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An overview of small Linux systems
Remy van Elst has put together a list of small
Linux systems as a sort of reference for those looking for something to
play with. "You might have heard of the Raspberry Pi, or the Cotton
Candy, or the Snowball. Those are, besides nice pi, candy and snow, also
small Linux pc’s. Most of them have an ARM chip, a small amount of memory
and run some [form] of Linux. This page will provide an overview of what is
on the market, specs, an image, and links to the boards."
(Log in to post comments)
An overview of small Linux systems Posted Jul 16, 2012 0:49 UTC (Mon) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link]
Not included, but very useful, would be a description of whether the hardware on each device is supportable with free software. This is a major headache for users wishing to future-proof their investment and have flexibility in altering the OS. Please consider adding this. It is well known that several of those boards cannot function without various proprietary software components.
An overview of small Linux systems Posted Jul 16, 2012 7:57 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
more important than the somewhat slippery phrase "supportable with free software", are the drivers (including any firmware blobs) available from kernel.org?
there is a lot of hardware out there that needs binary fimrware blobs to run, and so is not considered "supportable with free software", but runs very nicely with the freely distributable firmware blobs.
The question boils down to "does it require the vendors version of the software" or "it will work with newer versions without having to involve the vendor"
even an opensource driver that's not upstream is worse over time than one with firmware blobs in my experience.
An overview of small Linux systems Posted Jul 16, 2012 12:02 UTC (Mon) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link]
In effect we want to know whether these gadgets are sustainable platforms or whether everyone is expected to buy another when the next "point" release of the kernel comes out.
As we can see from other comments, making a list of boards isn't too difficult - there are even lists on Wikipedia - but making lists that remain up-to-date and provide useful information over and above MHz and MB is a lot of work.
If the idea is an endless shopping spree on direct-from-China shopping and "deal" sites - something that seems to appeal to various people - then it suffices just to know that some vendor somewhere has made another product, and we need not even care whether it's effectively the same product as something else if all that matters is that it's cheap and new, but anyone thinking about investing time and effort (and the money that comes with those, despite the low purchase prices) needs to know whether they're really wasting that time and effort on stuff that isn't supposed to last for any length of time.
An overview of small Linux systems Posted Jul 16, 2012 15:55 UTC (Mon) by theophrastus (guest, #80847) [Link]
You've an admirable lack of paranoia over what else those binary blobs might be doing.
An overview of small Linux systems Posted Jul 16, 2012 16:39 UTC (Mon) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]
If the same party who put together the binary blob also designed portions of the SoC, I'd be less concerned about the part that they're exposing to inspection than the part that's sealed in the chip. Once you're trusting a vendor to provide device blocks, you couldn't sensibly be paranoid enough to care about binary blobs.
An overview of small Linux systems Posted Jul 16, 2012 16:53 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
if the binary blob is not running on the main CPU, but is instead running on the embedded processor in the device (the NIC for example), yes I am not too worried about what else it's doing. If you have someone producing malicious device hardware, it doesn't matter if the malicious code is in ROM, in flash, or loaded each time from the OS.
In terms of sloppy programming, if it's not interacting with main memory and kernel data structures directly, but only through the calls from the driver, it's not going to get broken when the next kernel release re-works the kernel internals.
Now if it's something like a video driver with a large binary blob running in the kernel context, that's a very different story. Such things tend to break with each kernel release and can have subtle bugs (locking or config option dependencies for example) that affect lots of other stuff running on the system. I fully agree that this category of binary blob is a major problem, and I want to know about it ahead of time.
But if it's something like the intel wireless firmware blob, all I care about is that the blob is available (ideally along with the kernel source) so that I can know that it will continue to work if I compile my own kernel.
An overview of small Linux systems Posted Jul 16, 2012 14:39 UTC (Mon) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link]
"Not included, but very useful, would be a description of whether the hardware on each device is supportable with free software."
I can do this for you:
no.
An overview of small Linux systems Posted Jul 25, 2012 17:27 UTC (Wed) by wookey (subscriber, #5501) [Link]
Some boards don't need any blobs or non-free drivers: Bubble, (and its predecessor Balloonboard3) are ones I know about in detail, carefully designed to be Free and Open and have parts you can still get in 5 years time, precisely to avoid the 'throw-away hardware' problem. http://iendian.com/
Anything with a GPU on needs a non-free driver, but you may or may not need the GPU part, and free drivers are slowly being produced (I'd currently pick hardware with a Mali in as the first one likely to get a useful free driver).
There are an _awful lot_ of boards/devices missing from that list. Not sure exactly what the listing criteria are, but off the top of my head: Efika Smarttop smartbook, Toshiba AC100, Samsung Origen, DN320, Excito B3, MV2120, Dockstar, GoFlex, Netgear Stora, QNAP TS-11x -21x -41x, Raidsonic IB62x0, SS-4000E, Openblocks AX3 A6, Hercules Cafe, Technologic systems boards, plus loads more older hardware.
An overview of small Linux systems Posted Jul 16, 2012 7:06 UTC (Mon) by imgx64 (guest, #78590) [Link] Do newer plug computers still spontaneously combust?
An overview of small Linux systems Posted Jul 16, 2012 8:32 UTC (Mon) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
No more often than TVs, for exmaple:
http://laist.com/2011/10/13/warning_your_sony_lcd_tv_migh...
Now, what was your point?
An overview of small Linux systems Posted Jul 16, 2012 10:00 UTC (Mon) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link]
The stake are a bit higher for a home server/router running 24x24 even when you are not present than for a TV which is normally off when nobody watch it.
An overview of small Linux systems Posted Jul 16, 2012 13:39 UTC (Mon) by imgx64 (guest, #78590) [Link]
> Now, what was your point?
Nothing, really. I contemplated buying a SheevaPlug back in 2011 then decided against it when I read the reports about overheating plugs. I was wondering if newer models have the same problem (since some of them have the same design and a built-in power supply).
An overview of small Linux systems Posted Jul 16, 2012 10:36 UTC (Mon) by Tobu (subscriber, #24111) [Link] Here's a more complete list from three weeks ago (links only). And here's a pdf with detailed feature specs of the models in that list.
An overview of small Linux systems Posted Jul 16, 2012 14:19 UTC (Mon) by kjhambrick (subscriber, #23704) [Link]
Although a different class than the Raspberry Pi et al, we've been deploying Low Cost / Low Power Linux Application Appliances based on a ZOTAC ZBOX ID13-U + 4GB RAM + 500GB 7200 RPM HD + CentOS6 for less than $300.
A Very nice little box ...
-- kjh
An overview of small Linux systems Posted Jul 16, 2012 14:43 UTC (Mon) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link]
The slightly annoying thing about these is they've (almost) all clearly been derived from "phone" processors and as such have no SATA.
Otherwise I would have considered using one of these as my next "desktop" machine.
An overview of small Linux systems Posted Jul 17, 2012 8:08 UTC (Tue) by rvfh (subscriber, #31018) [Link]
An overview of small Linux systems Posted Jul 17, 2012 9:49 UTC (Tue) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link]
PowerVR SGX.
An overview of small Linux systems Posted Jul 17, 2012 18:35 UTC (Tue) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]
And for those that don't know what that means. The use of a powerVR GPU guarantees an undocumented binary blob.
The only hope for open source GPU drivers is the ARM designed Mali GPU.
An overview of small Linux systems Posted Jul 18, 2012 9:25 UTC (Wed) by renox (subscriber, #23785) [Link]
> The only hope for open source GPU drivers is the ARM designed Mali GPU.
Only because there is a reverse engineering effort for it..
An overview of small Linux systems Posted Jul 19, 2012 8:49 UTC (Thu) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]
It's certainly not the only one with SATA support. The OpenRD (based on a much older Marvell SoC has been around for quite some time. It's just a bit more expensive than the various plugs.
I suppose most (or at least: a number of them) of those chips have SATA support. It's just that the lower end product don't use it.
An overview of small Linux systems Posted Jul 25, 2012 17:36 UTC (Wed) by wookey (subscriber, #5501) [Link]
If sata is important then go for something designed around a NAS chip. Marvell Kirkwood, Orion and Ferroceon chips and Freescale imx51, 53 and 6 all meet this criteria. There are even some mips cobalt devices if you want a change from ARM and x86. Such devices are not always so cheap and cheerful, but some of the actual NAS products are and many are eminently hackable. This is a very useful page for NAS hacking: http://www.cyrius.com/debian/
An overview of small Linux systems Posted Jul 19, 2012 12:23 UTC (Thu) by endecotp (guest, #36428) [Link]
> no SATA.
I agree that this is important. Note that the Freescale i.MX board (not listed on that page) does have SATA, but it has various misfeatures that make up for that.
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