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New Direction for development (modified 0 times) erroneus Profile So far, the use of Linux on the IA-1 has been formulated in the following way: * Add USB Ethernet device * Add Bootable CF media * Run X and Netscape to access internet There have been tweaks and adjustments here and there for allowing some limited stuff, but so far, there hasn't been a purpose defined or a set of variables that users (application engineers!) can change to suit their needs more effectively. I think doing so would lead to a project series that would maintain focus and allow a larger number of users to participate. By creating an "IA-1 Cookbook" for example, we can gen together recipes for a variety of circumstances. The most popular seems to be "The X windowing machine with a web browser connecting via ethernet." However, I can see other recipes worth formulating as well. Among these might be: 1. A NAT firewall with text based menus a. Configured for Dialup/SLIP/PPP etc sharing to ethernet b. Configured for broadband internet sharing to ethernet c. Configured as "b" with added dial-in server with PPTP for your home LAN. 2. A FAX server! Send/Receive faxes to be printed on a SMB or other network printer. 3. A stand alone and dedicated X terminal and nothing but. (Easy on, Fool-proof usage) 4. An MP3 player device a. For the home b. For the car! I am sure there are other possibilities that haven't popped into my head yet, but the fact is, the machine is built with very limiting hardware and all projects so far seem to be in directions that push the machine too close or even over the limited capabilities of the machine resulting in crashes and instability. I love what's going on! Rasmus is still my God. I just think there is room for some organizing and improved focus for what we can do with this device and appropriate uses for it. I can see a lot of potential for the internet router/NAT firewall project. The expenses to the implementor might be a maximum of $250 if you include the cost of hardware that might not be present on your PC for CF module work. That's not too shabby if you think about it. And the specs of the device itself fits nicely for such a purpose since anything graphical immediately uses a lot of memory and saps performance from the machine. At any rate, by focusing on specific purposes rather than generic ones, the various resources the device contains can be efficiently dedicated to it with fewer concerns about having the already cramped internal 16MB CF filled with generic tools for user manipulation which will probably not be used once its use as an appliance has been established. Here's another project that I think has merit, especially when it comes to loading up new images and such. Let's create a small image for use in the CF slot with the power to update the internal 16MB CF. Instead of using DOS tools and such, shouldn't it be possible to create a bootable Linux that will allow use to dump image files from a network or USB data source onto the internal 16MB CF memory? One such stable Linux load formulated to that end would almost completely ween the implementor from using anything DOS at all. I'm sure that would be very appealing for the more hard-core Linux users and I believe it would serve to better streamline the actual development process as well. Why mess with LARGE CF images when a mere (inexpensive!) 8MB module would do in order to facilitate the update to the internal 16MB loading. Imagine the simplicity at that point? Boot up on the "load module", select/configure the source (SMB, NFS, FTP, HTTP, USB drive, whatever), then tell it to install. Done! One image never to be used for anything else and at a cost to the user of what? (What's an 8MB module going for now? Pretty cheap I'll bet!) The added efficiency, increased use of "Linux-only" methods and ease of use could do amazing things to the sale of IA-1s and make Tiger Direct very rich. ;) It could also serve as a VERY inexpensive introduction to Linux for many people out there. This situation holds a lot of good potential so long as focus is maintained and clear-cut goals are defined. Rooting ourselves in the terrific work already done by Rasmus and all is a great start at a uniform set of building blocks that could comprise any number of IA-1 projects. 01-02-2002 17:29:25

RE:New Direction for development (modified 0 times) kieran Profile | Email As far as linux tools to load the internal flash, that's fairly straight-forward. I've already replaced the internal flash contents with a linux image using nothing more than: dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hda note use a 16m compact flash as origin, partition it where your extended partition ends on cylinder 490 (since the internal flash is heads=2, sectors=32, cyl=490). Also a good idea is to replace lilo with grub, then set up grub to boot either the internal flash or the external compact flash (and use the internal flash as a worst case fallback/default setup). I had quite a bit of heart-burn with lilo before switching to grub (though grub takes more disk). If you already run RH 6.2 on a regular machine you can basically rebuild Rasmus' jailbait/lem image to your heart's desire. I've been using pieces from Transmeta's midori distribution to replace portions of my img (not really recognizable as jailbait, looks more like original lem) and update to maintence to match RH 6.2. To use the 1A as an xterminal, just add to the last startup script you run: PARENT="name of your unix box providing X service" X -query $PARENT -fp tcp/$PARENT :0 I've already used that against my Sun SS20. A similar trick should also work with vncviewer. - - My opinions are my own, my employer doesn't own this account. - 01-02-2002 19:34:02

RE:New Direction for development (modified 0 times) Gondola Profile | Email Other potential uses: Car-based GPS mapper - power info can be gleaned from all the people who've converted I-Openers - since the keyboard is IR, the main unit could easily be mounted and a smaller learning remote could be used for specific functions while driving? - not sure what kind of OS you'd need, or storage Picture frame Bedside alarm clock/mail tracker/messenger MAME/other emulation box Kitchen recipe machine I read something recently in one of the I-Opener forums that someone had decoded the video on the I-Opener; that is, they might be able to rig a video in or video out.. If we could do that for the IA-1, I would love to be able to use it as an LCD monitor.. or as a simple set-top box for playing MAME games, mp3s, etc. 01-03-2002 09:27:09

RE:New Direction for development (modified 0 times) shadowsunrise Profile lovin' these ideas, has anybody tried the learning remote yet? also, i'm playin' games on mine, but just remember, it's a passive matrix display, so while games are fun, it's not really worth investing all that much time in (unless a method for video out get's rigged up first). any opinions on heat isssues on mounting it in a car. i was thinking just mount the lcd over the sterio (be playin' mp3's anyways), the mobo in the glovebox, and run the IR recv'r with the other cables to the monitor and put it there. would the mobo get too hot in the glove box (what temp does vinal melt at?) since there'd be no/poor circulation for cooling (not that the designers had cooling in mind beyond a huge heat sink [what's with no poweroff?]) 01-10-2002 08:42:27

RE:New Direction for development - Firewall/NAT (modified 0 times) ballyn Profile On the topic of a NAT/firewall, that's exactly what I'm planning on doing with my ia-1. I have 2 pegasus adapters and a 170MB microdrive that I'm planning on using with my cable modem. I'm currently planning exactly how to go about creating the firewall image. I really like the jffs2 format, but I'm not sure how easy this will be to implement. I'm also not sure whether to start with Rasmus' image and trim it down or start with a distribution like LRP or BBIAgent and add what I need. In addition to NAT/firewalling (which should be able to fit in 1.44MB of space), I'd like to add: Apache/PHP, perl, lynx, vim, ssh and some kind of text based accounting interface for the firewall. This should all fit pretty neatly in 16MB of ro flash with the config/logs/docroot on the microdrive. I'm going to start with BBIAgent, I think, look closely at jffs2, and then start adding the above packages. I'd like to stay away from RAM disks if I can, but the project might be more useful if I could eliminate the microdrive and do all logging to a RAM disk. For me, it's imperative that the root flash partition be read-only, which makes firewall logging difficult. I've thought about NFS mounting another device, but this is not an ideal solution in my opinion. If anyone else is working on something similar, please let me know. 01-10-2002 09:59:04

RE:New Direction for development (modified 0 times) Carbon Profile | Email Try "Freesco" at www.freesco.org. There is a forum at www.freescosoft.com Freesco will do most of what you want and is a much smaller package than you described. I'm not sure about the usb support because I never needed it. Good Luck, Carbon 01-10-2002 11:34:16

RE:New Direction for development (modified 0 times) ldog Profile erroneus, i definetly think you are on the right track. i think the way to go with these things is not to expose them as general purpose machines, but to come up with distros that target it as a specific appliance. Like an mp3 player/jukebox... that can plug direct into your stereo, or stream, or burn to an audio cd (with a usb burner hooked up). for something like this, you only need a really simple window manager, and it should automatically start up running just one or two apps (freeamp is nice), and allow you to switch between them. the MSN companion UI is pretty nice. you press one big keyboard button for email, another one for web, another one for music, another one for pictures. a simple linux distro that could reproduce those features would be perfect (imho). also, another good idea with the installer disk. you currently don't need windows (see thinker's post on installing with win2k -- he has instructions on getting it going using linux boot flash cards). but, it requires an additional write to the internal disk (to get linux there to be able to dd the jailbait image over) that your proposed install disk wouldn't have to do, so that would give you a longer life on the internal card if you planned on doing lots of installs (which it sounds like we are all going to be doing). -l 01-10-2002 13:25:54

RE:New Direction for development (modified 0 times) erroneus Profile It took a while to get good response but I'm grateful just the same... I guess we all have 'real lives' too. I had bounced some ideas off of Senior Rasmus and he agreed with some of my notions before I had even thought of them. A new distro is probably being dreamed up in that genius skull of his already... let's hope so anyway. :) One of the ideas was to come up with some assembly method of plugging in packages (modules?) to make a lite and generic framework support the desires of the end user, essentially allowing him to create his own specific purpose machine. Within that framework, creative people (not me) could create their own modules to share with people rather like what's being done with Webmin http://www.webmin.com right now. This idea immediately reminded me of what PalmOS does and how it works. To keep it simple files (filenames) could be linked directly into the package module's files as part of the setup for the image. Once linked up, it would complete creating an image and upload it to the IA-1. I'm half-asleep so if those ideas seem a bit incoherent, sorry... As for the not needing DOS/Windows idea, I'm definitely going to look into that! In the mean time, has anyone looked into using any of the "free DOS" stuff that still remains in various internet archives? I think for some people, staying away from Microsoft is an important idea. Still, for others who just might prefer to stay clear of Microsoft's legal team it's all the more important. Perhaps someone could gen up an image of a bootable utility CF disk using a free DOS and all the tools mentioned in previous method descriptions. 01-10-2002 16:25:36

RE:New Direction for development (modified 0 times) GeoDude Profile Good call...here's my $.02 After buying an IA-1 with the intent of using it as some sort of quick web browser terminal, I have since decided that that would be a bit impractical, as are many of the uses suggested in this thread. I've decided to turn it into a combination mp3 jukebox and digital picture frame for my living room. For this use, it is fantastic, because it's way cheaper than either a component mp3 player OR a digital picture frame, and beats the socks off of trying to use an old PC for the purpose (cheaper, higher performance). I'll almost certainly end up building a custom image of jailbait with MJS (Mp3 Jukebox System, not pretty, but uses function keys for control and has a search interface), and some random screen saver slideshow for the digital images - with both images and mp3s served over NFS from my PC. So, I think the original post was an excellent idea - custom distros would be great (and I'll probably end up building one to post myself, unless this happens really soon). Now I hate to be negative, but let me just point out a few things in the range of ideas that have come up in this thread. Web Browser: Small DSTN screen, upgrades/plugins likely to be a bear. And please, come on, if you have the machines to be slapping jailbait on CF, you probably don't really need another place to browse the web. Exceptions made for inlaws/kids and if you really feel the need to web surf in the bathroom or something. NAT Firewall - Dialup/broadband sharing: Are you nuts? Assuming you paid for the thing, AND bought TWO (!) USB ethernet adapters, you're paying on the order of $200 for a router! That's just not cool, when you can buy a retail router box for $70. Not to mention a couple things: 1) If you're going to throw BBIagent (or whatever) on there, then you've got VAST overkill for a router. A 386 (!) handles BBIagent just fine, and if you don't already have an machine in your attic/garage, you can probably pick on up at a garage sale for $5 - buy two NICs for $10, and you've got a router for $25. 2) running BBIAgent on a 266Mhz AMD chip is quite the waste of clock cycles! It runs on a 386 just fine. 3) You're wasting the best part of the IA-1, the screen! Sure, you can throw some logs up or something on the screen, but if you really want to stare at logs, run a serial cable from the 386 and check them as a serial terminal window. For the car: I admittedly haven't tried, but having a lot of experience using laptops in the cars and outdoors in general, I'd wager that seeing the DSTN screen in daylight is probably challenging at best. There are better solutions for the car 01-13-2002 23:34:27

RE:New Direction for development (modified 0 times) Rasmus Profile | Email Yup, I think we are in agreement that we need a base distro with a number of different identities for the different uses people are interested in. Like GeoDude, I think some of the proposed uses are a little nuts. You don't really want to run your firewall on 2 usb nics, do you? But regardless, it should still be possible to build a firewall identity for the thing and make it easy to plug in. I recently got another three ia-1's from ubid. I have put up a hopefully very easy to follow image-guided set of instructions that walk you through the bios hacking step.http://php2.chek.com/~rasmus/steps.html I need to pick up 3 cheap usb nics for these things so I can get back to hacking them again. Anybody run across any good deals lately? It is a bit tough to find time for this stuff, but I will see what I can get to this week before I head off on my next set of trips. I have talks in Knoxville, NYC and Australia coming up so there probably won't be all that much done. 01-14-2002 00:54:15

RE:New Direction for development (modified 0 times) jerryn Profile The Peanut inux Distrobution looks like a good one to start with! NewEgg has 256MB CF Flash modules selling for $88.00, so I think this is where I will start. I've got a Winlite 95/98 mutant installation running on a 128MB flash now. My LinuxPPC server is running SMB and I've got it mounted on the IA-1. 800x600 resolution, 802.11 support. I'm going to try and lean out the flash some more. Right now it's working as an MP3 player (My MP3 files are actually my ripped CD collection on the Linux server), Web Station/IMAP station, News weather ticker at bottom screen, and alarm clock (wake up to MP3 player). The ACPI turns the display off after 15 minute timeout while mpeg player and alarm still works. I've been using Linux since v 0.96. I would like to get a full version of linux working on this. Peanut Linux may be a way to start, I can fit most of it in a 256MB CF. Or Maybe I'll work on my own and have /usr/local and /opt mounted off my server. My windowslite image fits on 128MB CF. It has all the drivers exept for the PCI modem, I couldn't find one and I'm still looking. All the other VIA and trident drivers all loaded as well as support for the DLINK 802.11b wirless adpater. Video is configured for 800x600 x 16 bit. Would this group like to try it out and possibbly make the CF image leaner? 01-14-2002 07:16:02

RE:New Direction for development (modified 0 times) keith721 Profile rasmus: does $15 qualify as cheap? if so, Tiger Direct has the 3Com 3C460B PegasusII adapter at http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-Details.asp?sku=C155-1100 and the Xircom PGENET10 (Kawasaki LSI??) for only $10 at http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-Details.asp?sku=X13-0054%20P keith721 01-14-2002 08:42:24

RE:New Direction for development (modified 0 times) ballyn Profile Okay, the firewall idea is obviously a different direction from what most folks are using the ia-1 for. However, IMO, it's still a good platform for a firewalling router. Yes, it's marginally more expensive than a standalone "internet gateway" device. But those can't run sshd, thttpd, etc. Yes, of course I could just use an older machine with 2 pci nics, but the 486 in my closet has all kinds of crap that could fail completely at any moment. Not good for a router. The ia-i has enough memory and disk space to boot an entire system from a RAM disk, making for a fairly secure environment. The only shortcoming, admittedly, is the USB ethernet. However, even if I can get 6MB/s across the bus, this is more than adequate for a cable modem. Further, many cable modems today have USB connections built in (to avoid having to install a pci/usb ethernet device in a pc), so with a single USB adapter you could theoretically have a capable router. I'm currently seeing about 2-5 ms latencies from a pegasusII adapter on my 10/100 switch. The point of the whole project, in any case, is to have a small, very reliable system that can do firewalling, vpn, port mapping, web serving and ssh access. Ideally, this would be installed on a very small device similar to the ia-i but with, say, 4 ethernet ports. Since I haven't found such a device for around $130, I'm using the ia-i for now. :) I'm currently booting a 2.4.17 kernel with built-in usb and ide support. I'm using a Linux Router Project distribution created by Jacques Nilo and based on the LEAF project http://leaf.sourceforge.net . It incorporates a version of the Shorewall firewall system http://www.shorewall.net . I'll be doing some testing over the next few days to determine what kind of throughput I can get through a dual usb setup. 01-14-2002 12:01:26

RE:New Direction for development (modified 0 times) jerryn Profile I'm going to check to see if any Linux Distros now support USB CDROM at install. If we can find one that supports NFS root and USB cdrom support in the kernel then we can fit an install image in the internal flash. When the system boots of the internal flash we give the arguments for usb cdrom and nfsroot, next step would be to give the NFS root server and mount point (Like the old Suse installs!). We can then create a box that would boot the kernel from flash and mount the root filesystem remotely. That would be cool! 01-14-2002 12:05:46

RE:New Direction for development (modified 0 times) NattyDread Profile | Email jerryn, I would like to have a copy of your 128MB CF winlite image. Please reply with info on acquiring. Thanks... 03-07-2002 07:46:09

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