Slashdot Mirror


Meet VoCore2 Lite, a $4 Coin-Sized, Open Source Linux Computer (zdnet.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report on ZDNet:Four bucks buys a lot of hardware these days, and nothing highlights this more than a project like the VoCore2 Lite. VoCore2 is an open source Linux computer and a fully-functional wireless router that is smaller than a coin. It can also act as a VPN gateway for a network, an AirPlay station to play lossless music, a private cloud to store your photos, video, and code, and much more. The Lite version of the VoCore2 features a 580MHz MT7688AN MediaTek system on chip (SoC), 64MB of DDR2 RAM, 8MB of NOR storage, and a single antenna slot for Wi-Fi that supports 150Mbps. Spend $12 and go for the full VoCore2 option and you get the same SoC, but you get 128MB of DDR2 RAM, 16MB of NOR storage, two antenna slots supporting 300Mbps, an on-board antenna, and PCIe 1.1 support.

17 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. How big is a $4 coin? by SensitiveMale · · Score: 4, Funny

    just wondering...

    1. Re:How big is a $4 coin? by pushing-robot · · Score: 5, Funny
      --
      How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
    2. Re:How big is a $4 coin? by fyngyrz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You mean, "punctuation is overrated, period." :)

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  2. Finally... by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 5, Funny

    Finally, the year of the Linux Cointop computers

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  3. "Private cloud"? by pla · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why the hell do people insist on calling an on-prem NAS a "private cloud"?

    "Can I have a glass of water, please?" "Sure, would you like to see our menu of premium bottled rain, or is water from our private indoor river okay?"

    1. Re:"Private cloud"? by swb · · Score: 4, Informative

      Here's my taxonomy of storage:

      NAS: File-based protocol access (SMB/NFS) with perhaps iSCSI block access. Largely locked to the LAN based on the nature of access protocols.

      Private Cloud: Usually NAS plus some kind of HTTP/S access. May or may not include a Dropbox-type client for local synchronization. Largely limited to LAN by LAN/FW configuration itself, not the software, although I have seen some brain damaged web access components that would make use over the internet dumb or frustrating.

      Private Cloud web accessible: The above, but with a hardware vendor service in the middle providing a broker service to access the device from non-LAN location.

      Private Public Cloud: Yes, a contradiction in terms but a step above. Usually privately controlled hardware or VM accessible from the internet without reliance on third party broker services. Could be hosted at home, run on AWS, etc, but all software and OS is under user control.

      Public Cloud: Third-party provided service, often only web accessible and with OS client for local file sync. Infrastucture is shared. Dropbox, Google Docs, etc.

    2. Re:"Private cloud"? by fyngyrz · · Score: 3, Funny

      Para.

      Graphs.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  4. this tiny linux computer trend must stop. by nimbius · · Score: 5, Funny

    please, end this. I come from a dark future to warn you of dire consequences. In my time, we have invented the tiniest VoCore the size of an eyelash to compete with the tiniest Raspberry Pi the size of a pepper flake. A beagleboard exists thats no larger than a cheerio. The last conference I attended ended in disaster when the presenter accidentally inhaled her RPi cluster and choked to death on a router the size of a matchbook. Things are very grim indeed.

    Except for windows 15 users who operate tablets the size of billboards and Mac users who appear to be operating $800 dinner plates full of USB D ports and no screen this year...

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
  5. how's the software? by AnAlchemist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's so much hardware out there... you got Arduino's, lots of clones, Raspberry Pi's, C.H.I.P, etc.

    What they don't tell you is how the software is. Is it up to date, or does it still run Linux 3.x? What Linux distros does it run? Can you run stock Ubuntu, or do you need some guy's custom build that's two years old and you can't apt-get upgrade?

    My specific beef: It looks like the VoCore2 rans OpenWrt. Which version? Custom build that's updated every six months?

    And, thanks to Indiegogo, you can't post a comment (to ask a question) without contributing. What a bunch of bull.

    1. Re:how's the software? by Gaygirlie · · Score: 4, Informative

      What they don't tell you is how the software is. Is it up to date, or does it still run Linux 3.x? What Linux distros does it run? Can you run stock Ubuntu, or do you need some guy's custom build that's two years old and you can't apt-get upgrade?

      I echo your sentiment. I love the idea of ARM SBCs and all, but the software-stack generally ranges from awful to I-wanna-gouge-my-eyes-out-in-frustration. I am personally aware of only the Raspberry Pis and C.H.I.P. running a modern, 4.4-series kernel. The H3-based Orange Pis are getting better, I can actually boot a mainline 4.9-series kernel on my OPi PC, but there's still a whole lot of work for the devs to do and no Mali-support is forthcoming.

      My specific beef: It looks like the VoCore2 rans OpenWrt. Which version? Custom build that's updated every six months?

      It runs a custom-version of Chaos Calmer. I have zero idea if they're planning to try and introduce their code upstream, though.

  6. Re:You can't fool me! by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Informative
  7. Not available for sale by psergiu · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Not available for sale yet
    http://vocore.io/#store
    And the $12 VoCore2 from the article will be available in 2 weeks for $14.99.
    I'll take my chances with a RPi zero at MicroCenter

    --
    1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
    1. Re:Not available for sale by psergiu · · Score: 4, Informative

      Also the VoCore2 Ultimate, which actually has USB & microSD ports like a RPi sells for $44.99

      The "normal" VoCore2 is just a PCB with a chip on it.

      http://vocore.io/v2u.html

      One more detail: All product pages on store say:

      Sources
      Update at Nov.30

      --
      1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
  8. Piss-poor. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The original VoCore has been out for 2-3 years now, and other than maybe like 5 projects that various people have come up with in those intervening 2-3 years, the community surrounding it is dead as a door-nail, and it's going to be just as dead for the VoCore II.

    The VoCore and VoCore II are made by some shitty Chinese company just trying to make a buck off the cheap embedded board market. Just look at the poor excuse for "documentation" that comes with the VoCore, rife with Chinglish and light on details. Their "How to develop for the VoCore on Windows" guide is what I'm assuming is the Chinese equivalent of a joke, with the first two steps being "Install VMware" and "Install Ubuntu as a VM via VMware", which is not exactly what I call "developing for the VoCore on Windows".

    Just like these fly-by-night hacks did last time, they're shopping their advertisements around to just about every geek website that's out there, and just like they did last time, the moment the campaign is over they'll release their hardware, release a ridiculous excuse for "documentation", and then pretty much disappear into the night.

    Moving beyond the company making it, the lack of a community, and lack of documentation, the hardware itself is also fragile as glass. On a whim I bought two VoCores some months ago, and managed to brick one within an hour. How? By having the temerity to try to set it up so that it used the wired ethernet interface on the dock board, rather than using its default, useless, functionality of a wireless bridge. I somehow managed to fuck up configuring it thanks to the scant documentation on exactly how to configure the damn thing, and now it doesn't so much as pull an IP from my router, so I can't actually shell into it to see what's wrong. The kicker? Despite having a micro-USB port on the dock, they didn't bother including a USB-TTL bridge chip on the dock, so I can't even try to unbrick the fucking thing that way without investing in a USB serial cable. Fuck that.

    Fuck the VoCore, and fuck the VoCore II.

  9. Re:You can't fool me! by harrkev · · Score: 3, Informative

    That is OK -- there is no $4 VoCore 2 either. Their shop shows it going for $14.99.

    Maybe they meant that the shipping is only $4.

    http://vocore.io/#store

    --
    "-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
  10. storage? by c · · Score: 4, Insightful

    a private cloud to store your photos, video, and code

    Who is going to waste a coin-sized computer by tethering it to a storage device and power brick?

    There's definitely applications for tiny devices like this and I think the design is nifty, but using it in situations where its size (and price) is going to be dwarfed by its peripherals is a bit of a waste.

    --
    Log in or piss off.
  11. Re:open system by Gaygirlie · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not particularly, considering that it runs a customized version of OpenWRT Chaos Calmer, with sources available at https://github.com/Vonger/open...