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Re: [LUG] Single Board Computer

 

On Fri, 26 Dec 2008 14:15:31 +0000 (GMT)
ANDREW PRATT <am.pratt469@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hello,
> This is the first post that I have made. I have been using Linux for about three 
> years now using Slackware and Slax.

Fancy Debian instead?

> I am sending this on a single board computer that is actually intended for 
> embedded applications.
> I bought it from RS Components, it comes as a single circuit board approximately 
> 90mm x 90mm, with a 133MHz fanless 486 processor and 64MB of RAM. 

If the board has any internal storage (or can be fitted with such) -
even just an SD card, you could run Emdebian on such a machine without
an external hard drive. Things are very early stages but Emdebian Grip
is one option - the much smaller Emdebian Crush isn't available for x86
at this time (and will take months to become available on anything
except ARM).

> I pre-installed Slackware 11 on an old 20GB hard drive using another PC and 
> transferred it to this computer.

So what storage does the board contain?

> The power consumption is very low, not including the monitor it takes 1.7 amps at 
> 5 Volts.

That isn't low power - that's a power-sucking-beast! ARM generally does
a lot better - down to <1W, not >8W - even some x86 netbooks come in at
substantially less than 8W. What's it doing with all that power? Try
putting that board on a set of batteries. Ouch.

> I have an web based application in mind for it using a PIC processor
and the Apache web server. It has four com ports and ethernet.

No USB?

> I am using the Lynx command line web browser, X is a bit ambitious! 

Not that ambitious, ARM processors can handle XFCE or GPE in as much
RAM.

> Anyone else with a similar interest?

http://linux.codehelp.co.uk/

http://www.emdebian.org/

http://balloonboard.org/index.html

Just a few of my similar interests.

-- 


Neil Williams
=============
http://www.data-freedom.org/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/

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