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GNU/Linux and Enlightenment Running On a Fridge
k-s writes "Linux, the GNU userland and Enlightenment and its foundation libraries (EFL) are known for their resource efficiency and flexibility, key components for embedded products. Today it was announced that such features led them to be used in a fridge that runs Linux and X11 with EFL. The Freescale i.MX25 based fridge by Electrolux (Frigidaire) provides the expected bits such as temperature controls and pre-set modes (vacation, party) as well as a special purpose drawer that cools your drinks and food with a beautiful UI. It also ships with handful applications for contacts, calendar, reminder, digital picture frame and even an illustrated recipe book from a famous Brazilian magazine."
So, Linux can now keep my beer cold, but can it bring me a cold beer?
It's cold out here all alone at the top with a nice UI.
Trying to become famous by taking photos. Visit my homepage please.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of those! The cooling needs should be taken care of quite nicely...
Whereas most of the implementations of Linux out in the market are either invisible (routers) or phones or Android implementations, this is one of the first commercial applications that I've seen that really takes advantage of the flexibility of the OS. Of course Linux has a great kernel and network stack, but it also has good graphics and peripheral support.
It's pushing into an area where (strangely enough) Windows CE would have traditionally have dominance. Many "panel" devices on the market are WinCE based because of the synergy between the embedded OS and the desktop OS. But that synergy is a lot of hype, when you get down to it. Support for standards like TCP/IP is enough to connect two devices nowadays. Given that the fridge is always powered, it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to have it run a webserver and service requests from DLNA devices around the house.
The built in applications here are interesting, but once true connectivity is achieved, that's when I think we will see the benefits of Linux as the base OS really shine.
...
sudo make me a sandwich
...linux is cool.
Yes I know, painful. I'm sorry.
.... really , this is just crazy technology for its own sake. All I want from a fridge is to keep stuff cool. Thats it. I don't need a multitasking operating system to do that or any operating system at all in fact and nor do I need a fridge to tell me when I'm running out of milk - I can usually see that for myself thanks - or re-order stuff for me since I might not want the same things again the following week thanks.
A fridge IMO is one of the white goods in which the KISS principal definately should apply.
Have they been programmed with a cheerful and sunny disposition?
If so... no thanks.
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!
Hello, there's a Penguin in my refrigerator!
thats cool!
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
E16 used to check for 'mass quantities of bass ale in fridge'... has this now become reality? I'm impressed
Call me when it uses *less* power than a regular fridge.
Well, it would be cool to have a list of contents with the date they were put in so you can keep track of things that need to be thrown out (useful for foodservice industry to keep only fresh foods on hand). A timer app to beep when you need to pull the turkey out in case your stove doesn't have a timer (I know my gas stove doesn't). Of course the recipe app they mentioned is a good idea. Temp contols aswell. An app that checks the compressor status and other things (like those industrial air conditioners they use in server rooms to track humidity and such) with suggestions for optimal performance at low power cost for your fridge like, "Hey don't hold the door open kid!" for my son when it detects the door has been sitting there open for 2 minutes. A passworded door lock so your kids don't try to climb in playing "hide and seek" or try to take a beer out when you go outside for 2 minutes. Any other cool ideas?
But does it run Lin.... oh it does? Carry on then.
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
So what? Over a decade ago we had washing machines and fridges whose GUI was written in Java.
Does this mean that I have to download regular security updates for my fridge?
It'll get pwn3d soon enough, and some poor sod will wonder why he suddenly has 200 kilos of sardines in his fridge....
C|N>K
*ring ring*
"Yes hello?"
"Excuse me, is your fridge running?"
"Yes, it has an uptime of over 3 months now."
"..."
*click*
I think I'm doing something wrong here..
What, you're hoping you'll strike it rich?
You can find pictures here... http://www.electrolux.com.br/ikitchen_ra/
Shall we play a game?
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Cool!
If it had KDE, you'd need a 3GHz i7 and a NVidia GTX480 just to open the fridge in less than a minute.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
It's amazing how Slashdot can give me an oblique reference to a song, that no folks on Slashdot are old enough to have heard:
The Cramps Tv set Lyrics:
oh baby i see you on my tv set yeah baby i see you on my tv set i cut your head off and put it in my tv set
i use your eyeballs for dials on my tv set
i watch tv i watch tv
since i put you in my tv set
oh baby i hear you on my radio yeah baby i hear you on my radio you know i flip flip flip for my radio you're going drip drip drip on my radio am radio pm radio since i tuned you inside my radio... like this!
oh baby i see you in my frigidaire yeah baby i see you in my frigidaire behind the mayonnaise, way in the back i'm gonna see you tonight for a midnight snack but though
it's cold you won't get old 'cause you're well preserved in my frigidaire yahhhhhhh.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I went to the site but couldn't find the source code. Where is the source code?
But does it run....oh wait. Never mind.
How does price/performance compare to a toaster running NetBSD?
Thank you for sharing this. It was a very useful technique, in my günstig online, you can use it freely
... and yet, the clock probably still looses time when the power fails
... like 'Enlightenment 17 Final released'.
After all, it's only been in development for, what, 9 years or so? :-)
That better be one helluva desktop enviroment when they declare final release.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
How is cpu cooled?
with unparalleled control over his refrigerator,
How much control does a fridge need?
Best Slashdot Co
"The Freescale i.MX25 based fridge by Electrolux (Frigidaire) provides the expected bits such as temperature controls and pre-set modes (vacation, party)"
Expected bits? Preset modes? Pardon? Submitter must be from an altogether other planet where all the fridges hum cheerfull songs and do your groceries for you. My fridges, on the other hand, comes with a knob that reads 1-5 and controls the temperature. When I go on a long vacation, I pull the plug and jam the door with a stone so it won't stink when I return.
" as well as a special purpose drawer that cools your drinks and food with a beautiful UI."
I knew enlightenment was cool, but I now realise this is not only in a figure of speech kind of way. Frightening! Will it 'cool' my processor too?
"It also ships with handful applications for contacts, calendar, reminder, digital picture frame and even an illustrated recipe book from a famous Brazilian magazine."
Nifty! Nice recipes in Brazilian Portugese!
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
http://profusion.mobi/first_product_of_profusion_and_electrolux_partnership This fridge looks bigger than my car. Clearly it is a high-end "prestige" product. I think it is a bit silly myself, but whatever.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
tagging's borken
Nice pic of the GUI on Flickr
Looks like this appliance can do more than cool your food (see top left of image)
Does that mean it contains free beer??
Linux has been around for over a decade. It can do a lot of stuff really well. This is not news. Getting drivers in order, now that's news. Or, would be.
http://xkcd.com/824
Could you help me building this sandwich for me? I ran "./configure --no-mayo; make; " several times but it's returning errors. Hams and cheeses are stacking up... oh, wait, I think I can eat them with fork() with no problem.
This article seems to go out of its way to give GNU undue credit for the Linux environment... can we stop with the blatant GNU plugs and just talk about the technology? Unless you want to start calling Linux "GNU/MIT/BSD/Apache/Linux", let's just stick to the technology.
E pluribus unum
Does the fridge have an app store? I would not want of a fridge that does not have one...
welcome our chilly overlords.
okay , I carefully read all the posts and am deeply disappointed - not one comment about needing network connections so someone can get a bunch of these and build a Beowulf cluster. Missing the old Slashdot standby comment. Clearly the next step is to put biological sensors in the fridge to tell you when the spore count is spiking and identify the most probable substrate.
...just remember to add
cat milk eggs flour > /dev/pancake
to your crontab, to have your breakfast ready in due time.
... It stops for now reason and needs frequent rebooting.
...does en'light'enment stay on when the doors closed? ...does the CPU use the fridge's cooling or does it have its own? ...do you have to use sudo when you go for 'Root beer'?
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
How much of the "userland" experience has anything at all to do with GNU? Other than the GPL, are there any GNU utilities that are used in the day-to-day operation of this system?
Really, on a command-line GNU utilities are common; but in the GUI, most GNU utilities go completely unused. Especially with a custom GUI like this.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
How much of the "userland" experience has anything at all to do with GNU? Other than the GPL, are there any GNU utilities that are used in the day-to-day operation of this system?
Really, on a command-line GNU utilities are common; but in the GUI, most GNU utilities go completely unused. Especially with a custom GUI like this.
Perhaps, in this context, "user" in "userland" means "running in user mode rather than kernel mode", rather than "directly run by the end user". Think GNU libc, not GNU grep.
Sure you don't think anybody will need one. So stop thinking of it as a refrigerator with an overthought piece of gee whiz gadgetry.
Think of it as a water-cooled, 24/7 uptime always-on touchscreen computer that you can keep humming in the kitchen
Slashdot has been around longer than E16. For instance, here's the Enlightenment 0.15 announcement.
It's amusing that nowadays E is considered lightweight, but back in that thread from 1999 people were complaining about its performance.
Yes, but E has had those little icons I was talking about longer than this site has existed. Rob Malda used to have an enlightenment themes site and a cool application called eplus before slashdot.
The default theme for enlightenment back then had all of the features turned on to show it off - different backgrounds on each desktop, animations, transparancy etc. That made it use more memory than the default for other window managers. With a fairly lightweight theme I was using it on a pentium 60 without much memory and a crappy video card.
Now the default has less "bling" so uses less memory.
With that much cooling behind it, you'd think they could go with a faster processor.
Fear not. Version 1 is coming.
EFL is in Beta 2 now.
http://enlightenment.org/p.php?p=news/show&newsid=25