Full Debian ARM for Under $200

An anonymous reader writes "With minor elbow grease, you can now set yourself up with a complete Debian ARM Linux box for under $200. This is thanks to Peter Korsgaard, who figured out a cool byteswapped kernel hack for the little $99 Linksys NSLU2. Add a $99 USB harddrive, and the tiny, cute, quiet 'Slug' can run any of about 16,000 Debian ARM packages, 24x7, for pennies per month worth of electricity, since ARM is still orders of magnitude more power-efficient than anything x86. Serve files, music, web pages, printers, backups, kernel images, webcams/motion detection, firewalls/routers, wireless access point... or whatever. Oh, did I mention you can overclock the Slug?"

I've been waiting for this!

[fimbulvetr]

Cheaper, more efficient, faster (Disk I/O wise), more stable, more flexible (apt-get) than the Mac Mini. Not to mention the ability to hack it when I want (The warranty is already void!). Moreover, I don't have to give the litigious bastards (Apple, of course) any of my dough!

My new media server!
I can't wait to set this up in a cabinet/closet somewhere and stream video/audio from it.

Think again, homies:

[zerocool^]

From TFA:

The device has 32MB of SDRAM, 8MB of NOR Flash, built-in 10/100 (not yet supported in litte-endian mode), and dual USB 2.0 ports.

How are you planning on accessing those files? Hopes and dreams? Network Attached Storage with no Network Attached is just a hard drive.

~Will

Re:I've been waiting for this!

[FLAGGR]

You do realize that you can install linux on the mac mini, and I'm sure PPC has better support than ARM, or you can just use fink (like bsd ports) to install *nix apps under OSX? Not to mention the mac mini is much more powerfull....

Re:Already hacked - Linux Appliance

[Nom du Keyboard]

The Linksys NSLU2 has already been hacked so you can run your own applications on it.

So why doesn't Linksys admit the obvious and start selling a Linux Appliance sans WiFi hardware? They could increase volume, lower costs, and expand into a new area.

Project page slashdotted, but I have questions...

[PsychoKiller]

Can it use other USB 2.0 peripherals?

How much power does it consume? Better than a WRT54G?

Can it be further underclocked?

Re:Overclock the slug?

[tang]

Just to note, I just performed the operation and de-neutered my NSLU to full speed. I went the non-soldering route and just used a boxcutter to cut the resistor in half, then scrapped it carefully off the board. From booting down the slug , till the time it was back and operational was 5 minutes. Very easy procedure, even if you don't have a soldering iron or soldering skills.

New uses

[JanneM]

[Note: I wrote about this just a day ago here [lucs.lu.se]; I'm paraphrasing and shortening it below]

I just bought myself a wireless router, for the price of 5100 yen (about $45). Of course, it's a real, full single-board computer that happens to have excellent connectivity to everything. Add storage ability and interfaces through USB2 and you can start thinking up some really interesting uses for this kind of gear.

With the kind of price we're starting to see, there's no reason to have only one. How about having two, three or more of them at home, in different rooms to get good wireless coverage anywhere? They could present themselves as being one single friendly system to its users, transparently talking to each other wirelessly and move data to where it's needed.

The units with hard disks could be hidden away in closets or workrooms where the noise doesn't bother anyone, while the ones out in the livingroom or bedrooms would would be small and quiet and have extra communications abilities like being able to play music or show movies stored anywhere in the home network. They would act as an external redundant storage (more convenient and much safer than backing up on CD:s or DVD:s), as backup, as household web, mail and IP telephone server, climate controller and general communications forwarder (whether you are at home, using your cellphone, or being on some conference trip halfway around the world, you can get to your email, voice mail and IM in the same way).

You need more storage or some new hardware functionality? Just get another unit. When powered on it'll join the rest of them and suddenly your home has a bit of added capacity it didn't have before.

When highly capable hardware like this is coming down into the sub-10000yen range, a whole new range of uses is becoming feasible.

Re:Performance?

[apa666]

Well, your P-75 probably has the advantage of virtual memory. Embedded devices usually don't.

Re:Stereo component

[delirium of disorder]

Is wireless ethernet and Linux (but not debian) good enough for you? If so...you can get the ARM based zipit for about $99. It has a normal stereo headphone jack, and what looks like an audio remote jack on it. You have to hack it a bit to actually get it to play mp3's and such, but the manufacture claims it will support streaming audio in the next firmware release.

http://www.elinux.org/wiki/ZipIt [elinux.org]

Re:Stereo component with HDTV and digital audio

[Anonymous Coward]

The Roku PhotoBridge ( http://rokulabs.com/products/photobridge/index.php [rokulabs.com] ) has a 300MHz MIPS processor, high-definition video output, and digital audio out, all for under $300. Plus Linux is already preloaded, it couldn't be easier. Just plug it in and log on. There is even an SDK and active developer forums at http://rokulabs.com/forums/ [rokulabs.com]

Full Debian SH for Under $200 in Japan

[kinneko]

See this one.
You can buy it with $160.
http://supertank.iodata.jp/products/sotohdlwu/ [iodata.jp]

CPU: SH-4/266MHz
DRAM: 64MB
NIC: 100BASE-TX (Realtek)
USB: 2.0 x2 (NEC)
SerialConsoleCable: (not include. extention$33)
HDD: 3.5 ATA HDD x2 (not include)
OS: Debian GNU/Linux SH (iohack version)
kernel: 2.4.21
daemons: mt-daapd, akaDAV, vsftpd, wizd,
mdnsresopnder, telnetd

Web reviews (Japanese)
http://pcweb.mycom.co.jp/column/jisakuparts/023/ [mycom.co.jp]
http://bb.watch.impress.co.jp/cda/special/10056.ht ml [impress.co.jp]
http://bb.watch.impress.co.jp/cda/special/10074.ht ml [impress.co.jp]

Re:yes..

[ajs318]

If you can get hold of a copy of the Windows source code, I'm sure you could compile it to run on this device. Of course it's possible that Windows also has endian issues of its own. But that's because those stupid people at Motorola decided to put the "units" last instead of first. Human beings tend to write numbers that way, because it makes for easier magnitude comparison; but when doing mathematics you have to work backwards: units, tens,hundreds ..... so processor manufacturers such as Intel and MOS Technologies figured to put the units first and the 256es second. 8080 code took up more space than 6502 code so Intel soon found themselves having to put the 65536es third and the 16777216es fourth, but that's by the by. Meanwhile Motorola stuck with their arse-about-face numbers.

The original ARM1 was a pure 32-bit processor, with a 32-bit-wide word and no inbuilt concept of "byte order" as such. Its instruction set was inspired by the 6502, which powered the venerable BBC microcomputer; but with every instruction conditional. The ARM1 had no NOP instruction as such, but there was a "never" condition {the better for writing automutative code, since one need only alter the condition bits in an instruction to block its execution, but preserve the order bits. A simple loop can "comment out" a vast swathe of program; and, thanks to fully conditional execution, the same code can be used later to restore it by using a processor flag to signal "enable" or "disable"} but this rather wasteful {for the time; memory was expensive in those days} setup was eventually abandoned, and most of the "do something never" instruction codes were reused in later ARM revisions for extended instructions.

There is only one branch instruction in ARM1 assembly, BL. It makes the jump and stores the address that would have been next in a register. If you know that your subroutine is not re-entrant and you don't need that register for anything else, you don't need to worry about a stack. If you don't care about returning you can just ignore it.