Petite MP3 Player Boots PCs Into Linux

An anonymous reader submits "A French company has created a teensy MP3 player that also boots PCs into Linux. The 1.7-inch diameter, half-ounce Medaillon (way smaller than an iPod) has been around for a while, but 128MB and 256MB models of the Z2 version are now supplied with Shinux, an embedded Linux distribution that includes lots of cool open source applications." The list of included apps, from AbiWord to Xchat, is pretty impressive for a device intended primarily as a music player.

Comments

New?

[catbertscousin]

So... it's like a jump drive you can boot from?

Re:New?

[mirko]

Yes, I am sure I could boot linux installed on an iPod connected to a PC...
The distro in itself looks interesting, though and this, despite some weird choices : Apache ?
Who needs this on a key ???
I thought they only meant to provide an X server and a few apps... some kind of "palm like" mini env.

Re:New?

[gjcamann]

Well true that perhaps this can be done with many MP3 players, but at least it's got everyone thinking. I'll be doing this with a Debian distro withing a month ;-)

I wish I could speak french.

Re:New?

[maxwell demon]

Apache ?
Who needs this on a key ???

The Apache is there to protect the key: If anyone who isn't allowed to tries to get the key, he'll be shot down with arrows, then scalped.

Re:New?

[ceeam]

Except it has a battery, MP3 decoder, DAC, battery...

<Disclaimer>TFA not read</Disclaimer>

Re:New?

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet it would be mass locked in the presence of a PC.

Re:New?

[laklare]

You forgot to mention that it has battery too.

Re:New?

[Rude Turnip]

You can plug the key into just one computer and have users on other computers download whatever important file you put on the key through their web browsers. That's a possible use, but admittedly still not as practical as sticking a file on an SMB share and being done with it.

I saw this company's print ad in Blender, and they're nice :)

Re:New?

[Taladar]

1. A higher percentage of Computers speaks (through a browser) HTTP than SMB 2. Perhaps Apache is smaller than Samba? (don't know, never compared the two)

Re:New?

[Rude Turnip]

Samba doesn't play nice across subnets either.

Re:New?

[KermitJunior]

Check out Morphix.org A slimmed down version of Knoppix and several people on irc already doing the thumb-drive boot.

Way smaller?

[Richard_at_work]

It also stores way less music or data. No comparison.

Re:Way smaller?

[Sc00ter]

Yah, no kidding.. 128megs vs. 20-30gigs. Yah, that's fair to compair.

Re:Way smaller?

[tomstdenis]

Shhh you!

128MB .... 20GB they're all the same aren't they?

Also am I the only one not impressed by their 20Hz-10Khz freq response range? Where does 90dB come from? [isn't 16-bit PCM a range of 96dB?]

etc, etc, etc.

It's just another mp3 player with some flash stuck on the back. Nuttin new here.

Re:Way smaller?

[DigitumDei]

Well I read the article, it doesn't say whether the linux takes up part of that 128/256megs (or my reading is up to shit, quite possible considering how little sleep I've had).

I'd be pretty pissed off if I bought a 128 meg mp3 player and found half the space gone.

Re:Way smaller?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be pretty pissed off if I bought a 128 meg mp3 player and found half the space gone.

That happened to Ellen Feiss once. Like, half of the player was gone ... it's kind of ... a bummer.

She switched to an iPod!

Re:Way smaller?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or fare to compare. Either way.

Re:Way smaller?

[frodo from middle ea]

How about this MP3 player.

It is actully smaller than iPod, comes in 20GB and 40GB versions, and comes with std battery life of 14 hrs and an extended one comes with battery life of 35 HOURs.

It shows up as a USB mass storage on your PC, so can be used in windows, linux , OSX natively (any OS that supports USB mass storage). Doesn't need a stupid s/w to organize your MP3 collection, works by scanning the harddisk.

And it plays MP3, WMAs, Flac, and most of all Oggs.

Much more sturdier than iPod. Has FM tuner and can record from FM or buil-in or in-line Microphone.

The only thing it doesn't have is a interface with an online music store, But that's not a problem for someone like me , who already has more that 400 CDs.

P.S. I am not a spokesman for the company, just a satisfied customer.

Re:Way smaller?

[dybvandal]

does it charge via usb as well?

Re:Way smaller?

[gilesjuk]

I own one, it's also aluminium metal not some cheap white plastic like a hypOD.

I only wish I'd have waited for the M5 with its colour screen.

Re:Way smaller?

[clf8]

Umm, it's got no screen. If you don't have the remote, I'm sure you can still start and stop music, but how do you navigate what you wanna play? And, given thousands of songs, how do you choose what to listen to?

"Doesn't need a stupid s/w to organize your MP3 collection, works by scanning the harddisk." You must keep your music sorted pretty well; i just let iTunes do it for me. How smart is it in finding new music added, wouldn't it need to rescan all your music and compare it to what's on the player. Or does it store a database on your computer also? Or, do you just drag over your 20+gig of music and let it recopy every time? It's the stupid software that makes things easy.

No doubt this is a small and powerful beasty, but lose the remote and I would think you're screwed.

Re:Way smaller?

[Anonymous Coward]

The remote is massive! Of course it's smaller than the iPod!

Why don't these companies get a fucking clue? That's the lamest example I've seen yet.

Re:Way smaller?

[jlebrech]

Its the same thing with any iriver multicodec jukebox. i have one its very impressive

Re:Way smaller?

[Civil_Disobedient]

Look, I hate the iPod-People as much as the next guy, but let's be honest, here.

The unit you linked to is only smaller because they've put the entire display on a separate "remote" unit. That sucks. From an engineering point of view, you want to minimize all ways in which to break the thing -- having a dedicated wired-remote doubles these chances. And look at the weakest link in the chain -- the cable from the remote to the unit -- if anything happens to that cable (stretched, yanked, sliced or diced) or the plug on the end, there goes your fancy display.

Never mind that it's encased in aluminum. The cord isn't.

If they had put the display in the unit, it would be near-perfect. If they added a 1/8" optical-TOSLINK connection to either the unit itself, or the base, that would be perfect. Who wants a line-audio copy of a CD? Digital, man!

Re:Way smaller?

[Azar]

I've never even heard of this unit before so I was suprised to find out about one with so many features I've been looking for. That unit has some pretty impressive specs. The biggest gripe I can see with it is the LCD and controls are not integrated. Too easy to lose or break.

You seem to be happy with it. Tell me though, what are you biggest complaints? What don't you like about it?

Re:Way smaller?

[mbbac]

Much more sturdier [sic] than iPod.

Prove it. The Ipod is very sturdy. Other people have already refuted your other claims expertly.

Re:Way smaller?

[mattyrobinson69]

since it doesn't have crappy software you can do some cool stuff with it, for example my usb mp3 player doesn't have any crap software with it and i can carry firefox and putty round with me in my pocket, so i dont have to download them at every damn machine at college, and it just runs from the device

its also nice to beable to use the software that your used to (konqueror or xterm) to copy the music too.

did you ever own a netmd player from sony? have a look on the sony website for sonic or something like that.

But i suppose i keep my mp3's in an orderly fashion ( /music/$band/$album/$number - $band - $song.$extention ), but this can be set easily in any good ripping software.

Re:Way smaller?

[sokoban]

Having used both, I cannot agree with you really. Yes, the m3 does do a lot of cool stuff, but in the end it did not offer me as intuitive an experience as the iPod. I thought that little clippy-screen thing was about the most annoying display ever. It really makes no sense. Though the iPod is slightly bigger, the m3 takes up more pocket space and is more cumbersome. Also, I thought the lack of good SW integration was a problem. iPod and iTunes just work together, and do so quite well. The file/folder arrangement on the m3 is kind of wierd when you are organizing music. Oh well, I guess the m3 is good if that is what you want out of a music player, but I think the iPod works better for me, and for most other people.

Re:Way smaller?

[manastungare]

[...] they've put the entire display on a separate "remote" unit. That sucks.

Not really; I use my Rio Volt MP3 player in my car's glove compartment, and use the wired remote to control it from the console. There's no space to keep the entire player on the dashboard, and it's too cumbersome to have all the controls inside the glove compartment. This is one of the precise reasons I might favor the iAudio over the iPod.

Re:Way smaller?

[MoneyT]

He wasn't saying the remote is a bad thing, he was saying putting the ONLY display on the remote was a bad thing.

Re:Way smaller?

[MtnMan1021]

wow. that's a beautiful device. how sturdily is it built? how's the interface? i own a 40gb 4g iPod and this is the first "ipod killer" that's made me feel even a moment of regret. good find!

Re:Way smaller?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, you can carry a copy of Firefox or PuTTY around on an iPod as well.

Re:Way smaller?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and look at the accessoires you get with that player!

As long as they don't ship you accidentily the "Huge-Black-Male" expansion, all will be fine :)

Re:Way smaller?

[Anonymous Coward]

"...expertly."

He may be wrong about it being more sturdy. But keep the buzzwords to yourself. Also, stay away from marketing. We need to keep our language sane.

Re:Way smaller?

[__aalydo3567]

I dont know why you guys are complaining about the display being on the remote. At least for me, that'd be an absolutely great feature to have... being a runner. I've been searching for alternatives to the ipod for a while now and was nearly sold on the sony but read some bad reviews for it (it requires additional software and some weird audio format) then i stumbled on this thread. that looks great! When you're running as much as I am, you dont want to be taking the unit off your arm or belt to see the display, what better way than to have it on a wire/remote combo, i could hold that part in my hand while the unit is stationary and browse through songs (if i even care what song plays next, usually i have it on shuffle until i get one i want) its lighter and less bulkier plus the FM radio/recording are great additions. I've got a crapload of mp3s and i dont want to deal with itunes sorting. i think im sold on this... thanks

Re:Way smaller?

[Anonymous Coward]

Regarding battery life - well, to be honest, I don't believe ANYone's battery life claim. It's easy to get 14 hours if the device is on and in "repeat" mode without backlight and with volume at next to zero.

My friend owns an iPod, and the battery life seems to be quite respectable. Then again, my Nokia cell phone seems to have a battery life much much shorter than advertised. My solid-state, low-capacity MP3 player has an impressive battery life (for hearing those same 12 songs over and over again!).

Give me some HONEST AND FAIR numbers. Give me a unit whose battery life is SUBSTANTIALLY different from the competitors. And then I'll be impressed.

Re:Way smaller?

[meringuoid]

How smart is it in finding new music added, wouldn't it need to rescan all your music and compare it to what's on the player. Or does it store a database on your computer also? Or, do you just drag over your 20+gig of music and let it recopy every time? It's the stupid software that makes things easy.

I have an iHP-140; same principle, it's a USB hard disk that just recognises mp3s, oggs, wmas and wavs that you load onto it. It's... not hard, you know. Two simple commands to keep hard-disk collection and player collection synchronised:

[me@computer]$ cp -ru /mnt/iriver/audio /home/media/audio
[me@computer]$ cp -ru /home/media/music /mnt/iriver/audio

Yes, it's that easy. Notice the 'u' flag; that means that if cp finds a file with the same name and the same or more recent date, it won't copy. So it'll only copy across any new stuff, not the whole multi-gigabyte mass of it.

If it looks a bit difficult, you might try a script?

#!/bin/bash
mount /mnt/iriver
cp -ru /mnt/iriver/audio /home/media/audio
cp -ru /home/media/music /mnt/iriver/audio umount /mnt/iriver

Call it 'update', set the executable bit and stick it on your KDE menu if you like ease-of-use that much.

Now, I do need to keep the music organised; I like /audio/artist/album/00 - Trackname.ogg, but YMMV. All the random stuff I've downloaded rather than ripped from my own CDs are in /audio/General, which is admittedly a hellish pit. That said, I let iTunes loose on my collection once. NEVER AGAIN. Dear God, the mess it made thanks to the inconsistent tagging of all that pirated stuff. I'll organise my own music, thank you very much.

Re:Way smaller?

[mbbac]

expertly

It's a word. It's in Webster's. Deal with it.

Re:Way smaller?

[frodo from middle ea]

yes.

Re:Way smaller?

[frodo from middle ea]

Read my comments carefully, I said it doesn't need a software, doesn't mean it doesn't support one.

The jetaudio software can organize your collection and sync it with the iAudio M3, just that it is not required to really do so.

So you have two options either use the supplied s/w or use it as a hard disk and maintain your own hierarchy. I prefer the later, but you DO have the s/w option.

Re:Way smaller?

[frodo from middle ea]

From engineering Point of view, wouldn't you rather have multiple points of failure, than a single point of failure.

If I break the chord, all i pay is 20$ to get a new one, or 37$ to get a new remote . But the base unit remains intact. While as with every thing built on the main unit, if e.g. your Ipod display cracks , what options do you have ?

Re:Way smaller?

[frodo from middle ea]

OK, I am trying to answer to as many replies as possible, not to karma whore , neither to market the product. It seems some of you are genuinely interested in this so here is some more info.

• The battery life is indeed solid, I get a good 11 hours from my M3, even in random mode with all possible eq. settings turned on. Also Note the M3L has a claimed battery life of 35hours so practical would be somewhere 20-25, not bad .
• I bought creative nomad jukebox Zen ertra, before this, and the syncing s/w nearyly lost all my stuff. The thing wouldn't turn on after 3 days . That's when I decided never again will I buy a MP3 player that has a proprietory syncing interface. Also note that the product does indeed support jetaudio syncing s/w, just that it really doesn't requires it to be used as it shows up a s USB hard disk. SO you have a choice, which is a good thing.
• The OS independency is very important to me as I use linux at home , So even if I really wanted to I couldn't buy iPod or evey MP3 palyer that requires Windows XP
• As fas a display not being present on the main unit. from my point this is the most important thing for me, as I can safely tuck away the main unit , while I am jogging, driving etc, without having to worry about the controls.
• I don't know about others but I rarely need to use controls other than pause/resume, next/prev track and vol. up/down. And these are very conveniently located on the remote, so i hardly need to see it for accessing these functions.
• For the displaying being small, I do agree the display could have been a little bigger, but I don't scan thru' albums every 10 mins. And navigating the albums once in a hour or so is not that difficult.
• Also the company release firmware upgrades from time to time and in general seems decent to deal with

Now for some complaints :-)

• The included earphones are useless unless you have really really big ears.
• The disconnect feature is not properly implemented, although the device is safely unmounted, the display still shows, "Don't disconnect", but it's quite safe to indeed disconnect.
• I wish there was a way to define the eq. settings in a playlist. That way I can use diff. eq. settings for my diff playlists depending on the genre.

Re:Way smaller?

[frodo from middle ea]

i have put more info here

Re:Way smaller?

[Anonymous Coward]

just fyi, i have added more info here.

Re:Way smaller?

[Anonymous Coward]

last time I checked, aluminium metal stronger and sturdier than plastic.

As to the other claims. they are not claims ,but just facts about what the product can and can not do.

How's a fact stated, a claim ?

Re:Way smaller?

[Civil_Disobedient]

wouldn't you rather have multiple points of failure, than a single point of failure

No, because when you have multiple points of failure with no backup system in place, the unit is dead faster.

The other problem, from a reliability engineer's standpoint, is that it's much easier to implement preventative measures when there's less points of failure. The chances of your cord/LCD unit breaking are far, far greater under even normal wear-and-tear than the aluminum-housed player unit.

And as for getting a new remote... Well, that's $35 plus shipping, plus the hassle of having to find out where to order it, then order it, then wait for the order. And you might be so inclined, but what will more likely happen is that, after a year or two, the cord breaks, so you try and buy a part for a model that's been discontinued, then realize you might as well get the newer, prettier, smaller, sleeker, cheaper unit that's available at your local electronic store.

Shinux ???

[freedom_india]

Couldn't they have thought of a better, nicer name...?
Sounds like kleenex...

Smaller than iPod? Hmmm... maybe France has a future after all..

Re:Shinux ???

[swordboy]

Its the perfect name for the aspiring geek. As in, "ooh, shiny!"

They've figured us out. Who forgot to wear their tinfoil hat?

Re:Shinux ???

[biglig2]

Not to whore for karma, but it is presimably called Shinux because the company that make the Medallion is called Shinco, and it's their own distro.

Interesting that they made their own distro rather than just installing an existing one, they must have a lot of Linux geeks.

I guess they'll sell a lot to Linux evangleists. "What's Linux" "Let me plug my jewelery into your PC and show you!"

Except anyone mad enough for that probably already has a keychain drive.

Re:Shinux ???

[Mjlner]

Couldn't they have thought of a better, nicer name...? Sounds like kleenex...

...unless it rhymes with linux as Linus pronounces it. (You know, short "i" as in "hit") Of course, that's not a very good name, either... "Oh shinux!" =~ s/n/t/;

Re:Shinux ???

[imr]

Not so sure, the equivalent in english of shinux in french would be shitnux.

Re:Shinux ???

[AvitarX]

My audio sample of hime saying my name is Linus and I pronounce Linux he said long i and in:

Lee nucks.

and Lee Nuss

I assume it was really him.

So its a USB Key...

[nurb432]

That comes with stuff loaded from the factory....

This is news? *yawn*

Re:So its a USB Key...

[Anonymous Coward]

That comes with stuff loaded from the factory....
This is news? *yawn*

To Timothy the /. editor it is. Next week we're going to show him a LCD monitor. He'll be so excited he'll wet himself.

Now I wasn't really interested in a rocket

[Anonymous Coward]

though it was reusable, but this little gadget looks like something I need.

Well, I don't actually need it, but it has a certain geek appeal. /me wants it, NOW!

Why?

[Unkle]

Though it is a neat idea, I don't see the point. The average user is probably not going to use the Linux functionality, and thus probably won't pay the extra money for it. The form factor of the player is neat, though. But not as neat as Oakley's new glasses. http://www.oakley.com/catalog/eyewear/thump/

Re:Why?

[theLOUDroom]

But not as neat as Oakley's new glasses.

Those things are silly.
What if you want to listen to MP3s when it's dark out?

You've got a damn expensive MP3 player attached to another product in such a way the you can't use is 50% of the time.

Re:Why?

[Timesprout]

If you had bothered to look the lenses of the glasses flip up away from the frame so you see indoors or when it gets darker.

Re:Why?

[B1ackDragon]

If you scroll to the bottom of the page, they show a picture of the lenses flipping up, for just such an occasion.

Though, they still look ridiculous (horrific, even). Maybe that's why the first two people using them look like they're screaming?

Re:Why?

[Spoing]

1. What if you want to listen to MP3s when it's dark out?

You flip the lenses up.

Re:Why?

[maxwell demon]

How un-geeky. The glasses should change their tone automatically according to present need using some light sensors, controlled by electronics, with the possibility to customize the darkness-tone curve.

Re:Why?

[c0p0n]

Take a look to the bottom of the page you pointed:

...The high definition, patented Oakley lenses flip up from the frame so you can head indoors and keep on feeding your brain with music..

Though you're right. This gadget is silly.

Re:Why?

[gl4ss]

those oakleys wouldn't exactly be cheap without the mp3 either.

*What if you want to listen to MP3s when it's dark out?* you flip 'em up and "look like a dork, OMG" as if nerds ever cared for such a thing.

Re:Why?

[aurelian]

No, you're missing the point. People aren't buying an mp3 player which happens to be embedded into a pair of Oakleys, they're buying some Oakleys that play mp3s.

i.e. the market is people who buy Oakleys, viz expensive sunglasses, not techies or geeks looking for a wearable mp3 player.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

you flip 'em up and "look like a dork, OMG" as if nerds ever cared for such a thing.

I once knew a nerd who did - he died tragically in a hair dresser's shop. Believe me, this is NOT FUD!!!11!!!

Re:Why?

[ViGe]

You flip the lenses up.

And look completely ridiculous :-)

Re:Why?

[D-Cypell]

Note to Oakley marketing:

If they did this, with customization, I would definatly buy a pair!

Re:Why?

[Throtex]

What if you want to listen to MP3s when it's dark out?

I wear my sunglasses at night
so I can
so I can
Watch you weave then breathe your story lines...

Re:Why?

[duggy_92127]

Those things are silly.
What if you want to listen to MP3s when it's dark out?

Never mind that, what the hell is wrong with that guy's TEETH?!?

Doug

Re:Why?

[ultranova]

You flip the lenses up.

And look completely ridiculous :-)

Not nearly as ridicilous as the guy with the plastic spring-powered eyeglass lens wipers I once saw...

Re:Why?

[Southwick]

Great so now people will have even more of a reason to be stupid and where sunglasses inside! BTW is the guy just sitting there yelling supposed to be X-Treme to the max or something?

Re:Why?

[Minwee]

They should also go completely black whenever you are in danger.

If Oakley made peril-sensitive sunglasses, I would be all over them.

Re:Why?

[ndogg]

You know you want to be like Corey Hart

Re:Why?

[Koyaanisqatsi]

"It's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses with mp3 players."

"Hit it!"

Re:Why?

[introverted]

Never mind that, what the hell is wrong with that guy's TEETH?!?

Evidently, wearing overly silly sunglasses causes oral decay.

Re:Why?

[PReDiToR]

Check out the teeth on the guys in the pictures on the Oakley site.

Are bad (metal filled) teeth in fashion these days?

Re:Why?

[PReDiToR]

People that spend $200 on a pair of shades obviously don't have any money left over for toothbrushes. The guy in the other shot has a load of gold colored metal in his molars too.
I would be ashamed if I neglected my teeth to that extent.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see a lot of people that would want to buy those Oakley glasses. Right off the top of my head, snowboarding came to mind. While most people would prefer Oakley goggles to sunglasses, it's really nice to be able to listen to music while snowboarding.

The only reason I wouldn't buy these is because I already have a Burton iPod jacket (and an iPod of course) with the sleeve remote. (And I prefer the Oakley goggles.)

Re:Why?

[TommydCat]

What if you want to listen to MP3s when it's dark out?

Add headlights, of course!

Re:Why?

[recursiv]

This is not a result of tooth decay, rather an intentional choice. See Lil Jon et al. So you see, there is no need for you to be ashamed, since this won't happen to you on less you do it purpose. I infer from your tone that you probably wouldn't pay to have this done, so I'd say you are safe.

Re:Why?

[KevetS]

hahaha I think the guy is Lil Jon... you know, Chappelle's show, YeeeEAAHHHH! WHATTT!

for reference: http://www.mixmasterice.com/photogallery/photos%20 2/Lil%20Jon.JPG

oh well can't link directly to a file, but that's him i'm pretty sure...

Re:Why?

[Mr.Progressive]

Whaaaat? Yeeeeeeah? O-Kay! /Chappelle Show

Re:Why?

[lashi]

What if you want to listen to MP3s when it's dark out?

Do you know any one with Oakley sunglasses? I have a friend who has a pair. He never take it off, indoor or outdoor.

Oakley = Oh Dorky!

Re:Why?

[francisew]

Please don't ressurect the Oakley Thump 'Ugly' glasses topic... I'd bet that most of the people who buy them get home, look in the mirror and never wear them again.

Didn't we already talk about those extensively already? http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/25/132422 9&tid=141&tid=126&tid=1

Re:Why?

[losinggeneration]

those are the fugliest sun glasses i've ever seen!

Strange...

[mirko]

Looks like the MP3 player from Virgin that got discussed here.

This is player is made by Korean EraTech

[i4u]

See this Coin-Sized MP3 Player

It also has been OEMed by Virgin Electronics and is available at Target. The only funky thing with this french OEM is that it has a Linux on it.

Re:This is player is made by Korean EraTech

[gl4ss]

pretty big coin.

coin shaped sure, but you could make it also a rectangular and way much bigger and claim it was 'coin sized' if you meant that it was some ancient or collectable coin.

Re:This is player is made by Korean EraTech

[JanneM]

You would have some design latitude if you wanted to, yes:

Swedish Copper Daler

Re:This is player is made by Korean EraTech

[wagemonkey]

Wow!
You could tell the pickpockets - they had hernias and bad backs. I'm suprised Terry Pratchett hasn't used this yet.

It's a funny old world.

Re:This is player is made by Korean EraTech

[Anonymous Coward]

The only funky thing with this french OEM is that it has a Linux on it.

That's still more 'value' than most of them add.

Re:This is player is made by Korean EraTech

[realkiwi]

What country has coins this big?

Recursive MP3 player

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

The question is: does this Shinux-booting MP3 player comes with xmms installed, so I can play MP3s?

Re:Recursive MP3 player

[OblongPlatypus]

And the answer is: Yes, it does. From the list of apps:

...
# tightVNC remote access
# XMMS multimedia player
# xterm X console

Re:Recursive MP3 player

[sndtech]

RTFA yes it does

My iPod

[Mononoke]

boots Macs into OS-X.

Re:My iPod

[Anonymous Coward]

And so does my foot

Hoorah!

[templest]

Hoorah! Now I can finally fit a linux installation in one portable --pocket sized-- device! Life is grand!

Wait... *looks at the usb key stuffed in the computer's front USB port*...

Nevermind.

The ultimate hacker tool

[spyrochaete]

I bet one of the included tools can mount NTFS. Just walk over to a server, discreetly boot up Linux, copy the SAM file, brute force it at home, and you've got superuser access. Any smart net admin would ban this player from their workplace.

Re:The ultimate hacker tool

[blowdart]

Err. Right. Any smart admin has disabled access without a password, so you can only shut it down by the pulling the power, any smart admin has passworded the BIOS and told it to boot off the hard drive, and any smart admin has disabled the USB ports on a server anyway.

Other than that though it's not a hacker tool, there's no blue LED.

Re:The ultimate hacker tool

[Crashmarik]

Any administrator in a security sensitive environment will ban all removable media. Take a look at the recen Livermore Labs scandals.

Re:The ultimate hacker tool

[Errtu76]

Any smart net admin would lock the door to the server room so none of this is possible.

Re:The ultimate hacker tool

[really?]

Err ... how is this any different from any USB memory stick?
Any admin worth hir/her salary would have the BIOS password protected and no USB support set.

Re:The ultimate hacker tool

[Le_Batleur]

BIOS password protected: Mandatory.
USB Support killed: Doubtful.

I guess you armchair sysadmins don't actually know what happens when you kill a useful facility like USB? I'm getting tired of seeing this line of reasoning coming up, and not enough being done to have it shot down.

You throw out support for USB fobs (which have taken over from floppies, mercifully, and must have at least halved support calls planetwide!), cameras, audio recorders (not *just* MP3 players), mobile phone synching - all kinds of stuff which can be used as much in evil as in good.

Use the sensible approach - approach the task in greater detail. Monitor what is being done with USB, educate what is acceptable, highlight what may be exploited, ban what is only globally unacceptable.

And encypt the HDD partition if you're really that paranoid about seeing it when booting USB - otherwise it's useful to carry recovery software on a USB removable drive.

Between USB and the proposed universal drive bay of Intel's (although I can't see many users needing that activeated as much), it's too inflexible to ban at that high a level.

We don't ban road usage because criminals might drive on them. That's akin to what you're proposing.

Re:The ultimate hacker tool

[aurb]

No smart admin would use windows anyway...

Re:The ultimate hacker tool

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to laugh at all the "insightful" comments.... what's going through moderators' minds?

"Lock the door to the server room? Wow, I never thought of that!"

Re:The ultimate hacker tool

[gl4ss]

....any server you can get to and boot it is 'insecure'..

the ultimate rehash "hacker!" comment maybe.

**Any smart net admin would ban this player from their workplace.** are you an IDIOT??? what you're saying is that any smart admin would ban things like usb memory sticks, cd's, floppies, portable harddisks and just about any other means of data storage. sure, that's nice and convinient, if you work in coal mine.

Re:The ultimate hacker tool

[Tyndareos]

and any smart admin has disabled the USB ports on a server anyway.

So how is the smart admin going to read out the Smart-UPS then when serial cable is not an option?

Re:The ultimate hacker tool

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hey Phil, the server went down!"

"Hang on a sec, VNC isn't working, I'm gonna go use the KVM in the server room..."

Re:The ultimate hacker tool

[blowdart]

Right now where I am all USB is banned (but then I am in a bank ...)

However where is the problem with no USB on a server? Is your server room filled full of MP3 players hooked up to your NAS? A mobile phone hanging off the sendmail box? a digital camera on the proxy? Of course it isn't. You talk as if disabling support means finding the cables to the sockets, of course it doesn't, disable it in the BIOS, then if you need to boot off a key (and remember how many big servers will support that? or that 3 year old corporate desktop? Oh. bugger) you login to the BIOS and turn it back on.

In some corporate environments the dangers of USB devices running away with proprietary information far outweigh letting the secretary plug her digital camera in and send run pictures of her last beach holiday.

Actually come to think of it in any environment not seeing holiday snaps is a good idea :)

Re:The ultimate hacker tool

[tepples]

Admins have disabled booting from serial, even if the motherboard happens to support it.

Re:The ultimate hacker tool

[blowdart]

You purchase accordingly (for example the compaq rack mount UPS communicates over a specific card).

As for me I'd have far rather had a serial connection for home for my SmartUPS, I could have split it between the 3 machines it's protecting, and not have to worry having to put a switch on the smartups so the only device that knows power has been lost can then shut the other 2 servers down.

Re:The ultimate hacker tool

[Errtu76]

exactly. I have no idea what's insightful about it. '+x Sarcastic :P' (including the smiley) would be more appropriate in this case. Idea for a new moderation?

Re:The ultimate hacker tool

[Le_Batleur]

>>However where is the problem with no USB on a server?

On a server - sure, there's less need, but then, servers are in secure rooms, so physical security should be high enough not to *need* it disabled.

Pick the happy medium - does the danger by having it enabled outweigh the hassle of disabling it?

My servers have the USB left on - it's handy to copy patches and configs between machines that don't have a direct connection, or a heavily firewalled one. I use a fob, or occasionally a lead a-la-laplink, if I don't want to go through the Ethernet.

If you rephrase your question as "what is the problem with no floppy drive on a server", I think you'll be able to see the pro's and con's easier.

>>You talk as if disabling support means finding the cables to the sockets, of course it doesn't, disable it in the BIOS.

I know this.

>>In some corporate environments the dangers of USB devices running away with proprietary information far outweigh letting the secretary plug her digital camera in and send run pictures of her last beach holiday.

In some, I daresay. Your bank, for instance, warrants this.

However, for an estate agent, who is constantly using that digital camera to take snaps of houses, no.

For the plethora of devices past present and future which don't store data and which use USB purely for connectivity, such as mobile phone sync'ing contact data, no.

I don't want to get into a war as to what is valid or not, my post counselled caution in not throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. That was the point I was trying to make, supported by example.

Otherwise there is no point in innovating - quick disable the serial and parallel ports, in case someone brings in Laplink. While we're there, disable the monitor, so nobody can take pictures of the company data straight off the display!

Oh - wait...! ;o)

Re:The ultimate hacker tool

[William Baric]

Yeah, you're probably right. I guess I'll pay a visit to all my clients and remove all tape backups right now! And while I'm at it I'll also remove hard disks because they can obviously be removed. And I'll buy computers whithout SCSI controllers because anyone could put a hard drive in it. Oh and I guess I'll have to buy computers without PCI slots... or USB... or serial ports...

No, I have the solution : I'll cut the power. That should do it... Oh no... It's true, batteries do exist! OMG! I'm in deep shit!

Re:The ultimate hacker tool

[spyrochaete]

How many USB memory sticks boot your PC into linux?

Re:The ultimate hacker tool

[spyrochaete]

You really don't think it's appropriate to explicitly ban bootable linux storage devices from a corporate acceptable IT use policy? I agree that disabling USB altogether is a real step backward, but there's a line in the middle. Many companies have banned iPods, not because they are storage devices, but because they are MASS storage devices. There is use, and ACCEPTABLE use. I'm as much in favour of worker rights as anyone, but I must concede that some devices are a combination of potintially dangerous and frivolous - workers could bring a discman or radio or bring an MP3 CD instead of an Ipod or linux-booting MP3 player.

Re:The ultimate hacker tool

[really?]

First of all, the original reply reladed to the server room. But, anyway, as I see it, this is a boot from USB issue not a USB usage issue. In other words, no problem.
1. Password protect BIOS
2. Disable legacy USB support. (Unless, of course, you have some funky BIOS that if you did this it would make it impossible to use a USB keyboard to enter the BIOS _and_ the MB has no PS/2 port(s).
3. Set boot device to HD0 and ONLY HD0.
4. Once the OS is up and running, use group policies to limit what people can and can't do.

Or, am I missing somethig?

But when?

[skwirl42]

When are they going to make an MP3 player that works as a suppository? You all know you'd want it! ;)

Re:But when?

[geeksdave]

They do, just load Eric Bolton into any portable music player and hit play. Colin clearing brown noise hilarity ensues.

Re:But when?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but then the RIAA will demand the authority to perform body cavity searches.

Re:But when?

[lpangelrob2]

I've always wanted to say Britney was a piece of sh... ack! attack of the teenage girls!

charging

[Ziak]

The Medaillon includes a tiny rechargeable lithium-ion battery, said to provide up to 8 hours of playback time. The battery recharges when the Medaillon is connected to a PC via a supplied USB cable.

Am i the only one who feels that charging a mp3 player by just a computer is a bad way of doing it?

Re:charging

[blowdart]

Am i the only one who feels that charging a mp3 player by just a computer is a bad way of doing it?

Why? My Zen recharges by USB, as does my phone when it's docked in it's cradle. That saves me 2 power adapters when I'm travelling. Heck, even my digital camera powers up via a cradle which can draw power from USB alone, and my portable hard drive draws power from a USB2 port (unless you're on a Dell Inspirion which complains that the device is sucking too much power from the port. Cheap ass dells!)

Re:charging

[jbarket]

Totally agree. I see no reason why it shouldn't charge via whatever port is connects to. That is how the iPod works after all (except with Firewire), and that doesn't seem to be causing anybody any problems. Of course, if you're really concerned, there's probably an adapter out there to provide wall power without a computer. With my iPod, I have a power brick with a firewire port on the end. Plug the iPod into it, stick it into a wall, and there's power.

Re:charging

[Anonymous Coward]

That was not the question. The OP was assuming that the ONLY way to charge was from USB. They do make power adapters that go to USB devices... that could be an option, if this is the case.

Re:charging

[Anonymous Coward]

Who said it had to be plugged into a computer? It has to be plugged into a source of USB-level power.

Both my mobile phone and Bluetooth headset charge off USB. It just so happens they also come with chargers that plug into the device. I think it's a *very* good idea, and I hope that many more low-voltage devices switch to USB power. You can pretty much guarantee to be able to get hold of USB power wherever you are - you can get an adapter that'll provide USB voltage off your car's lighter socket.

Re:charging

[kahei]

Well, yes.

My ibead works like that, and it's very convenient... no wires or plugs or anything... it recharges during the time you are copying files to it so you never have to think about it.

Re:charging

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet that this will fix that problem.

Re:charging

[jensend]

Unless your portable hard drive's form factor is 1.8" or smaller, it probably does use too much power at spinup for a single USB port (2.5w IIRC; the lowest-power 2.5" 5400rpm drives normally use a tad more than the max at spinup). Can you blame Dell for following the USB spec rather than designing for out-of-spec power draw?

Looks are everything

[Killjoy_NL]

It looks cute, nice and small.
I doubt that it will be a big success, but I hope it will be :)

Re:Looks are everything

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks cute, nice and small. I doubt that it will be a big success, but I hope it will be :)

Funny, those were the exact words your wife said when I asked if she had a man.

Re:Looks are everything

[Killjoy_NL]

I'M MARRIED ?!?!?!

Cool I guess...

[jmcmunn]

But the iPod could probably be used exactly the same way, though I have never personally tried.

The main point I see here though, is that if Mp3 players that come preinstaled with Linux get popular, then companies will have valid ground to stand on for banning people from bringing them into the work place as a security measure. Some companies already do it with iPods, just imagine if they get wind of this type of player.

Oh well, when it comes right down to it, 256MB just ain't enough space anyway.

Re:Cool I guess...

[Lussarn]

Oh well, when it comes right down to it, 256MB just ain't enough space anyway.

You can install a selfbooting Linux in about 1MB of space and have 255MB to steal stuff. I do think that is enough for just about anything.

Re:Cool I guess...

[jmcmunn]

I was saying it wasn't enough for my MP3's. You could steal plenty of documents and source files, I agree.

MP3?

[lunadog]

With Linux installed, why is it using proprietary mp3 and not ogg?

Re:MP3?

[siliconjunkie]

I would imagine it's because OGG has higher overhead than MP3 and this unit dosent have the power to decompress, but I could be wrong.

Re:MP3?

[piquadratCH]

With Linux installed, why is it using proprietary mp3 and not ogg?

The player itself probably has only a dirt cheap mp3 decoder chip onboard. The ability to boot Linux (or some other OS) has nothing to do with the player's abilities. Every USB mass-storage device can boot an OS (but not every PC can boot from a USB device).

Re:MP3?

[herrison]

Interesting to note the price difference between the 256meg version with/without Linux. 10 euro. Now, imagine something like this with MS software... more like 100? Guess it's a really obvious point, but it makes the the decision to buy/try linux/open source into a "why not"-type decision.

Re:MP3?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because ogg is not that great? I had trouble with strange artifacts on my jazz albums that did not occur with MP3. I now encode everything with MP3 VBR with an average bit rate of (about) 200.

Sorry, but to my ears, it just sounds better.

Re:MP3?

[/dev/trash]

What? Windows can't play ogg?

Did that with my MP3 player a long time ago.

[really?]

Unless the linux bit is not taking and space from the "general" storage area this is borderline interesting, but, hardly news.

I have one of these (http://www.milestone-net.co.jp/products/groovox_s p/index.html) and have done the same thing; although with a different, bigger, distribution.
Not a big problem as I only use the MP3 playing part when I am on the threadmill, so the 50 MB loss is not a big deal. Wish it were USB2, but other than that I am happy. Best 8.000 yen I spent in a while.

256meg?

[Anonymous Coward]

Aint enough to hold 1 albums worth of mp3s at 320kps ...

Wireless!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

What would be way cooler, is if you could do the system booting over Bluetooth from the necklace..

Hold it!

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean that running AbiWord isn't a standard feature in an mp3 player? I don't have one, so I wouldn't know...

Most impressive

[famebait]

The list of included apps, from AbiWord to Xchat, is pretty impressive for a device intended primarily as a music player.

But wait till you see the impressive list of paper clips, pens, and post-its that fill up half the space in my new moderate-capacity water bottle.

256 MB?

[Tibor the Hun]

Damn, that IS way smaller than an iPod.

Funny OS compatibility listing...

[yellowcord]

http://www.shinco.fr/cgi-bin/boutique/detail_produ it.cgi
Something is missing here.

Re:Funny OS compatibility listing...

[yellowcord]

Forgot to actually check the link (prooflinking... who needs it?). Anyways go here. Follow the link to the shinux players click on them and you find out that Windows and Macs are supported...

Interesting idea

[ajs318]

I think this is a great idea. The French have always been a little bit ..... well ..... French. Sometimes it's très chic, sometimes it's downright weird, but you've got to admit, our baguette-munching neighbours across the Channel have a certain je ne sais quoi. Combine an MP3 player with a Live Linux distribution? Pourquoi pas? Sooner or later, somebody is bound to have a go at booting it up, and they might well be pleasantly surprised by what they find. {Bear in mind that the French percieve the USA as bullies, who throw their weight around and fight dirty when they can't get their own way; and resent the idea of their tax money going overseas to buy software when an equivalent or superior product is available locally. Although French youth culture may seem to be very American-influenced, the older and wiser generation classes 'pretending to be American' as a self-destructive behaviour practised mainly for shock value.}

And it only costs EUR159, which is about £100. Lovely! I might have to get myself one of these. I mean, I've already got Slax, Knoppix and probably even TomsRTBT lying around somewhere; I have my Palm Tungsten E, which plays ogg vorbis files, not to mention various combinations of lame, oggenc, mpg321, mpg123 and ogg123 on my home and work PCs, and my wonderful Philips DVDR70 which plays MP3s from CD-R. But I haven't got a device which gives me music playback and a live Linux distro in one handy little package!

One thing is stopping me, though. The minute after I've sent off my order for the 256MB version, as sure as eggs are oeufs, they will launch a 512MB version for the same price.

Re:Interesting idea

[andrewweb]

"Bear in mind that the French percieve the USA as bullies, who throw their weight around and fight dirty when they can't get their own way"

Actually, I think you'll find it's not just the French who think that....

Re:Interesting idea

[malbui]

Yeah, but we send our foreign minister to the UN to make flowery speeches saying so. Not that it did us any good.

Re:Interesting idea

[Anonymous Coward]

gingerly raises hand with 3 billion other people

Re:Interesting idea

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bear in mind that the French percieve the USA as bullies, who throw their weight around and fight dirty when they can't get their own way"

They didn't seem to mind us stepping in during world war I and then again in world war II.

Re:Interesting idea

[ajs318]

That was before they realised where you borrowed the money from.

Re:Interesting idea

[Anonymous Coward]

gingerly raises hand with 3 billion other people

6.1 billion

wm

[imr]

it looks like xfce.

Shinco isn't French

[Anonymous Coward]

Shinco isn't French. It's a company from China.

I can boot into Linux from my Camera

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not news that you can boot from a USB storage device as long as it is emulating a bootable floopy or harddisk. I can boot from both my USB card reader and from my camera using the USB cable.

To bad the camera doesn't take larger cards than 2GB. Nervertheless it is a nice way to have a backup of repair tools etc. I hate floppys, and it is more likely I have my cam with me than a bootable CD.

Yes, but...

[troon]

...can you run Linux on it?!

What about a microdrive?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was looking at Pricewatch this morning, checking on whether hard drives have broken the $0.50 per MB at the top end yet (300 GB+), and was shocked to discover that 2.2 GB microdrives are nearing $100.

Am I dreaming, or is it possible to load Knoppix on to a microdrive, partition it to include a swap partition and home partition, and be able to use anyone's computer and still be able to walk away with over a Gigabyte of additional data? 700 +/- for Knoppix, 128-256 MB for swap, 1000+ MB for /home and saving configuration.

All one has to do is find an adaptor to plug this in to USB, right? Would a boot floppy be needed, or some other trick to boot because the latest Knoppix require space larger than a floppy.

I can carry a complete system on a key chain now, without even carrying a CD, as long as I have a computer to run it on? Wear (and cost for 2 GB flash) was an issue with flash cards. These issues are apparently dead if I'm understanding this correctly.

Re:What about a microdrive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, this is what I do =) I have a USB card reader that works perfectly to boot from. I am using a old 32MB CF card as boot floppy that has BIOS flash utils and other recover tools on it. Linux can boot fine from it. Just select USB primary filesystem in the kernel.

Supports Popular OS's

[homebrewmike]

Or so it seems... From the website: Compatibilité OS : Win98/2000/XP/Me/Mac OS ( + 9.X )

Why, oh why, is this another Linux powered beast that "isn't compatiblilite" with Linux? The Zaurus has this curse, now we have another beast. It boots linux, so you'd think that it would be listed as such.

I think it is a good idea

[kbahey]

A few months back, I bought my daughter a Benq Joybee 110.

When we got the bulky box, and then opened it and this puny 2 inch thing came out, she said: "is that it?".

It has a built in Li-Ion battery, that can be charged via the USB connection.

This is a good idea, because I don't have to pay for batteries, the music player needs a PC anyway to copy MP3 files to it anyway.

Of course, the battery will die after a few years, and replacing it will be expensive, but for 99$Cdn after rebates, that is not a bad price.

Oh, and the Joybee is Linux compatible. It just appears like another drive. That was one of the criteria for buying it.

Re:I think it is a good idea

[mkro]

My girlfriend had her birthday yesterday, and I bought her a iRiver iFP895. The more I play with it, the more I want to keep it for myself. By default it uses a proprietary file system you need "iRiver Music Manager" to access, but an optional firmware can turn it into a mass storage device. Both works on Linux (The prop. file system can be mounted using this).

And yes, it plays Ogg.

Could this be done with an iPod?

[Midnight Thunder]

After reading the headline I have to ask, whether we couldn't do this with an iPod? Sure it would mean either running Linux on an HFS file system or partitioning the HD, but since when have minor issues stopped Linux getting in the strangest of places and working?

Re:Right to Bear Arms

[Phillup]

You are one of those guys that only has sex to procreate, aren't you?

Hey... I know... how about this:

The bill of rights is about *citizens* and *their* rights.

And... so that *citizens* can remain in a free state... they can bear arms... to protect *themselves*

The word "state" isn't meant to imply some political body... it is meant to imply a political "state of being"... as in... free.

My IT security people are gonna shit a brick

[museumpeace]

And my kids are all going to HAVE to have one. Anybody see where you can buy these jems?

That's cool

[RegalBegal]

I'll get one and put it next to my Quaassar and General Electric walkmans.

Where can I buy a Vorbis chip?

[tepples]

Vorbis is a bit more computationally complex than MP3, and unlike commercially available MPEG audio decoder ASICs, hardware Vorbis decoders exist only in labs.

Re:Where can I buy a Vorbis chip?

[BillyBlaze]

http://wiki.xiph.org/VorbisHardware There are a few that are mass-produced for audio players that include Vorbis playback. Scroll down to the bottom.

Re:Where can I buy a Vorbis chip?

[tepples]

But do those use a general purpose DSP CPU to do the decoding? It's a lot cheaper to put a PIC microcontroller and a dedicated MPEG audio decoder into a cheap MP3 player than to use a CPU such as the dual ARM in the iPod player.

Oops :-p

[ForresterInc]

I read that as She-nux -- thought it was a distro for girls :-p

*cough*already*done*cough*

[ForresterInc]

http://ipodlinux.sourceforge.net/

Re:*cough*already*done*cough*

[canon006]

I think he meant running Linux from the iPod, not on the iPod. Cool stuff though.

Re:*cough*already*done*cough*

[Midnight Thunder]

I think he meant running Linux from the iPod, not on the iPod. Cool stuff though.

Yes that is what I meant.

Re:*cough*already*done*cough*

[Anonymous Coward]

That's do-able too, I think it HAS been done. The iPod is a standard Firewire HD (well, I don't know about newer iPods that use both USB and firewire), it just has all of the music in hidden folders. If you had a distro that could be booted from a firewire HD, you could boot it from an iPod.

Medallion Man caters to all levels of masculinity

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Remember, if you can't support a medallion, you can't support a family.

/GTA

Re:Right to Bear Arms

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't all that clear on that, it seems that you are only a real "intellectual property" owner if:

• someone else did it (we are the owners, they just create)
• you milk your "property" or let it age in a vault ("intellectual property" has value, value is money)
• you have more than copyright (we wouldn't call it "intellectual property" if it was only copyright; not confusing enough)

Nothing new

[mscdex]

I've been doing this with my 128mb USB watch for quite awhile now. There's a few USB jumpdrive linux distros out there.

Here, Here, Here, and Here too.

But this is all provided whatever PC you hook it up to allows to boot from USB (usually USB-ZIP).

French?

[afstanton]

This looks really cool, but if it boots into French Linux, I don't want it. :)

Two words ...

[hotspotbloc]

Maybe that's why the first two people using them look like they're screaming?

I'm thinking "Clockwork Orange".

I don't get it

[nwbvt]

I've never been in the situation where I've had to boot up a machine into Linux using nothing more than a MP3 player and a USB connection. In fact, barring some really geeky reality game show, I can't think of how such a situation could come up.

I think having combined devices can be cool, but there is a limit people. Whats wrong with having one device used to listen to music and another (like a credit card CD-Rom with a live Linux distro installed) to be used as a rescue disk?

Re:I don't get it

[RedBear]

Last time I checked you can't write to a CD-ROM, so you'd need a USB key anyway to store your settings. Otherwise you're starting from scratch every time you boot up. Assuming this MP3 thing is writable, it's more like MandrakeMove where you can take your settings and your entire OS from one computer to another. It's not just meant to be a rescue disk. It's more like Knoppix plus a USB key. Those of us who need rescue disks can build them ourselves.

Obviously this device isn't meant for you. That doesn't mean it has no purpose or shouldn't be marketed at all. Don't like it? Don't buy it. Hurray, capitalistic freedom of choice. I'll never understand why it is that when people don't see a need for something in their personal life, they consistently take the attitude that the object or technology in question is pointless and shouldn't even exist. THAT, is what I don't "get". Seems like these kind of posts are all over the place every time a new technology or piece of hardware or software comes out. It's a big world, why can't you just let people do what they want as long as it doesn't hurt you? Why tell the rest of us that there's a "limit" just because you can't see the point? Why does there need to be a point? I'm sure you'd be similarly annoyed by people saying they don't see the point of rescue disks and why should anyone bother, blah blah blah, etc.

More on-topic, I can't wait to see more FireWire flash drives and keys. Imagine a FireWire compactflash card reader with an 8GB microdrive in it... You could partition it and install Mac OS X, Linux, Linux PPC, and Windows and be able to boot at least one of those on any modern desktop computer. Of course Windows is the least portable of the bunch, and the least compatible with the other filesystems. Might as well not even bother. But you would probably need a FAT32 partition to exchange data between HFS+ and your chosen filesystem on the Linux partition(s). I don't know that for a fact though, maybe Mac OS X can read Ext2/3 and others.

Damn, that would be interesting. Anybody know if it's actually possible to boot multiple operating systems from one FireWire drive? You could boot to a boot manager but can the boot manager then load the OS, or will a special boot manager need to be created for FireWire drives? And then of course there's the mixing of Mac and PC operating systems on the same disk. The file systems can coexist fine, but can they all be booted from the same drive? I think the boot mechanisms are vastly different between the Mac and PC platforms. Are the differences insurmountable?

Of course with the easy daisy-chainability of FireWire (without any massive performance penalty) you could always have one Mac drive and another PC drive and just hook them together after you boot up the main one. Seems like that would work rather well. And if you get a portable jobber it will even be powered by the FireWire bus. Damn, Lacie has portable combo FireWire/USB drives now up to 100GB, with a 60GB version at 7200RPM...

Whelp, looks like I just talked my bad self into a new pet project. Goodbye paycheck!

Re:I don't get it

[studog-slashdot]

I think you're looking at it the wrong way. The medallion carries the OS and the mass storage parts, so you can borrow whomever's hardware to run your very small portable (quasi)computer.

...Stu

Re:I don't get it

[nwbvt]

" Last time I checked you can't write to a CD-ROM, so you'd need a USB key anyway to store your settings."

Fine, get a mini CD-R and a USB key. Still going to work better than having everything together. That way you don't have to buy a whole new MP3 player each time the software from the operating system becomes obsolete. Or you don't have to buy a whole new Flash drive when you decide you need a better MP3 player. That is the problem with grouping everything together. Instead of having three independent toys, you have your three unrelated devices each dependent on the others. If one needs to be replaced the whole thing needs to be replaced.

"Don't like it? Don't buy it. Hurray, capitalistic freedom of choice. I'll never understand why it is that when people don't see a need for something in their personal life, they consistently take the attitude that the object or technology in question is pointless and shouldn't even exist."

I didn't say that it shouldn't exist, merely that if you are suckered into buying one you are a gullible idiot. Something I have a full right to say.

WAY smaller than an iPod

[Anonymous Coward]

The 1.7-inch diameter, half-ounce Medaillon (way smaller than an iPod) has been around for a while, but 128MB and 256MB models of the Z2 version are now supplied with Shinux

Wow, they are way smaller than an iPod - The iPod models support between 4000 MB and 40000 MB. 128 to 256 is next to nothing ... that's like comparing the capacity of a Ford Fiesta to 10 tandem trailer trucks!

We (YDL) did it win an iPOD a while ago

[zapp]

We at Terra Soft Solutions (Yellow Dog Linux) did this with an ipod a while ago. We had intent to sell ipods partitioned with a 5gb Linux space, and the rest open for music - but Apple informed us that the drive wasn't inteded for frequent read/writes, just burst reads... and that we would probably burn the drive pretty quickly.

Ah well, it woulda been cool :)

Re:We (YDL) did it win an iPOD a while ago

[gotem]

Re:We (YDL) did it win an iPOD a while ago
enough of this 'win an iPOD' spam, now they are writing it even in the subject lines! :)

embedded? :/

[sakura the mc]

would it be possible to get rid of embedded shinux and possibly run a bsd off that thing?

still better than booting into windows i suppose

Shinco is NOT FRENCH. This player is Chinese.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can see that the player is made by Shinco. They are a CHINESE COMPANY. If there's enough demand, i'll probably be able to import a few hundred for the holiday season. Email me at zhang@daevux.com if you are interested in purchasing one.

Obligatory

[System.out.println()]

Oakley-sense...tingling....

This is a takeover!

[Doc Ruby]

Every one of these music devices chould include an app that can repartition the PC drive, install Linux, and set it as the default in the bootloader. A true "Linux virus" in with physical epidimiology that closely mirrors human STD transmission, down to the soundtrack.

Shinux in English, please ?

[Taco Cowboy]

Can anyone translate that Shinux thing in English, please ?

Thanks !!

Re:Right to Bear Arms

[nwbvt]

I know, this is offtopic...

" It was designed so a government-mandated militia could be quickly called up. "

Actually it was designed so that the government would not have the sole authority to call up the militia. Remember the historical context, the Brits had made owning guns illegal in order to keep the colonists from rebelling. At that point in time, the framers of the government were for obvious reasons more sympathetic to the idea that violent revolutions were a legitimate method of achieving political change than our leaders are today.

"Who's left? White, male property owners."

Yes, because at the time they were the only ones considered people. That means many of them were bigots, not that they were not trying to protect the rights of individuals.

Way Smaller

[mbbac]

It's way smaller than an Ipod in more than one way! Its maximum capacity is 256MB while the minimum capacity offered by Apple is 4GB.

How about a Yapese stone coin?

[Medievalist]

I can make an MP3 player smaller than this!

Car stereo

[Dr. Evil]

Now I can build a car computer to boot Linux and play Oggs!

Actually, it's not exactly what's on it...

[DivideByZero]

...So much as that it's bootable - Many of the USB-key based MP3 players keel over dead when formatted(I believe because the player mechanism stores it's player code on the flash, in some crack-tastic fashion), thereby giving you the options of either living with a VFAT/no boot format, or giving up the MP3 playing capability.

(Disclaimer - I haven't bought one and dug into this problem: I didn't want to waste money on an MP3 drive I couldn't boot from.)

Shinux is clearly violating GPL

[Leninix]

from http://www.shinux.org/ It looks like debian-based from the text. Here a in french the website text that violate GPL and a english translation of the first case. Clearly, GPL give you the right to sell a distribution under another name. The only part possibly not GPL is the setup tool: however it appear to came from Debian, nothing fancy added here. C'est gratuit dans les cas suivants : It's free(as in beer) in these cases: Your're a customer: Shinux is downloadable freely and you dispose of a unlimited usage. You can copy and modifiate as you like, but you cannot sell it (even under a different (distro) name. The modified version could be distributed after a registration to addon@shinux.org. Vous êtes particulier : la version Shinux© est téléchargeable gratuitement pour une durée d'utilisation illimité. Vous pouvez le copier et le modifier à loisir mais vous n'êtes pas autoriser à le vendre (y compris sous un autre nom). La version modifiée peut être diffusée après validation auprès de l'adresse addon@shinux.org. Vous pouvez de ce fait contribuer à l'évolution de la Shinux*. Vous êtes une entreprise et vous souhaitez utiliser Shinux sur vos postes PC ou pour vos commerciaux, vous ne rentrez pas de la cas () : la licence est gratuite et illimité. Vous pouvez le copier et modifier la distribution à loisir mais vous n'êtes pas autoriser à la vendre (y compris sous un autre nom) La version modifiée peux être diffusée après validation auprès de l'adresse addon@shinux.org. Vous pouvez de ce fait contribuer à l'évolution de la Shinux*. Vous êtes un organisme de presse : Diffusion gratuite après demande à l'adresse (presse@shinux.org) pour validation de la version du logiciel en cours. Cas particulier : Vous êtes une usine, un distributeur de matériel (MP3, Disque Dur, Clés USB) ou de logiciels contactez nous pour voir comment diffuser une distribution spécifique à votre hardware à vos couleurs ou a vos besoins. * Ces droits concernent la distribution et les développements effectués pour ce produit. Certains logiciels restant sous leur licence d'origine (GPL).

The real difference

[Anonymous Coward]

The only difference that I can see from the case and the technical data of generation 1 (Z) and 2 (Z2) is that the first one came without their shiny Linux and the second one with a bigger hole in your pocket. (10-20$ higher pricetag)
If I should be wrong please tell me so.
Wait there is another difference! While they claim the old model to be small and light the new one is ultra-light. That must be the new feature!
But let that be enough of the evil talking. After all it is a pretty shiny little device.

Doubt the quality of the music..

[deniea]

From the article, the specs:

Fréquence : 20Hz ~ 20Hz

I'm quite sure that will provide pretty lousy audio...

dude!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude this rocks! Does it play ogg as well? Does it come with nmap or tcpdump too?

Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

So you plug this into a Windows computer and it runs Linux. How long do you think it will be until Bill Gates gets Congress to outlaw this?

usb

[Anonymous Coward]

has anyone made a music player that can handle usb jump drives (or whatever you call them). like an ipod with a usb port just for these tiny usb drives....imagine a keychain with 20 tiny 256mb+ drives, a player that can use them...I'd be happy
friend: "hey you got any *artist name*"
me: *hands over my key chain drive that has *artist name* to friend to play on his/her preferred music device*

seems like this the player can be even smaller since it wont _need_ a hard drive of its own, even though if it did have one that could just be an added bonus I suppose, personally I'd rather have an extremely small player with excellent audio output and use usb drives for my music. also without its own hard drive maybe it would be more power efficient too? i.e. longer batter life. not sure how ipods do this, if its real hard drives *moving parts*, or ram like hard drives *no moving parts* anyway, just seems like it'd make sense

Really curious

[mindstrm]

What does "It's way smaller than an ipod" have to do with anything?

This thing has about 1 or 2% of the storage capacity of an ipod.

And this thing is also huge compared to other flash players with 256mb...

256Mgs?

[fedorafreak]

Im waiting for a 20 or thirty gb one I dont care it is smaller than the ipod i want an ipod that can boot into linux or on a sort of related note i want linux ipod software that dosent suck