LWN: Comments on "Aleutia E2: low power to the people"

beagle boards and other low-power systems

pjm — 2009-02-16T23:10:15+00:00

http://elinux.org/BeagleBoard has lots of useful information. In particular, note the differences between the currently-available revision B, and revision C2 due "end of March", such as USB HOST (EHCI) issue.

The display is typically a significant drawer of power, so note a couple of issues relevant to output: the Beagle Board has HDMI and S-Video output but not VGA. See also the above page's comments on interfacing to raw LCD panels.

Also of interest is http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS7369895239.html (which would be a competitor for Aleutia) and related products such as the eBox systems (note there are both DX and earlier SX versions) and their associated underlying systems-on-chip. (Note that it's the system-on-chip that has the low power consumption; I haven't found any claims as to how much power the computer as a whole uses, making me suspect that the system as a whole doesn't have so impressive a number.)

d945gclf2-based system with no moving parts

aleutia — 2009-02-16T12:28:20+00:00

mini-itx is (a lot) bigger but the Atom (a rebadged centrino) is a nice chip. Dual core version actually two separate chips (not even on same die) and with hyperthreading shows up as 4 cores in Ubuntu, so it's a tempting piece of hardware for more demanding users. We're releasing that board in a sealed, fanless box with a 30GB OCZ SSD. Will be the P1 - should have videos and pics on the site by the end of the month. But naturally more expensive and more power-hungry.

beagle board a brilliant idea

aleutia — 2009-02-16T12:22:06+00:00

Aleutia is reading this and thanks for pointing me towards the Beagle Board. I'd come across it before but seeing Ubuntu ARM running on it has re-ignited my interest. USB-power means we can offer a single AC (possibly 12V DC) USB power hub to run a classroom of them.
Ordering one and will comment if we commercialize it.

Aleutia E2: low power to the people

muwlgr — 2009-02-15T21:05:13+00:00

Glad there is someone sharing my love to Seamonkey :>

Software and the environment

man_ls — 2009-02-10T14:00:04+00:00

The challenge for these older machines is video - many people expect to be able to see Youtube these days.

The problem here is the very defficient proprietary Flash plugin. Once you download the video as .flv MPlayer can play them just fine even on low-powered devices such as these -- they are just grainy low-res videos.

Sadly, the free Flash players are even worse. The MPlayer plugin for firefox is a much better solution right now performance-wise, but getting to the videos is not easy. There are special download pages and plugins, but they tend to break every few months.

All in all an exercise in futility. It would be so nice to have a fast stable client for Flash video.

Pedants' corner

kleptog — 2009-02-09T07:53:32+00:00

For me it's compose-L-hyphen, which is logical if you think about it (I just guessed it).

Aleutia E2: low power to the people

giraffedata — 2009-02-07T19:50:54+00:00

Yikes, $300? I mean, I know it's small and VESA mountable, but... yeesh. An Intel D945GCLF2 'Little Falls 2' board is only $96 at LogicSupply:

OK, adding up all the parts and labor for this alternative, I get over $300, and that doesn't count the warranty and presumably uses a lot more electricity.

Software and the environment

cortana — 2009-02-07T15:21:57+00:00

One of the problems is that Flash does not use XVideo. It insists on drawing things to the screen, a pixel at a time... making it painfully slow on all but the most modern processors.

Aleutia E2: low power to the people

ianburrell — 2009-02-05T18:44:39+00:00

Aleutia seems to be a reseller of the eBox machines from http://www.compactpc.com.tw/. E2 looks identical to the eBox 3300. The eBox 3300 can be found for $150 US. Older versions of the eBox with slower processors can be found for less.

Pedants' corner

epa — 2009-02-05T14:09:47+00:00

I dunno, I never type that pesky character, it's always GBP or £ or even just L.

If 8 watts is still too high

pjm — 2009-02-05T12:38:29+00:00

People who really need low power consumption (e.g. the OLPC people say that their target is 2W for computer+display combined) might consider looking for or waiting for non-x86 systems. The Beagle Board claims to draw up to 2W and to offer very roughly the same CPU speed. Nokia Internet Tablets typically use less than 2W [ref] including wireless and I believe including their display (though have slower CPUs). I'm not saying that either of these are direct competitors to the E2, but they do suggest that one can get better than 8W if power consumption is very important and one is prepared to work on it and/or wait a while. (And if Aleutia are reading this, something you might look into.)

Software and the environment

eru — 2009-02-05T12:25:09+00:00

As for video, I found a 700 MHz PIII too slow for Youtube Flash videos, which is the key application for Joe Public.

Odd. I recall having success with Flash with an old machine of about that speed (I don't have access to it right now so cannot check). Video playback is really sensitive to having a correct X11 setup: even a faster processor cannot play video smoothly, if it has to update the screen in the generic way, instead of the Xvideo. The display bit depth may also matter.

Aleutia E2: low power to the people

Cato — 2009-02-05T11:32:19+00:00

SeaMonkey is actually quite lightweight as it includes an email client as well, so the memory is shared unlike Firefox+Thunderbird. However, I really prefer Firefox or Opera if you have the memory.

Software and the environment

Cato — 2009-02-05T11:21:44+00:00

The lightweight variants usually include alternatives for the bloated apps, e.g. Midori or others for Firefox, or Abiword not OpenOffice. If you are on a really low memory system, you can also use Google Docs. With 200 MB I find that Firefox is fine as long as you don't have too many apps, and use something like Crunchbang or U-Lite - although Xubuntu is billed as low memory it really isn't, and runs very slowly in 200 MB with a lot of swapping. Checking memory usage with htop is quite revealing.

SliTaz is an even lighter variant that looks promising as well. In all these cases you'll need to help the friend/relative get started, but at least Crunchbang and others provide live CDs and an easy install process - no different to standard Ubuntu in that case.

I'm counting a couple of running apps such as browser and word processor in the memory usage. Crunchbang and SliTaz clearly use way less than 200MB just to start up.

As for video, I found a 700 MHz PIII too slow for Youtube Flash videos, which is the key application for Joe Public. You are probably right about VNC not being optimal for video, but perhaps it would work OK for smaller Youtube-sized videos (not full screen) - I have used SSVNC logged into a remote system showing a webcam view from Skype and it does work over the Internet, using SSH over VNC, but not very well. I'm reasonably sure that smaller videos would work fine over 802.11g WiFi, but not SD or HD TV of course.

Software and the environment

eru — 2009-02-05T11:12:51+00:00

Yes, the light-weight distribution variants alleviate the problem somewhat, but they really can only change some of the system layers (like the desktop) less resource-intensive. They cannot make OpenOffice.org or Firefox less bloated. Another problem is that these are oddbal variants which are a bit different to use from mainstream distributions, so less sophisticated users will find it harder to get help with them from books or magazines. The use case I have in mind here is a non-geek relative or friend running a virus-infested Windows98 on an old machine... how to linuxify him/her without purchasing new hardware?

Quote [...] Crunchbang, which runs fine in just 200 MB RAM [...]

See the problem here? 200Mb is *huge* if that is needed just to run the OS and basic desktop utilities without undue delays (as opposed to running some application that really puts lots of memory to good use). Circa 1995 I used to run OS/2 Warp on a 75Mhz Pentium with 32MB. It was about as user-friendly as the today's Linux desktops, and did not feel any slower. So just *where* does all that computing power go? I can think of two visible differences between my 1995 desktop and current: 8-bit vs 24-bit colour, and antialiased fonts, but I don't think that comes even close explaining the difference.

The challenge for these older machines is video - many people expect to be able to see Youtube these days. [...]

I have found a 600Mhz P3 to be quite sufficient for decoding standard definition and below, when you use a well-optimized player (Mplayer seems to be the gold standard here), and your display supports the Xvideo extension properly. But HD content clearly goes out of reach. Does piping video around the house with VNC really work? AFAIK its encoding is not optimized for photorealistic video (as opposed to desktop graphics that have large smooth regions), so you will be transmitting and forcing receiver to decode vastly more bytes than with a real video codec.

Aleutia E2: low power to the people

michaeljt — 2009-02-05T10:47:44+00:00

This is the sort of "development assistance" I really like. It is self-supporting, it doesn't steal donation money from other projects (many projects can support themselves, but some can't realistically, and those are the ones that really need the money), it competes on its own merits and doesn't promote feelings of dependency and guilt/obligation among the receivers - they pay for it themselves, so all debts are cleared.

Software and the environment

dlang — 2009-02-05T07:58:52+00:00

so you have to move from your old machine to a new 500MHz system? that's about the speed of the portable machines I still have kicking around from ~8 years ago (and noticably slower than the desktop/server systems of that time) so continuing to use those systems would still be a win.

Software and the environment

Cato — 2009-02-05T07:45:05+00:00

This is only partly true - there are developers who take "standard" distros such as Ubuntu, PCLOS and probably others, and turn them into much lighter distros. Some Ubuntu-based examples are Crunchbang, which runs fine in just 200 MB RAM so should work better than Xubuntu on an 8 year old laptop, and U-Lite (was Ubuntulite) which is similar but harder to install, and might work in less RAM.

These distros do have full security updates because they are just variants of the main distros. Crunchbang even includes Flash, Java and so on.

The challenge for these older machines is video - many people expect to be able to see Youtube these days. Really the only solution longer-term, as video becomes higher resolution, is to use the older machine as a thin client - LTSP and many other solutions are quite handy here, and the free VMware server makes it quite easy to centrally host Windows images for thin client use within the home through VNC.

Aleutia E2: low power to the people

roelofs — 2009-02-05T06:16:43+00:00

Yikes, $300? I mean, I know it's small and VESA mountable, but... yeesh. An Intel D945GCLF2 'Little Falls 2' board is only $96 at LogicSupply: http://www.logicsupply.com/products/boxd945gclf2

Yabbut...for some of us, "no moving parts" is a very nice feature. Intel isn't anywhere close to that--the CPU requires a fan, and I'm guessing the ATX power supply does, too. (The "NAS-style case" you point at appears to have two case fans in the front.) At only 30+W, it's not bad (and the features are indeed nice), but it's still four times as much power as the E2.

Greg

Software and the environment

eru — 2009-02-05T05:59:59+00:00

The best way to do "green computing" isn't to buy a *new* computer, but to continue to use old ones that would otherwise be disposed of, where the manufacture costs are already sunk.

Maybe. But the software developers (both closed and open source) make this unworkable. Every distro release brings more bloat, and the bloat seems to be growing faster than features, so you really cannot stick to older computers for more than about 8 years (in my experience), unless you stop entirely upgrading your software. But in today's networked world, than mean you don't get security fixes (who updates Red Hat 5 these days...), and you also don't see web pages and documents in newer formats (just for fun, tried Netscape 4 a few days ago on a Windows box. Crashed on the first modern web page it saw...).

I think the real way to green computing is for software developers to learn how to do more with less. This way both new low-power boxes like the Aleutia E2, and old computers become useful, and stay that way until the hardware breaks.

Aleutia E2: low power to the people

Simetrical — 2009-02-05T02:17:13+00:00

The low power use seems to be targeted at third world countries where power is expensive or unreliable, not Westerners wanting to be eco-friendly.

Aleutia E2: low power to the people

jordanb — 2009-02-05T00:37:45+00:00

A large majority of the energy consumption and environmental impact of a computer comes as a result of its manufacture and disposal --- not the electricity it consumes during its useful lifetime.

The best way to do "green computing" isn't to buy a *new* computer, but to continue to use old ones that would otherwise be disposed of, where the manufacture costs are already sunk.

Pedants' corner

jwb — 2009-02-04T22:13:17+00:00

Great, but what's the X11 compose sequence? I used to think it was Compose+Shift+L, $, but that doesn't seem to be working.

Pedants' corner

epa — 2009-02-04T22:07:28+00:00

The currency code is GBP.

Aleutia E2: low power to the people

Kamilion — 2009-02-04T21:52:51+00:00

Yikes, $300?
I mean, I know it's small and VESA mountable, but... yeesh.
An Intel D945GCLF2 'Little Falls 2' board is only $96 at LogicSupply:
http://www.logicsupply.com/products/boxd945gclf2
Review: http://www.logicsupply.com/blog/2008/10/16/intels-little-...

Atom 330 dual core, Drop in a 2GB DDR2 stick for $30, and pick a case:
http://www.logicsupply.com/categories/cases/mini_itx

They even have a few NAS-style cases ;)

I dig this one myself:
http://www.logicsupply.com/products/es34069

I could only see purchasing an E2 if I was REALLY dead set on a 100x100mm VESA mount...

Aleutia E2: low power to the people

PaulWay — 2009-02-04T21:50:33+00:00

Or supply special screws that can go through the E2's case, through the stand and into the monitor back. That way the balance is more likely to be evened up, since LCDs are usually front-heavy.

Paul

Aleutia E2: low power to the people

jwb — 2009-02-04T20:08:21+00:00

Hrmm, I don't know if the comparisons to netbooks is even fair. At UKP199 I think you have to start comparing to full-on notebooks. A regular laptop gets you the keyboard, pointing device, and display, which are all extra with this system. Any base-model Core 2-equipped laptop will be 2-50 times more powerful than a Geode depending on the task. And my powerful ThinkPad consumes at most 24W, including the display, which is comparable to this underpowered matchbox with display. Considering how much more quickly a Core 2 will rip through difficult jobs, the task energy is likely to be superior on a real laptop.

I think their device is cute and has some advantages but I don't think power saving is really among them. If you think about it on an energy instead of power basis I think it's a step backwards.

Aleutia E2: low power to the people

wtogami — 2009-02-04T19:59:17+00:00

> cpuinfo reports the processor as a "Geode(TM) Integrated Processor
> by National Semi" at ~400Mhz and ~800 bogomips

http://www.x.org/wiki/AMDGeodeDriver
NSC Geode is completely unsupported for the past several upstream releases of X.org.

Aleutia E2: low power to the people

ewan — 2009-02-04T18:45:55+00:00

Mine has 512Mb of RAM, cpuinfo reports the processor as a "Geode(TM) Integrated Processor by National Semi" at ~400Mhz and ~800 bogomips, and it has an 80Gb hard disk (yes, an actual rotating one). It came with a rather old Xubuntu, the speed of which was OK, but noticably on the slow side. I've since nuked it in favour of a text only Fedora 10 install, which it runs quite happily, albeit with the i586 kernel rather than the i686 one.

Aleutia E2: low power to the people

dany — 2009-02-04T18:39:08+00:00

Also take a look at alix boards, they are even cheaper (100 EUR) and only little less powerful.

http://www.pcengines.ch/alix.htm

Aleutia E2: low power to the people

Cato — 2009-02-04T18:29:28+00:00

Interesting - the datasheet doesn't say much about CPU, RAM, etc... good to know what it has.

Aleutia E2: low power to the people

dlang — 2009-02-04T18:11:06+00:00

unfortunantly many monitors use the VESA plate to attach the stand to the monitor, so it's not available to mount this system on. it would be _very_ interesting if they could engineer the mounting screws so that it could attach the the back of the monitor and have the mounting plate attach to it (assuming that the balance of the monitor remained acceptable)

I'm very glad to see items like this get publicity, this sort of thing will work well for a large percentage of users. Linux can make systems like this very useable while anything newer than windows 98 or so won't work well on these specs.

Aleutia E2: low power to the people

ewan — 2009-02-04T18:06:47+00:00

There's a few boxes like this around these days; for people in the UK Viglen's Geode based MPC-L is also worth a look. The Ubuntu UK podcast folks reviewed one a while back and organised a deal with Viglen to make them available for £79.00 all-in.