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The Gumstix Overo - a miniature X Window System platformAttendees at this year's Kernel Summit were treated to an early prototype version of the Gumstix Overo miniature Linux-powered cpu board on top of the Overo Buddy motherboard. The system packs all of the functions of a desktop computer onto a platform that is slightly larger than a credit card. The Specifications for the Overo processor board include:
Upon receiving the Overo Buddy board, the only way to establish a connection was via an emulated serial connection over one of the USB ports using the provided USB cable, as explained here. This worked as advertised, it was possible to watch the system boot up and then log into a root shell. At this point, your author decided to try the installation of the latest software on the removable microSD memory. As directed by the instructions, the software image was downloaded and installed on the memory using another machine and the provided microSD adapter card. Again, this proceeded without any problems and the machine booted with the new image.
Getting the USB cabling right was a bit of a challenge. On the first attempt, the DVI monitor showed an X login window, but the keyboard and mouse were not active. Digging through the documentation revealed the source of the problem. The OTG USB port needed a type A cable and your author was using a type B cable. The Wikipedia USB documentation was consulted, and your author used a special surface mount soldering iron to create a tiny solder jumper between pins 4 and 5 of the Overo Buddy's micro-USB jack, simulating the correct cable. Upon booting, the keyboard and mouse came to life. When logging into the Overo's X Window System, one is presented with the simple but effective Enlightenment window manager. Applications include the typical collection of an X terminal, a file manager, a text editor (gpe_edit) the Midori web browser, a mail client, an instant messenger client, and a selection of four games. Also included are the AbiWord word processor, the Gnumeric spread sheet and basic audio record and play utilities. A large collection of GUI-based admin tools and window system configuration tools are available. Both ssh and scp are also installed on the system, so secure network connections are possible. Unfortunately, both the audio recorder and player froze up during basic tests, and their windows did not go away until the system was rebooted, this appears to be some kind of audio hardware issue. The next step to having a functioning system would be to have some kind of networking. The Overo processor has built-in 802.11 wireless networking and Bluetooth, but neither of those systems functioned. That is a known issue with some of the early-run prototype boards. One still has the option of adding USB WiFi and Ethernet boards to the Overo, several devices are supported natively. Once networking can be established, it should be possible to use the network-based applications, transfer user data add more application packages. Having so much functionality in something as tiny as the Overo Buddy board seems like an amazing technological feat. Gumstix has truly achieved a new milestone in the miniaturization of Linux systems. Production versions of this system are scheduled for release in the fourth quarter of 2008. (Log in to post comments)
The Gumstix Overo - a miniature X Window System platform Posted Nov 13, 2008 3:09 UTC (Thu) by zooko (subscriber, #2589) [Link]
Sweeet! Any idea how much it will cost when it ships?
The Gumstix Overo - a miniature X Window System platform Posted Nov 13, 2008 9:20 UTC (Thu) by nhippi (subscriber, #34640) [Link]
http://www.gumstix.com/store/catalog/product_info.php?pro...
149$
However, you'll want the 59$ summit expansion board which has all the connectors. For many purposes that's quite attractive combination - you can use the overo + summit for development and for deployment have your own expansion board with just the connectors (and extra chips) you need.
The Gumstix Overo - a miniature X Window System platform Posted Nov 13, 2008 10:53 UTC (Thu) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]
Quite cool indeed, now I just need to think of something I can use it for, so I have an excuse to buy one :)
The Gumstix Overo - a miniature X Window System platform Posted Nov 13, 2008 12:26 UTC (Thu) by rvfh (subscriber, #31018) [Link]
For my own project, I like the analog/digital I/Os, but find it a shame that there is no network (wired) connection...
Board + summit + ethernet probably brings the price closer to $250, which start being a bit dear.
The Gumstix Overo - a miniature X Window System platform Posted Nov 14, 2008 7:41 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Well if you want somehting cheap then find a old P3 at the salvation army or something like that. :) It'll run circles around this and the price will range from free to 50 dollars.
With the gumstix you can take the device, slap a lithium-polymer battery (or any RC car battery pack) to it and let the sucker run for weeks in your backpack. Doing such things as a mobile personal webserver, bluetooth sniper, gps tracking device, or whatever else you can dream up and slap into a USB port.
I took a long hard look at the old gumstix stuff do do what I wanted, which was a combination mobile wireless file server, gps tracker, and mp3 player, but they didn't quite have the level of processing power or I/O options (USB options and also internal limitations) to really pull it off. But with the Omap 3 series.. this opens up a whole new land of computer geekiness.
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With S-video and DVI options you could turn any body's television or monitor into a add-hoc Linux workstation.
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Another thing I would like to see is a 10inch netbook formfactor with the ARM system embedded behind the screen and the entire mass of the laptop under the keyboard be a fairly large lifepo4 battery, or whatever.
This thing would run for days and days without a recharge. These newer ARM systems make the old Geode stuff used in things like the OLPC seem like ancient, slow, and energy wasteful technology.
The Gumstix Overo - a miniature X Window System platform Posted Nov 14, 2008 8:10 UTC (Fri) by rvfh (subscriber, #31018) [Link]
You may have been heard...
The Gumstix Overo - a miniature X Window System platform Posted Nov 14, 2008 13:13 UTC (Fri) by deleteme (guest, #49633) [Link] You can build something like that for $100 with wifi.
The Gumstix Overo - a miniature X Window System platform Posted Dec 3, 2008 5:32 UTC (Wed) by HalfMoon (guest, #3211) [Link] WRT54G is a MIPS beast, not ARM. While there is an official Arduino I think the Freeduino family is more interesting (like the Sanguino, much more capacity; or the BBB, which is extremely breadboard-friendly) ... unless you have a hard time programming an AVR8 microcontroller with GCC and want some handholding via those not-really-C tools. If you can do MS-Windows, and have e.g. an AVR Dragon, Atmel's AVR studio gives you a great symbolic debugger. Note that if you're a hardware hacker, one issue with Overo (or any OMAP3 board) is likely to be its use of 1.8V I/O interfaces instead of more common 3.3V. That's good for battery operation, and if you have no fear of designing a board, then it's just something to remember.
Perfect for my Kinesis! Posted Nov 13, 2008 18:27 UTC (Thu) by shapr (subscriber, #9077) [Link]
I've been trying to find a 'real' Linux box to stuff inside my Kinesis contoured keyboard in order to have an ergonomic laptop, this is the best candidate I've seen yet! I could probably even fit a small cluster of these inside my keyboard.
Now I just have to find a matching portable screen...
Perfect for my Kinesis! Posted Nov 13, 2008 19:56 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
I'm fairly sure you can't get away with stuffing the screen inside your
keyboard. :)
Perfect for my Kinesis! Posted Nov 14, 2008 12:57 UTC (Fri) by deleteme (guest, #49633) [Link]
2x40 lines is enough for anyone..
2 x 40? Luxury! Posted Nov 15, 2008 1:49 UTC (Sat) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link] 2 x 40? Luxury! How about 1x24? Never mind that this is 1980 technology. With a staggering 1.5K RAM. ;-)
2 x 40? Luxury! Posted Nov 16, 2008 13:18 UTC (Sun) by deleteme (guest, #49633) [Link]
Well the luxury in this more the Kinesis keyboard vs. the one on TRS-80.. Some say keyboards have come a long way since the eighties.
2 x 40? Luxury! Posted Nov 16, 2008 13:33 UTC (Sun) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
quote:
Some say keyboards have come a long way since the eighties
fortunately the old keyboards are still available if you are willing to hunt for them
2 x 40? Luxury! Posted Nov 19, 2008 23:29 UTC (Wed) by leoc (subscriber, #39773) [Link] You can even get new keyboards based on old designs.
2 x 40? Luxury! Posted Nov 16, 2008 15:23 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Speaking as a Maltron user, they had good keyboards back in the 80s
too :))))
The Gumstix Overo - a miniature X Window System platform Posted Nov 14, 2008 14:45 UTC (Fri) by dambacher (subscriber, #1710) [Link]
This reminds me of the C=64 or the Amiga 500 - take a keyboard, add a processor card and make a small home computer.
Next step would be to take a small mobile display, add a processor card and couple both via bluetooth.
The Gumstix Overo - a miniature X Window System platform Posted Nov 15, 2008 3:38 UTC (Sat) by dmag (subscriber, #17775) [Link]
I immediately compared it to the Beagle Board ( http://beagleboard.org/ ). It's the same price, but aimed at completely different markets. Basically, if you want deep embedded (extremely tiny, add your own I/O), then the GO looks neat. If you want a small "embedded" desktop, then the BB is cool. Some specs:
BB: OMAP 3530 superscaler ARM Cortex -A8
Both: 600 MHz 256MB Flash
128MB RAM on BB, 256MB RAM on GO (wow!)
The BB is a full desktop (DVI, audio, USB, etc) right out of the box. The GO can do a lot of that, but requires a $60 add-on board. Also, the BB has been shipping for a while.
The Gumstix Overo - a miniature X Window System platform Posted Nov 15, 2008 11:35 UTC (Sat) by massimiliano (subscriber, #3048) [Link] There's one thing that's not clear to me about the Overo: the wifi and bluetooth support.
The Overo (without expansion board) lacks lots of connections, but has some general purpose IO pins that could come handy in an embedded project. If it also had wireless included in the price that would make it really attractive.
One final issue is whether the Overo CPU is as powerful as the Beagleboard one...
The Gumstix Overo - a miniature X Window System platform Posted Dec 3, 2008 4:00 UTC (Wed) by HalfMoon (guest, #3211) [Link] Overo includes Bluetooth and WLAN; they work just fine on mine, once I hook up their antennae. It's the same ARM cpu ... but the Beagle is a higher end version, which also includes the OpenGL engine, C64+ DSP, and video accelerator. I'd expect the 2.6.29 kernel will support most of the features of these boards out-of-the-box, possibly excepting the DVI (and for Beagle, S-Video) output for which I don't know that mainline will behave. Of course, there's still a boatload of OMAP support that's not yet in mainline. That may matter to you if you hook it up to something other than the standard buddyboard.
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![[Gumstix Overo]](/images/ns/GumstixOveroTiny.png)