem
Looks like they're serving their website out of one of these tiny boxes ;)
Of course this all depends on availability of good Linux apps. It isn't just the Linux emphasis of the boxes designers. Windows is just too bloated to run on this kind of system.
I bet they need a fan on that CPU right about now :)
*flames scorch the motherboard*
With all of the IP-related debacles lately (see the previous slashdot article about the guy who invented blue LEDs), it would seem to me that if you ever come up with something interesting, you should release it immediately into the public domain. That way, there is a chance that it will survive the IP hell.
Well, just a thought.
And geeks the world over just got an ego boost because smaller IS better.
Now I can fit a beowulf cluster in a standard PC case!
Yay! Finally something for my car so i can do that whole multimedia stuff ive been planning on...noticed that it has a speaker port : )
ingredients: linux the word "beowulf" Subject of the article Beat subject of article, beowulf cluster, and linux in a large mixing bowl, bake at 350 degrees for 42 minutes, and let cool before serving. Excample: I want to see a beowulf cluster of these running linux! Anyway, this is a cool concept, but the page is already slashdotted it seems. Anyway, what i'd like to see is something designed to be like this that will run using less power and generating less heat, preferrably something that will run fine from telnet instead of an actual monitor if you want to. i just wish i could see if this is it...stupid slashdot effect
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Apparently not for webhosting.
I hope they make it, I dont realy need this big noice box in my livingroom.
Yes, I need one real box athome,.. but as it looks like now I got atleast 4. Why do I need 4 full sized ones?... answer.. I dont.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster .... oh never mind. Anyone got a mirror? I can't get beyond the front page
Initially the compact size and flexibility of the contraption reminded me of an iMac. Weird eh?
Of course Open Brick is moreso a server product and iMac a workstation disguised as a desk lamp.
However I do wonder if in the future Open Brick (or a variation thereof) might compete in the same arena as iMac.
Get the Google cache here: http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:fi5nQ4GvkE0C: openbrick.org/+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Orange
but in German it means 'boxes'.
Its slashdot'd already. Clearly, it needs more power.
openbrick.com on google.com
MORTAR COMBAT!
... For my home entertainment center,
;-)
I especially like the Fan-less processor to cut back on noise.
but...
I have looked near and far, and can't seem to find a TV tuner card that will fit in those "small form factor" / low profile PCI slots. Do they even exist?
Any suggestions besides going the USB route?
(USB isn't fast enough for a good picture IMHO)
In most cases, I'd rather have a large tower than a "book-pc", but since I'll be running this 24/7, a 50-100 watt power supply should hopefully cut back on my electric bill.
After taking a peek at the article, I gotta admit it does look cool. Too bad it is not black
It amazes me that we still can't figure out that posting mirrors/caches might be a good idea. Esp for a story about 'small systems' I mean, what are the chances that that page is hosted on an openbrick? Any way , please try the google cache for this now melted /. victim : http://www.google.ca/search?q=cache%3Aopenbrick.or g&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&meta=
"Sanity is not statistical", George Orwell, "1984"
(My moment of glory as a Karma Whore...)
In a related story, due to Google's secret page-rank algorithm and over 200 messages in this thread linking to "Google Cache", a search for the words "Google Cache" brings up open brick.
For firewall use, I would like to see dual NICs.
They would make great IDS nodes.
$300 bucks is a pretty good deal for a computer that small with that amount of proc power.
-M
It would be *very* cool if these things could be clustered together to make a scalable server. Need a database server? Then get 32 of these, each with a HD for ~$10K and cluster them together. Each comes with one HD, so you've got your RAID array. Need more power next year? Add 8 more.
With the coming onslaught of DRM on faster processors, the obvious solution is to find better ways to scale existing hardware products.
Sh't. Must've blinked. _<
;-), but with the CompactFlash memory, you wouldn't have to worry about damaging your harddrive as the maglevers skitter across the platters on the drive when you hit a big, bad-ass, eat-'em-up bump. Thoughts?
Ah well.
Anyone think that this might have a pratical application as a dashboard based unit? Given that the car has ample air conditioning on board
Informatus Technologicus
openbrick.org seems to be getting hit pretty hard, but Linux Max has a pretty detailed article on the Open Brick.. And it's not slashdotted.. yet... http://www.linuxmax.net/news/00816.html
If you look at this page, you'll see that for some of the features you need a non-free XFree 3.3.6 driver. Another fun detail on that page : description says : 300 to 400 EUR while it is sold for 590 EUR. But it definately is cool. Once they sell it for less than that 590 (which would buy you a nice PC WITH storage), and that non-free Xfree 3.3.6 driver thing is solved... it is a really nice box.
This "boxen" issue has come up before on ./ and I'm surprised the argument continues. ;-)
1) Since the oh-so-consistent English language uses the term "oxen" as the plural of "ox", it sounds reasonable (and amusing) to use "boxen" for "box".
2) Any hacker or geek with some sense of computing history knows that clusters of the late, great VAX systems from Digital Equipment Corp. (pre-Compaq) were known as VAXen.
3) The English language has no ultimate authority comparable to the Royal Academy of the Language in Spain, or its equivalent in France. So making up words in English is quite easy, and legitimacy comes to them with wide usage. No need for the latest official dictionary to be published.
If Flash memory gets just a little cheaper, you could have a serious desktop computer with no moving parts at all.
That'd be hard. A sector of a flash chip will wear out and turn into a "bad sector" after about 100,000 writes. The flash controller will have to have some sort of logic to treat repeated writes specially. Apparently, most modern CompactFlash cartridges' integrated controllers can do this; can anybody explain how such logic works?
And even though the blurb mentions that the CPU doesn't need a fan, wouldn't the power supply still need a fan? I can't get to the server that is hosting the article, and when I try to use the Google cache, it takes several minutes for Mozilla to realize that the real server won't respond to requests for the page's stylesheet.
Will I retire or break 10K?
When I try the Google cache, I get the HTML all right, but Mozilla doesn't render the page until either the stylesheet has loaded or the connection times out, which could be a whole minute.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I guess you could as long as you don't need to write things to the memory system after the first time...
You think hard drives wear out fast? Flash wears out faster. The numbers I've heard are between 1000 and 1,000,000,000 writes (depending on the make/model/brand). Of course, one possible solution is to use mostly flash, as well as some of the more long-lasting (in the presence of many, many writes) memory systems.
I just found this one for example.
As far as no moving parts...water coolers have moving parts and fans have moving parts...so unless you live in a very, very cold place, you're going to need moving parts. But I suppose you could do without a floppy, and it seems technically feasable to have a CD-ROM drive that has a laser which is difracted to reflect the entire surface all at once, and have millions of photoreceptors to read the entire disk image at once. Has anybody made one of those?
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
I've been eye-balling a similar system over at Soekris. Same idea, but with 2 or 3 NICs integrated.
300 to 400 euros is WAY too much money for what you get, when you compare with things like the Via Epia motherboard (available for $130 at outpost. The Via Epia has an 800 Mhz x86 processor, SDRAM slots, is 18 cm on a side, and has practically everything you need but memory, storage and an ATX power supply. They even have a completely fanless 500 MHz version (althouh you can't get that version from Fry's).
Test your net with Netalyzr
One thing about all the compact flash stuff. Typical flashable memory can only be "erased" on the order of 100,000 times. Now, many of you are saying "sure, this isn't a problem" -- but i dont think most /.'ers realize how many temp files Linux (and Operating Systems in general) create. Unfortunately, using Fat32 or NTFS(if you were "Gasp" running nt/2k), you would be repeatledy using the same flash sectors, quickly burning them out.
This means the only really useful filesystem is LFS (see the SPRITE project -- http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/projects/sprite/sprite
So no, you can't have a box that has no hard drive, as of yet, unless you have very specialized uses for which lfs work well. (sequential writes/reads, etc)
Wee! Final exam questions with applications in the real world!
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
slashdot editors take note:
unless the story is featured on fs.net freshmeat or themes.org, try mirroring the related site or article on the osdn servers temporarily for about a month so we don't DOS the poor server
just a suggestion, not a rant
Oops! I did it again
specs and pics
Boss: Why is the server down? Sysadmin Guy: Well sir, I think I lost it. Boss: Lost it?? Sysadmin Guy: Well, i had it in my pocket, it must've fallen out when...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
http://www.oed.com/public/readers/research.htm
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
If you write to it multiple times. That's one good reason not to use it as a swap file!
What would make this any better than the cool looking mini computers from shuttle? This thing is $489 and I just saw that Fry's has the Shuttle P4 computer for about $300. The OpenBrick machine has a PCMCIA and CF slot but unless you are a laptop user you most likely aren't wanting PCMCIA anyway and CF card readers that plug into USB are fairly cheap.
Sounds ideal as an Xterm running Linux. How much are they? The site's not there.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Could you imagine a beowulf cluster of these?
...but noone else had said it and it was KILLING me (like when Cartman has to finish Come Sail Away everytime someone starts singing it)
I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...
my bad.
J
Beer, now there's a temporary solution -- Homer Jay S.
According to dictionary.com it is...
http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=boxen
Ingredients:
Beat subject of article, beowulf cluster, and Linux in a large mixing bowl, bake at 350 degrees for 42 minutes, and let cool before serving.
Example: I want to see a beowulf cluster of these running linux!
There are several other small boards that would make excellent Linux network servers. But, most of the ones I have seen are not sold in small quantities.
Such as this board: Nexcom EBC563
It uses the low power / low heat VIA C3. The C3 is MUCH faster than the Geode used in the "OpenBrick". It has 3 NIC's, making it a great firewall.
Now, only if I could buy it, in a small case..
I like the fact that it can use a compact flash card as a hard drive--this means less moving parts to be damaged if it's mounted in a car. The small size would be put to good use in a car unit as well.
"I may be quite wrong." - Socrates
English is full of paradoxen.
I want to punch that idiot into the face for the crap that is the midnight commander ftpfs code.
Lex Systems
Its tiny, powerfull, and has tripple ethernet... what more could you ask for?
well maybe a fanless cpu.
-Nick
now if i can only find somewhere that sells it....
Do you need that much processing power for a firewall? I run mine with a P166, and I don't see any issues. I doubt the CPU gets utilized much at all. It is quiet, doesn't take much power, and isn't too large. And it cost a lot less than $300. :-)
I am not ragging on your post, just that I wouldn't consider this a good firewall, it seems like more power than is necessary. There are off-the-shelf firewalls smaller and less powerful.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Hard disks wear out too, most of them faster than flash memory
When a hard disk dies, the whole thing dies. On the other hand, flash dies one sector at a time. A hard disk will last over 100K writes to the directory tracks. On flash, without some kind of smart sector wear management, the sectors holding the root directory and free space bitmap/FAT will wear out first.
Will I retire or break 10K?
It awfully looks like a re-branded Nagasaki MS2100, which wasn't designed specifically for Linux or Open Source, but works fine with it. MS2100 is a nice unit and we use it here extensively for thin clients/small routers, however not everybody would find it cheap - the price is >300$ US. It is not that high though, if you consider that it has PCMCIA/CF/DOM/DOM slots built-in.
Sweet, I can drop a 40GB on this thing and make it my server away from home and to have "temporary" storage space... With good internet speed!
-=LaptopZZ=-
Except that RAM only works when the machine is turned on. You need something more reliable for long-term storage.
A very good use for this little box. A dumb terminal, or generally, a network active terminal. The thing is -silent- Makeing it perfect for setting somewhere in your home (ala bedroom) that computer noise is not welcome in. While you have a room set aside as a -server room- with your Cisco router (I'm dreaming a bit), and yor server(s), UPSes... etc. All those noise makers. This now gives us a quiet, and sudo powerfull, little box for all those terminal reasons. Kudoes.
Microft
At the moment I'm waiting for Shuttle's SN40 - the Athlon/nForce 2-based equivalent of their SS51. The main attraction for me? It's quiet. I'm an amateur musician, and I use MIDI a fair amount. I can say that having a standard PC sitteng next to me, fans screaming like a banshee and radiating all the industrial design glamour of a multi-storey car park, is not condusive to writing music. The quiet Shuttle boxes would seem much better suited to that role.
Cheers,
Ian
(Oh - why not use a Mac for my MIDI? Because the machine also has to be general purpose, and there's still no UK version of Quicken for the Mac)
Tiiiiny boxen, make me feel haappy...
And now, let's watch the 15 year old MOCs with no idea what that means moderate away to -1 !!
166?? 166?????
i run my home firewall on a 486/66 12mb RAM which i got for free.
I wouldn't consider this a good firewall, it seems like more power than is necessary
more power than necessary?? more power than necessary??????
at work we have a P1.2 1gb RAM working as a dedicated firewall.
it all depends on what the firewall is firewalling.
-f
www.blackant.net
thank you...much better. i had intended to hit the "plain old text" option but forgot.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
RTFF and weep.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
I'm working quite often with Geode systems and they are pretty good. And cheap. Allwell sells complete STB's with MPEG2 decoder chip and SCART in and out for around $250.
Unfortunately the support from National Semiconductor is not that good. There is a site for Geode powered set-top boxes, http://www.linux4.tv , but the software provided there is abandoned. They call it a "distribution" but you can't get a running system from the stuff provided, and the kernel is a 2.4.0 (yes, no typo) with support for the Geode framebuffer. You can get newer versions of the framebuffer code from National Semidestructor, but you have to get registered as a developer by your company.
The last message from the message board is from 03-19-02. I talked to some folks from National at the CeBIT 2002 and they said they wanted to release new software on www.linux4.tv right after the CeBIT but they haven't, which is a shame since the Geode plattform is quite good but developing on it can be quite frustating because the docu and software are not of the quality one likes to have it.
word (wûrd)
n.
A sound or a combination of sounds, or its representation in writing or printing, that symbolizes and communicates a meaning and may consist of a single morpheme or of a combination of morphemes.
but there are some, even TV Tuner cards.
he means "firewall, web proxy, h.323 proxy, and gnutella servent". that's what i'd like, at least. :)
(Of course, I have limited my searching to sites such as Pricescan and PriceWatch.
I've been on the hunt for boxes like this for awhile. I thought I'd found the (expensive) answer with Allwell, but their Linux support is lacking.
Finally I discovered the Mini-ITX systems. For $180, I can get a little fanless machine with everything I need - including the ability to run off of 12VDC. There's a PCI slot (that can supposedly be split) for my PCMCIA adapter and I boot off of a CompactFlash card in an IDE adapter.
There's even built-in consumer IR/IRDA, composite/S-video output and S/PDIF output.
The best part is I can easily order another one of these systems for cheap anytime I want. Why pay more for less just so you can deal with some little European specialty company?
Someone needs to get the prices of these things down to $10. Then sell them in packs of 10, thereby creating disposable computers.
"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." -- Dark Helmet
What I really wish this thing had was a serial console. That would make it a hell of a lot more useful for embedded/server applications. Better yet, and integrated modem. You could do pretty much anything you need to the thing from remote...
Does anyone know of a small box like this that does have a serial console?
I recently put together a web and mail server based on a mini-ITX motherboard with a Via C3 processor on it. It cost less than $300 altogether and installing Linux was a breeze.
My Theory(tm) is that the cost of a computing device should be proportional to its targetted end-use. For example: I can buy a full-fledged PC from some mega-vendor for about $500. Now, why would I pay $300 for some super-slim version, which can be used as either a firewall or an Xterminal or something? If the functionality (or typical use) of the device is limited thusly, so should the price! For this kind of device, I'd pay at most $100, tops. You can't sell these devices en masse based just on the novelty factor, ignoring the cost.
to the Intrinsyc CerfCube?
3"x3"x3", supports CompactFlash / IBM Microdrive and the like, I think it has a 400mhz XScale processor, optional USB hub / VGA / Sound daughterboards, built in NIC... and it's only CDN $379. Or is this aimed at a different vertical?
http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=boxen
Third entry down
The special logic involves checking to see if the flash bit contains the value (1/0) you want before writing to it.
Not exactly. Flash memory is written to by first erasing the sector to all 1's and then clearing the bits you want cleared.
With a 50% hit-rate 100k writes becomes 200k.
200,000 writes is still too few for a directory track.
data of a particular type (eg html or mpeg) tend to bias towards 1s or 0s.
HTML might bias slightly, but MPEG doesn't. If it did, you would be able to compress MPEG files further with the Huffman coding used in gzip. (You can't.)
Will I retire or break 10K?
Found a link from a link of a small shop in Lille selling chassis for these bricks. Maybe one of these would be a good place to start building a beowulf cluster.
/., or they'll kick you out of the shop :-)
However, on their webpage they state:
OpenChassis are sold to computer experts only.
So don't mention you saw it on
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Do you need that much processing power for a firewall?
Probably not, but this product's selling point seems to be its small size and noiseless operation. I have used standard PCs as firewall boxen, and I'd love to have something a lot smaller and a lot quiter. Not to mention that a fanless machine doesn't collect nearly as much dust inside the case.
TTFN
7 OpenBricks in a 1U enclosure:
http://www.storever.com/news/pr3
"We are currently being slashdotted. Due to stupid Apache settings on our side, performance has been very low. We appologize for the inconvenience. We have now allocated 300 processes to Apache in order to provide faster access"
All things in moderation; including moderation
Quote from http://www.storever.com/product/openbrick/openbric k
OpenBrick are sold to computer experts only
how exactly will they check if you are an 'expert' or not??
stop using it.
When you can buy one of these for under $200, then I'll be interested. I can find may slightly used machines with much more ram/disk/cpu for under $250.
Just my $0.02
not running the bloat? You can do that with Linux if you want. Chose your bloat tolerance level and install that, right down to a functional OS with CLI shell on a single floppy if that's what rows your boat, and it's not "obsoleteware" either.
Ain't user controlled full modularity grand?
KFG
That unit is the entiprise OpenBrick model, aka the OpenBrick E.
http://www.storever.com/ sells them as well as the standard OpenBrick.
He was responding to a post which did but got modded down.
I did a lot of looking myself in the hopes of building a silent computer.
Caseoutlet.com seems to be by far the best.
There comes a time in every man's life when he must say, "No mother! I do not want any more Jell-O!"
Names are pretty similar, but these are definitely better for use as a firewall - dual Ethernet for a start, and they run a lot cooler. A 200MHz PPC405 is enough for most network applications, and you can install a 2.5" HDD if you need one.
http://www.storever.com/product/openbrick/openbric k
r ic k-e
http://www.storever.com/product/openbrick/openb
http://www.storever.com/
BOXEN! BOXEN! BOXEN!
...
No we won't,
BOXEN!
I'm looking for a complete unit, with all hardware, ready to accept my software. But what I am looking for is one that is PC compatible, with space for a CDROM drive or a hard drive, plus 2 NICs, but without being the size of a PC. So far I have not seen anyone accomplish this.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
That web site looks much better than the one I found with a little googling.
The original design seems to come from Lucky Star in taiwan, but they went out of business earlier this year. Their PDFs show a lot more details of the boards and connectors.
Nagasaki looks like they have picked up the product line and are continuing with it. It would sure be nice to get a few of these for cheaper than the 470 Euros the OpenBrick guys are reselling them for. I can't google up any other distis here in Europe this late at night. Maybe I'll try again during the working week.
I've learned the chinese/taiwanese shops in the big cities are quite willing to get in exotic parts like these boxen. Every one of them seems to have an uncle or a brother as a contact in taiwan who knows someone, etc. It just takes a little social engineering to get them to dig for you, on the hope you'll buy lots of those components.
I've got a project coming up to make small, cheap, customisable firewalls supporting DSL or cable clients, no fans or noise or hard disks. Has to be half the price of a cisco pix 501, which are on ebay for around 500 euros. This MS2100/OpenBrick box would almost do it, except I don't want to be powering a sound card, parallel port, NTSC video, or all that other useless cruft.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/computing/5a98.shtm l
or for the lazy...Click Here
This is news? I'm sure this system fits the bill...or so to speak.
Clearing to 1s then blanking 0s would be more writes than just basic overwriting.
Flash memory is divided into sectors. When you erase a sector of flash memory, the whole sector becomes all 1's. The 100K writes figure refers to 100K successful erases of a given sector. "Just basic overwriting" would AND the written data into the existing data. I'm guessing that flash file systems take advantage of this somehow.
And Huffman encoding is about repeating patterns, not frequency of 1s and 0s without order taken into account. You take a long but frequent pattern and replace it with a shorter one, but then have to remap the shorter one etc.
Huffman maps fixed-length sequences of bits (usually 4, 8, or 16 at a time) to variable-length sequences of bits. If you have lots more 1's than 0's, then you'll get a lot of 1111, 1110, 1101, 1011, and 0111 nibbles, which can be reduced to shorter words. However, JPEG, MP3, and MPEG already have compression (including Huffman coding) in the bitstream, so re-compressing the data isn't going to help.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Is can it manage to be a cheap dedicated UT server for a lan?
Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill
Site is down, they must be running Linux!
A Briq with OSX makes a nice addition to anyone's drab beige PC:) With the dual-NIC option, you can have your firewall right above your DVD drive. It's a bit more than 400 Euros though.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
To current and next generation of mini-itx?
The site's currently slashdotted so I can't see the specs,
But the mini-itx platform is really something worth a look at.
And the next generation will even have the C3 1ghz via cpu and mpg2 hardware acelleration!!!
The perfect media/desktop box...
I'd rather be sailing...
For an American source check here:
http://synertrontech.com/
They have various models of the LIGHT. I haven't ordered one yet. There weren't any prices on the page, but they responded w/ a price list via email and are willing to sell in Qty 1.
I don't have the price list on me (it's on my desktop) but I seem to recall that the 3 NIC system was around $350.
and dump the RAM storage and active memory to flash at power down.
So you're advocating some extremely aggressive caching. Flash memory isn't fast enough to take a full gigabyte write in an extremely short period of time when a machine suddenly loses power.
After a bit of Google searching, I found this: JFFS2, a journaling filesystem for flash memory and other non-volatile random-access memory devices with limited rewrites per sector. It has some "wear leveling" features.
Will I retire or break 10K?
1. You may think DRM is an american idea, but when you look at the companies behind it, most are multinationals. Sony, Microsoft, Intel, AMD etc etc. 2. The rest of the world uses the same pc hardware and will have DRM built in. 3. How much do you want to bet that foreign media companies won't follow suit? after all Americans don't like DRM either. No consumer does.
Liberty.
Add a flat panel display, and a battery and you can finally home brew a laptop of some sort.
Paul Lenhart writes words!
This case + a mini-itx motherboard (available on same site), a slim CD-rom, a 2.5" HDD and an extra ethernet card in the available PCI slot. Tada! A VIA EPIA 5000 would make it fanless and very quiet (except for the harddrive then...). 11.50"(295mm) x 2.50"(63.5mm) x 10.75"(273mm).
And then there's the 42(H) x 220(W) x 165(D) mm LIGHT System that you can get with three ethernet ports. Though I donät know where to buy it yet..
> what more could you ask for? well maybe a fanless cpu.
Looks like it runs the Via C3 up to 667 mhz. And Via claim that the 500mhz version, at least, can be run fanless. So there ya go. Might wanna keep an eye on 'er for the first coupla days so's you don't let the magic smoke out, though.
Click here if you just like to click on shit.
Have a look at the Shuttle Mini PC. Toms hardware have an in depth review. There is a NIC on board, as well as USB, firewire, video, sound, etc. It can also accept 1 PCI card (second NIC), a hard drive, floppy, and CD-Rom (or other 5.25" drive).
See it at Toms
Well worth a look.
I have seen similar routers like this on ebay
for less than $40 .
This one looks interesting. A couple of the pages on Toms' site were mangled (bad HTML and picky NS 4) but I got the gist of it. I went to the Shuttle site to see more, but they showed only less. Now to figure out where to get one.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
They have all of the shuttle mini-barebones at directron... and they even have the new one with 1 pci and 1 agp slot.
-- If there is hope, it lies in the trolls... oh sorry I mean proles.
If I took the screen and keyboard off my laptop, removed the battery and the built in speakers it would be barely larger than a cell phone. The form factor of the harddrive and the bay for the cdrom are what would make the remainder boxy.
All I'm saying is that a core pc could be made as something little larger than a dongle on the powercord that connects to it.
And what about this one?
Scovery xS
We are using them as in our company it's the only existing x-terminal sold today with a usable grafic resolution.
Atari rules... ermm... ruled.
Mini-ITX is strong.
7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
Offtopic=1, Troll=2, Insightful=5, Informative=1, Overrated=3, Total=12.
So you're saying that unlike French or Spanish, which have a restrictive license, English is an open source language, which anyone can extend.
The source code is available in various forms (online, book form etc.) In fact, the design of the language makes it hard to hide the source code, although the postmodernists have had some success with their obfuscation project.
... could be done here:
http://www.openbrick.org/wiki/ng/FrontPage
At least I guess that would be more useful to them because they might miss some of the comments among the Slashdot mass.
http://www.procase.com.tw/sumicom.htm
No, yerricde knows quite a bit more than you do about this topic.
There are two main types of flash memory, the NOR flash and the NAND flash. Here are the similarities:
- They are non-volatile.
- You can write in small chunks (even as
small as one byte), but you can erase only
in large chunks (as much as 100K).
- Writing refers to changing a bit from
the erased state to the opposite state. You
cannot reset that bit back to the erased
state without the bulk erase.
- It wears out after a number of erases,
much sooner than hard disks wear out.
- Reading is fastest. Writing is much
slower than reading. Erasing is much slower
than writing.
The main differences are:Therefore, unless you're storing simple information (infrequently-changing things like game save data, or configurations), you need a real flash file system. Simply using something like FAT16 or ext2 directly on flash will fail miserably. Check out JFFS for a journaling flash file system for Linux.
Dear Emily:
I'm still confused as to what groups articles should be posted
to. How about an example?
-- Still Confused
Dear Still:
Ok. Let's say you want to report that Gretzky has been traded from
the Oilers to the Kings. Now right away you might think rec.sport.hockey
would be enough. WRONG. Many more people might be interested. This is a
big trade! Since it's a NEWS article, it belongs in the news.* hierarchy
as well. If you are a news admin, or there is one on your machine, try
news.admin. If not, use news.misc.
The Oilers are probably interested in geology, so try sci.physics.
He is a big star, so post to sci.astro, and sci.space because they are also
interested in stars. Next, his name is Polish sounding. So post to
soc.culture.polish. But that group doesn't exist, so cross-post to
news.groups suggesting it should be created. With this many groups of
interest, your article will be quite bizarre, so post to talk.bizarre as
well. (And post to comp.std.mumps, since they hardly get any articles
there, and a "comp" group will propagate your article further.)
You may also find it is more fun to post the article once in each
group. If you list all the newsgroups in the same article, some newsreaders
will only show the the article to the reader once! Don't tolerate this.
-- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette
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