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Linux Powers Lilliputian PCs
An anonymous reader writes "Gumstix is launching a whole line of dinky little PCs little larger than a Big Red Plenty Pack. The first Netstix model targets server, sniffing, and network simulation. The next model will be USB-powered, followed by models with SD/MMC slots and built-in WiFi. They come with Linux 2.6.17, and lots of room for user applications."
Nice: 200MHz XScale, 64 MB RAM, 16 MB Flash (3MB occupied by OS), 100MBit Ethernet, CF-II slot, 1-3/8 * 4-1/8 inches (35 x 103mm). Even nicer: the next version with integrated WiFi. All done by a company of 26, with no intention to grow, but to automate more if more work has to be done, so prices will fall.
Not so nice: $186.5 for one, $165 in volumes of 1000. I know, this is still very cheap for something in "industrial size", but too much to build one into my door bell, one into each phone, one into each light switch (the joy of being unable to turn of the light due to an 500 error), one into the fish tank, one into the fridge to finally order milk like we have been promised for years.
But give it some years, and I will have a log of how many minutes I brushed my teeth based on the report my eToothBrush send wirelessy to my server.
memomo: free web based language trainer DE-EN-ES-FR-IT
This will be just the right amount of computing power to, say, monitor the tire pressure in my Bronco or use an infrared LED trip sensor to turn on my desktop computer when I walk through the front door.
I figure you'd need Linux for that, right? Java too, probably?
wget
Damn... and I thought lynx was hard core!
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
The article mentiones one of the first applications, using 24 of these to simulate a network at a network equipment vendor on his desktop. From there to your cluster is just a tiny step. SETI@desktop.
memomo: free web based language trainer DE-EN-ES-FR-IT
Yeah, that's pretty cool, but there are no headphone jacks!
Oh, wait, I get it....
Register the editry.
Gumstix is launching a whole line of dinky little PCs little larger than a Big Red Plenty Pack. The first Netstix model targets server, sniffing, and network simulation.
These guys seriously need to take a page out of the book of Apple. Listen guys, it's not "dinky" and "little". You gotta jazz it up a little bit. Throw in some "nano" and a bit of "micro" and "mini" for good measure.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
1-3/8 x 4-1/8 inches isn't 35 x 103cm, it's ~ 3.5 x 10.3cm. Otherwise that's a rather enormous teeny Linux server.
I just got myself a KuroBox. This is a fantastic little thing. It's a full computer (headless). It's excellent for a home file server or web server. Its decently cheap. You add you own hard drive. If you've done a chroot before, you should have no problem setting it up with you own custom linux. I used debian. But you can use Gentoo or others too.
These systems are very much comparable to typical desktop systems we had at the end of the 1990s. As I'm sure you are aware, we did have fairly capable systems then (it wasn't that long ago!). We had ICQ, web browsers, office suites, and even desktop Java applications! I am without doubt that enterprising individuals and groups within the open source community will port applications like Seamonkey and GAIM to this device, so we can surf the web, check our email, and chat online.
Also keep in mind that a 200 MHz ARM CPU is somewhat more powerful than a 200 MHz Pentium CPU. So in effect, these systems may turn out to be quite a bit better than the desktops we had in the late 1990s.
Plug one of those into a midi/usb keyboard, a DSP unit (or a math processor tailored to sound), a card with samples or patches, and speakers, and you'd have yourself a synthesiser probably better and cheaper than anything on the market.
Then again, you could just buy a used desktop from the local computer shop like I did, which is much cheaper, faster, and powerful, but has the disadvantage of size.
I have freaks! I did something right...
Uhhh.... I can go out and buy any number of devices around $50 that will all of this and much more with OpenWRT. Granted they aren't as small, but they almost all include 802.11g and several have USB2.0. For the increased capability, and reduced price, it's a far better deal unless you absolutely need something that tiny...
What is the benefit of this device? For nearly the same amount you can get a pda capable of running linux that includes a faster processor, an input method and a screen. Am I missing something?
Yes it is subject to keylogging. But on the upside if you have ssh and such setup right on the little guy all an attacker gets is your keystrokes in the apps you run, the only password would be the one you login to the thing with, which requires physical possession of the unit anyway. All of the remote systems would be accessed with crypto keys stored safely on the unit and never shared with the potentially tainted windows PC. Run all of the sessions via X or VNC sessions so the output is graphical and that will cut down on how much can be snooped.
Is it safe? No. Better than carrying around a USB key with Putty installed? Hell yes.
Even safer would be one of those little Nokia tablets and a WiFi or Bluetooth+phone connection and if you just had to have a full keyboard go with a foldup bluetooth model.
Democrat delenda est
I'd like to see them make a simple, stupid framebuffer module for these things - just NTSC or PAL resolution output at 256 colors would be plenty - look at what the old Atari/Apple/Commodore computers could do.
I want to use these as a very simple display for home automation - hang one on the back of the TV, use a PIN switch video port (or the video input on the TV), run about a 40 by 24 character display - not fancy, but enough for display.
A frame buffer like that could easily be implemented in a small FPGA now-a-days.
Of course, a tiny X server or VNC client would be even better.
www.eFax.com are spammers
While this still has to drop a bit in price it points to the next big thing. Bubblepack computing. I.E. PC grade computers (this and the OLPC) with preinstalled distros in bubblepacks on the racks by the checkout counters at Target and WalMart. Buy one plug it in, use it. Store your work on removable flash or USB key. When the unit breaks, fails, or is stolen, toss it in the recycle bin and get another. Zero maintenance, zero support. Within a few years the'll make the standard PC look like mainframes.
So, are they big endian or little endian?
from TFA:
> The Netstix 200xm-cf is available now, with a 4-Volt wall adapter
For these types of items to really take off, they have to be Walmart marketable. The best way to do that is to create a device everyone would want to use. An in-line firewall would be such a good application. One Lan-in, and either USB or Lan out cable, and a small server sitting in the middle acting as firewall, spam filter, pop-up/phishing blocker, and if they could squeeze it in, a virus blocker. Or, better, yet, one device that does each really well and really fast, and then chain several together to do each feature.
Connect, connect, safe and secure PC. The mass market for these products remains in constructing single, highly specialized but widely sought after features, that require no setup or a completely automated setup. LAMP on a micro-server isn't really that sort of product, even if it would be fun to play with. The market is in daemons on USB, preferably in-line or on its own dedicated node (though that's a bit wasteful, imho) - firewalls, independent shared drives, dns (plug and play opendns via in-line from modem to router), and even time servers (maybe with a little back lit LCD display, and adjustment controls on the outside). These tasks are currently being pushed into virtualization. But moving occasional services into a cheap occasionally used device would be even better.
I8-D
A bit bigger than that, but I've got me a http://pcengines.ch/ WRAP, 3x100MBit, 1xSerial, 233Mhz Pentium-I-compatible processor, 128MB Ram, MiniPCI-slot and a Compact-Flash slot. Make a perfect firewall.
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
But now you can build your Beowulf Cluster of these and fit it all into one rack!
Pacifist paratroopers yell, "Ghandi!" when they jump.
I did my final project with Gumstices, developing a complete user manual and they are incredible. You can have many kind of software running inside them and the connectivity is also awesome, USB-net, ethernet, bluetooth, wifi, and now gps (and probably more to come). We set up a JamVM to test Java and also C and C++ small programs. Was nice to work with those small pieces of hardware.