Photos and Commentary On AMD's PIC

vincecate writes "I just purchased a brand new AMD PIC which has been on Slashdot and LinuxDevices. I have opened it up and put some pictures and comments on the web. Some interesting things are that the system uses only 8 watts, the Windows CE does not want you installing any software, you can not get to the BIOS settings, and I was not able to boot Linux." (He was able, though, to boot Linux from an IDE device on a mini-ITX system also based on the Geode processor.)

Comments

Linux on PIC

[MoxFulder]

This article on LinuxDevices discusses the possibility of installing Linux on the PIC.

how about a useful link...

[Lumpy]

Like where to buy one?

I would certianly like to get one to tinker with and make do things that are against the wishes of the manufacturer.

Boot problem

[spotteddog]

The problem booting from the CF card is probablly just a partition type or signature thing. It would be interesting to hook the hard drive from the PIC up to a working Linux box (as hdb or hdc) and poke around to see how it is partitioned. Maybe a block copy from the hard drive to the CF would create a booting CF based system. Granted it still would be running WinCE, but it would be a start.....

Cryptographic BIOS?

[reality-bytes]

Apparently, the BIOS is designed by General Software for AMD and features a 'cryptographic handshake' between BIOS and O/S.

The Boot Security Application is a firmware application that establishes trust between platform hardware and the user application, preventing operation of systems compromised by unauthorized tampering with BIOS, OS, or application with cryptographic signatures on all trusted objects.

This sounds like a horrible lock-in to Windows CE ie: "We only want you to run what we want you to run"

However, in the same document:

Supporting both Linux and Windows, the Boot Security Application requires the user application running under Linux or Windows to periodically (as defined by a policy established by the ODM/OEM in the system registry) request security challenges and provide challenge responses, convincing the Boot Security Application, which represents the hardware and firmware, that the application is genuine. Similarly, the Boot Security Application responds to out-of-band challenges as requested by the user application, to convince the user application that it is running on genuine hardware and firmware.

So it now looks more like; "You can run another O/S but only if all the software is registered with us first"

The first line of attack with getting Linux running on an AMD PIC would appear to be by simply contacting General Software and asking if they are willing to provide some advice (Its worth a try).

Re:Cryptographic BIOS?

[Lehk228]

sounds to me like the point is to provide some serious virus/trojen/spyware hardening for sale in an environment full of new users and poor availability of tech support.

PIC?

[gUmbi]

Did anyone else think 'programmable interrupt controller'? It's too early...

Reason why you can't fiddle with it

[magarity]

Look at the target market kids; some village in inner Mongolia or northeastern India saves up to buy a computer with the help of a government grant. The first thing that happens is someone accidentally screws up the BIOS settings or downloads and installs some flakey software. Wanna guess how easy it is to get a tech out to fix it? Be serious and stop your whining about WinCE and no BIOS access. It obviously isn't for you. The thing's capabilitis in terms of software/firmware were very carefully considered in light of its target demographic.

Re:Reason why you can't fiddle with it

[WARM3CH]

I agree. The design goals of this device is clearly are: Providing minimum requirments to access and browse the net, and do basic word processing and that's all! It should not require any service, patches for a long time. Many slashdotters many nor realize that design of such a system is quite different from normal PCs and is a completely different beast. You need a system to do something very basic, only do this job and do it right with no future need for any chagnes. This is logical to lock it in a way that making any changes to it be very difficult. Not only to protect it from the users, but also from all unknown possible future threats on the net. You can imagine millions of such simple machines round the world and far from any service center can be a very good target for spammers, black-hats and anyone who needs a hord of zobie machines. How would you design such a thing if you needed to do it with such a tight price limit?

Re:Put ReactOS on it.

[Surur]

Win CE *is* about $5 a pop, for most applications, including pocketpc's. $5 is not far from free, and Win CE is open source to the OEM's, to modify as they see fit. Further more there are a lot of drivers available for Win CE already, and they get supported by microsoft. Its not too bad a deal.

And we KNOW microsoft is salivating over getting into the 3rd world cheap computer market before Linux and other free software takes hold, robbing them of future revenue forever.

Surur

Beginning reverse engineering

[DanMc]

I think the first thing to do is take the WinCE drive and put it on a PC and make a 'dd' backup. Poke around, analyze it. Does it have a traditional partition table? dd clone onto a CF disk and see if it boots WinCE in the PIC?

If there really is a well designed "OS Handshake" to boot, try to work around it. Can you let WinCE complete the handshake, then use something like 'bootlin' to bootstrap linux? I think there was an evolution of bootlin into the windows days but can't recall it's name.

Install LinuxBIOS

[LuxuryYacht]

LinuxBIOS supports the AMD Geodes. You'd have to do a little hardware hacking (flash in a socket, to allow recovery from a bad LinuxBIOS image) to get the first working image of LinuxBIOS working. After that it's just re-flash and you're up and running with LinuxBIOS!

www.linuxbios.com

Re:flash drives and longevity

[The_countess]

you can change a bit of a flash drive about 100.000 times. for everyday use this is more then enough but linux changes a lot of things quite often so it wears out relativly quickly. there are however specialy distributions for flash drives that change verry little, and work almost exclusivly in RAM.

Re:Paperweight.

[dave420]

BECAUSE IT'S NOT FOR YOU

It's for poor people who can't afford to get online. People who make $1,000-$6,000 PER YEAR. They are people who don't care about linux, who don't want to install p2p, who don't want 17 different media players for their downloaded simpsons.

This PC is not for you, so the fact you don't like it means absolutely zero.

You moaning about it is like if you went to a soup kitchen, moved some starving people out of the way, tried the soup and proclaimed very loudly "This soup tastes like shit! I'm off to a fancy restaurant for a steak!". You don't see the point, as you can afford something better. Not everyone can. Count yourself lucky, don't put down their only option.

AMD is already exploring PIC Linux

[taj]

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 14:06:53 -0600
From: "Hale, Brad"
To: Trent Jarvi
Subject: RE: PIC Linux

Trent, thanks for your interest in AMD's PIC. We have not entered an
exclusive agreement with Microsoft and are currently working with a number of
Linux developers for future support. Please check back on AMD's web site for
future announcements regarding Linux support.

Regards,

Brad Hale
Business Development
Value Platforms
Advanced Micro Devices
(XXX) XXXX-XXXX

-----Original Message----- ...

Re:This would make a GREAT car computer

[ParnBR]

Friend, I appreciate the sentiment. But I live in a so-called third world country and not every "intended customers" here are worried about feeding themselves and not getting shot at. In fact, a big part of this country is really poor, but not that violent. So, please, don't generalize, ok? :)