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

Way smaller?

[Richard_at_work]

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

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: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.

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:The ultimate hacker tool

[Errtu76]

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

MP3?

[lunadog]

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

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: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: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....