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World's Smallest Linux Box Fits in RJ-45 Jack
An anonymous reader writes "German electronics company Kleinhenz is shipping a network-enabled Linux system built into an RJ-45 Ethernet jack. "Picotux" has a 55MHz ARM processor, 2MB of Flash, 8MB of RAM, a serial port, and five lines of GPIO. It measures 0.75 x 0.75 x 1.4 inches (19 x 19 x 36mm), and weighs 0.64 ounces (18 grams), packaged in a metal housing. A wireless 802.11 version appears to be on the horizon, too. So, if you've ever wanted to network-enable, say, a robot, boombox, or model airplane, this could be the system for you." Is this really the world's smallest? It looks a bit chunkier than a tiny gumstix machine.
comparison:
picotux: 19x19x36mm (12.996 cc), 18 grams
gumstix: 20x6.3x80mm (10.080 cc), 12 grams?
packaged gumstix: 36x15x83mm (44.820 cc), ?? grams
Okay, so the gumstix is smaller. But the picotux has built-in eth.
The "nothing to see here, please move along" comment finally makes sense.
For only Eur 99, though, a fair deal if you need a whole lot of tiny servers for something. Who needs virtual servers, when you can stick real ones at the end of each ethernet cable?
Yes but will it run Windows N
Dunno. But it might run Windows T: The official OS of Bosco Baracus. I pity the foo' who don't run dat version!
True, it's no workstation, but still the specs are enough to leak trade secrets across the Internet, and the size is such that the bug may go unnoticed by your employer's IT maintenance department. So if you are infiltrating an "evil" company and you value your afterlife more than you value your life, go for it!
Sounds like a cool way to firewall individual rooms or areas.
Where is the LCD screen?!
I wonder if the Airport Express is hackable enough to give you similar results.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
First thing I thought, if you could power it with ethernet, you could put this in remote locations for sensors. But 250mA is pretty efficient.
I could see a use for the wifi+serial setup, you could put this on older serial based nodes and remotely access them. Big market for HVAC when everyone wants them to replace hardware. Our schools here in the Washington state is saving millions by using linux and other technology than going with Honeywell or some other company to rip out the entire system and replace with modern (aka expensive) controls.
A wifi serial setup would be cool, to pop in a router, and then access via my laptop, so I dont have to run a wire when I'm testing or racking it up.
Lots of uses. Very cool idea.
The wireless version is cool as well, but the systems need two more things:
a: For the wired version: Support for Power over Ethernet. This way, separate power isn't needed in many installations.
b: A single USB port for both versions.
Do those both and you now have a general purpose wired and wireless glue for attaching pretty much arbitrary devices to the network.
Test your net with Netalyzr
This is a Digi Connect ME, which has been around for a while. I have one, and it runs uClinux nicely.
Dunno what Kleinhenz is shipping, but I'm gussing it's just the DCME with uClinux flashed onto it. Nothing new here.
IIRC, old newsgroup threads when these came out suggest the quantity cost is ~$50/ea, so this product's convenience comes at a bit of a premium.
Somebody (Gordon Bell?) predicted that in the future the computer will be "just a bump in the cable". Looks like we're there. Can anybody find the original quote?
...will be in the next version (with appologies to Dilbert).
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
It doesn't have to store much if it can open an outbound network connection to something with logging.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
We are currently using a Gumstix for a robotics-project, and eventhough the size is amazing, the really big advantage of Gumstix' are their build-environment, and a really efficient and responsive support there.
In addition they have a Wiki-page which has a nice tutorial (I must know it, I wrote it;) and other helpful tips.
Add to that: cutting edge software (latest Linux kernel and gcc) and bluetooth (do you remember the bluetooth-sniper from some days ago? It was based on a Gumstix).
Really cool!
Now, take two and put them back to back running a variant of iptables/whatever to build a "on the cable" firewall.
meh
My company was an early adopter of Linux for core tech infrastructure.
Once, one of the finance people asked me, half jokingly, "So is this Linux a piece of shit or what?"
I replied: It is. we use it for the fertilizer your paycheck grows in.
I mark that moment as the turning point when linux went from skepticism to aceeptance in my company.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I mean 2 ethernet ports, making it look like a cross-over connector, and you've have a great firewall gizmo.
-Charles
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I'm imagining a Beowolf cluster of Walmart sweaters.
but I can go buy a cheap desktop for that
Just because you can doesn't mean you should. This is an embedded systems solution, not a desktop replacement. If you play in that world than you knwo 100 euros is quite inexpensive.
The PC is just too big, too fragile, too power-hungry and too unreliable for a lot of tasks where these tiny machines could be used--even if the computational power-to-price ratio is so much larger for the PC. People in the automation world probably remember a few years ago how the PC-based "soft PLC" would reduce costs and replace all those proprietary, expensive traditional PLCs. Never happened and never will because PCs are too general purpose and inefficient. To this day all I've ever used software-based PLCs for is simulation.
For those who are unaware, PLCs, or Programmable Logic Controllers, are esentially purpose-built embedded computer systems used to monitor and control industrial equipment. The bulk of them today are about as powerful as a 286 PC or even less and they cost as much as or more than a high-end PC. Despite that, the hardware and firmware/software in a PLC is designed from the ground up for deterministic, hard-real-time operation and I/O intensive applications. They also do not have processor fans, hard drives and other unreliable mechanical parts.
That is why these tiny Linux machines are so interesting--even if they cannot do as much as a PC or are more expensive. They could be the beginning of a standard, truly open platform for embedded systems. If the processor unit can fit in an RJ45 jack, then in the future we could do away with racks of PLCs and make field equipment control itself. The stuff I can imagine is mind boggling to say the least.
The gumstix has a larger surface area, the gumstix has a larger average visual cross section when viewed from a random angle. German shipping services like to define the size of a packet, for the purpose of determining fees, as the sum of of its dimensions.
Which is smaller - a gumstix or a sheet of paper ? If you say it's the gumstix, then the picotux is smaller.
Otherwise it does not make sense! The german postal service says the picotux is smaller, so the picotux is smaller; but what do shipping fees in Germany, which are paid in Euro, have to do with the size of the gumstix in comparison to the picotux ? And why am I comparing it to mice which are mammals which are rodents of the genus Mus as computer input devices ? It does not make sense.
Therefore you must admit the picotux is smaller.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of those! No, really. All you'd need is a switch and some ethernet cables and you could have yourself a nifty 8 node cluster for under a grand... and bragging rights for probably having one of the worlds smallest clusters.
but can you fit that bang up your bung?
"This picotux. This picotux was in your Daddy's pocket when he was shot down over Hanoi. He was captured and put in a Vietnamese prison camp. Now he knew if the gooks ever saw the picotux it'd be confiscated. The way your Daddy looked at it, that picotux was your birthright. And he'd be damned if and slopeheads were gonna put their greasy yella hands on his boy's birthright. So he hid it in the one place he knew he could hide somethin'. His ass. Five long years, he wore this picotux up his ass. Then when he died of dysentery, he gave me the picotux. I hid with uncomfortable hunk of metal up my ass for two years. Then, after seven years, I was sent home to my family. And now, little man, I give the picotux to you."
music lover since 1969
Wow, I guess every laptop in the world is also overpriced, being less powerful and more expensive than a similar desktop.
Mods are sniffing glue today...
See? Because of me they have a warning.
A quote posted to Usenet, in 1995.