Petite MP3 Player Boots PCs Into Linux

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Petite MP3 Player Boots PCs Into Linux

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 14, 2004 @11:41PM from the now-that's-a-good-idea dept.

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.

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Way smaller? by Richard_at_work · 2004-10-14 23:43 · Score: 4, Insightful

It also stores way less music or data. No comparison.
1. Re:Way smaller? by Sc00ter · 2004-10-14 23:46 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Yah, no kidding.. 128megs vs. 20-30gigs. Yah, that's fair to compair.
  
  --
  Free Mac Mini
2. Re:Way smaller? by DigitumDei · 2004-10-14 23:56 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  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.
  
  --
  East Coast Brewers
3. Re:Way smaller? by clf8 · 2004-10-15 02:03 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  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.
4. Re:Way smaller? by Azar · 2004-10-15 03:36 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  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?
So its a USB Key... by nurb432 · 2004-10-14 23:45 · Score: 3, Insightful

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

This is news? *yawn*

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---- Booth was a patriot ----
Re:The ultimate hacker tool by blowdart · 2004-10-15 00:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.
charging by Ziak · 2004-10-15 00:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

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?

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Loading Please Wait....
Re:The ultimate hacker tool by Crashmarik · 2004-10-15 00:02 · Score: 3, Insightful

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 by Errtu76 · 2004-10-15 00:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

Any smart net admin would lock the door to the server room so none of this is possible.
Cool I guess... by jmcmunn · 2004-10-15 00:06 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.
MP3? by lunadog · 2004-10-15 00:13 · Score: 4, Insightful

With Linux installed, why is it using proprietary mp3 and not ogg?
1. Re:MP3? by piquadratCH · 2004-10-15 00:47 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  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:Shinux ??? by biglig2 · 2004-10-15 00:21 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.

--
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Re:Why? by maxwell+demon · 2004-10-15 00:21 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

--
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Re:New? by ceeam · 2004-10-15 00:23 · Score: 2, Insightful

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

<Disclaimer>TFA not read</Disclaimer>
Re:Why? by aurelian · 2004-10-15 00:37 · Score: 2, Insightful

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:The ultimate hacker tool by Le_Batleur · 2004-10-15 00:48 · Score: 4, Insightful

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:Why? by ViGe · 2004-10-15 00:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

You flip the lenses up.

And look completely ridiculous :-)

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It has to work - rfc1925
Re:Interesting idea by andrewweb · 2004-10-15 01:07 · Score: 5, Insightful

"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....