'My Business Card Runs Linux' (thirtythreeforty.net) 65
Computer engineer George Hilliard says he has built an electronic business card running Linux. From his blog post: It is a complete, minimal ARM computer running my customized Linux firmware built with Buildroot. It has a USB port in the corner. If you plug it into a computer, it boots in about 6 seconds and shows up over USB as a flash drive and a virtual serial port that you can use to log into the card's shell. The flash drive has a README file, a copy of my resume, and some of my photography. The shell has several games and Unix classics such as fortune and rogue, a small 2048, and a small MicroPython interpreter.
All this is accomplished on a very small 8MB flash chip. The bootloader fits in 256KB, the kernel is 1.6MB, and the whole root filesystem is 2.4MB. So, there's plenty of space for the virtual flash drive. It also includes a writable home directory, on the off chance that anyone creates something they want to keep. This is also saved on the flash chip, which is properly wear leveled with UBI. The whole thing costs under $3. It's cheap enough to give away. If you get one from me, I'm probably trying to impress you. In a detailed write-up, Hilliard goes on to explain how he came up with the design and assembled all the components. Naturally, there were some problems that arose during the construction that he had to troubleshoot: "first, the USB port wasn't long enough to reliably make contact in many USB ports. Less critically, the flash footprint was wrong, which I worked around by bending the leads under the part by hand..."
Impressively, the total cost of the card (not including his time) was $2.88 -- "cheap enough that I don't feel bad giving it away, as designed!"
All this is accomplished on a very small 8MB flash chip. The bootloader fits in 256KB, the kernel is 1.6MB, and the whole root filesystem is 2.4MB. So, there's plenty of space for the virtual flash drive. It also includes a writable home directory, on the off chance that anyone creates something they want to keep. This is also saved on the flash chip, which is properly wear leveled with UBI. The whole thing costs under $3. It's cheap enough to give away. If you get one from me, I'm probably trying to impress you. In a detailed write-up, Hilliard goes on to explain how he came up with the design and assembled all the components. Naturally, there were some problems that arose during the construction that he had to troubleshoot: "first, the USB port wasn't long enough to reliably make contact in many USB ports. Less critically, the flash footprint was wrong, which I worked around by bending the leads under the part by hand..."
Impressively, the total cost of the card (not including his time) was $2.88 -- "cheap enough that I don't feel bad giving it away, as designed!"
This is beyond awesome (Score:4)
Get this guy a job!
Re: Nice try, sock puppet. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is my comment saying that you sound like a pompous ass, having achieved nothing other than to cry about needing to cling to some idea that you were once competent.
The guy built the board from available parts, and did a basic port showing that he can use forign supply chains, make PCBs and get them ordered and port the most popular kernel to it.
All your comment shows is that you didn't make any computer of your own, lest anything for under a fiver.
Sad.
Re: Nice try, sock puppet. (Score:3)
I'd be curious to know what employer is willing to plug anything they received from a total stranger into a USB port on a corporate-owned computer, especially something that doesn't even look like a simple storage device. Autorun.ini isn't the only concern, and hasn't even been *a* concern for quite a few years now.
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You only have one pc?? You do everything from one machine?
Re: Nice try, sock puppet. (Score:2)
If you don't understand why your question isn't even relevant, you're a moron. But since you did ask it...
Re: Nice try, sock puppet. (Score:4, Insightful)
This guy isn't going to be interviewing for a full-stack developer position at places running Windows or Macbooks. If you're doing embedded systems at this level you and your boss are both running Linux, and both of you (and your OS) know how to properly segregate USB devices.
Re: Nice try, sock puppet. (Score:2)
Ha, haha, hahahahaha. Nice joke. Unless you're applying for a job in a one-man shop small business, likely your interviewer knows nothing about the embedded stuff or programming for that matter.
You'll get to interview with an actual engineering team lead maybe on the second or third interview round but initially you'll be talking to the suits that know how to run business projects, talk to customers and make sure their teams deliver on time.
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Sure, if you're applying at BigCorp. But then you won't be handing out your embedded business card to the suits--you give them your regular one and save the embedded card for the second/third round.
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Well, we have a magazine in Germany, that regularly does the "lost usb stick on the parking lot" experiment.
The amount of people who put a found usb drive into a computer is astonishing high.
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Pretty much all of them I imagine.
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The guy built the board from available parts, and did a basic port showing that he can use forign supply chains, make PCBs and get them ordered and port the most popular kernel to it.
I'd like to add that most job postings I see for "Embedded" developers are to work on/with systems already designed and built. This guy does that *and* builds (or, at least, has built) his own -- that work. How many of us can say that?
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See my comment below
No thanks. Reading one of your worthless comments has killed enough of my brain cells for one day.
Not just awesome, it's genius (Score:3)
"Very small 8MB". (Score:2, Funny)
Excuse me, but I still remember running a full Linux with a graphical shell, web browser and usual amenities that fit on a single 1.44MB floppy disk.
My CPU also ran on a fraction of that ARM's speed. Yet everything was smooth.
I could probably have low-level-formatted it to hold more, and dual-boot MS DOS on the other partition. :P
Re: "Very small 8MB". (Score:2)
And here you are with nothing other than "I could too, but I never did".
See my comment.
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Excuse me, but I still remember running a full Linux with a graphical shell, web browser and usual amenities that fit on a single 1.44MB floppy disk.
Graphical shell? What was the graphics system? It damnsure wasn't X. And the browser must have been lynx.
Re: "Very small 8MB". (Score:3)
He's harping on about the ancient qnx boot floppy demo.
Which is just sad as he had nothing to do with it, and micro kernels have failed time and time again in the real world. Especially QNX the pos couldn't save research in motion.
RIM was the best study in a total lack of diversity as they all went to the same class, they all took the same course taught by the same professor and they all loved QNX. And that is why Waterloo ON is a ghost town.
Re: "Very small 8MB". (Score:4, Insightful)
He's harping on about the ancient qnx boot floppy demo.
Oh, so not Linux then. Check.
Which is just sad as he had nothing to do with it, and micro kernels have failed time and time again in the real world. Especially QNX the pos couldn't save research in motion.
QNX was fine, but they weren't giving it away, and Linux was free. They gave away the demo, but nothing newer. It was an advertisement. How is that going to compete with free?
With all the security fail that goes on these days, I'm about ready for a microkernel OS. But it has to run Linux software at minimum, if not also Windows software. Modern computers are faster than they need to be for my purposes, so it's OK to burn cycles on compartmentalization.
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He's running linux kernel v5.2 and the above git has the uboot patches to load it.
If that isn't linux, then is anything running linux to you?
We were talking about the system on one floppy, that wasn't Linux. You even quoted that part. Try to keep up.
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QNX is still in wide use.
And not because it is a microkernel (never hear that "microkernels failed", why would they?) but because it is a real time OS.
No, I didn't mean QNX, you dumb fucks! (Score:2)
What's wrong with you kids today??
Even today there still is muLinux!
So is it so hard to accept, that this existed around 2000???
There even were multiple with a graphical desktop! But there was only one with a graphical (HTML 3.x) web browser!
Jeez, no wonder kids today believe using a 1GB virtual machine and OS ("web browser") as your plain text editor's "runtime" (Electron & Atom) is not a completely insane thing!
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Sure, RIM crashed hard, and grabbed things like QNX to drag down with them. I wouldn't blame QNX for that. If anything it was a victim. QNX gets/got embedded places that are, essentially, nobody elses' businedd.
Re: "Very small 8MB". (Score:2)
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No, it it was a real desktop. You think I'm kiddin (Score:2)
Seriously??? You kids today cannot even *imagine* that anymore?
I do not remember if it was X11, but likely so, given the software. It had a background, task bar, launcher button launcher menu, file manager, rich text editor, etc. ... nor lynx.
And no, it was not Chrome,
It was one of those smaller browsers designed for low-resource environments around the year 2000, when. Netscape was common and IE started to spread.
I remember being at the CeBit in Hannover and showing the site where it could be downloaded t
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The slackware 0.9x distribution came on something like 14 1.4MB floppies.
Granted after the third or fourth you could boot a minimal linux and the remaining ~10 disks where basically tools and X11 etc.
Kids today think that is absurd and "Funny"? (Score:2)
I was completely serious.
I distinctly remember one of those single-floppy Linux distributions offering a normal graphical shell and a lightweight web browser.
Of course that was during HTML 3.x times. I guess I found it around 2000-2005, and it was already existing for some years then.
Security risk (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been trained to *never* plug a rogue USB into my PC, since this could introduce malware, etc.
Re: Security risk (Score:5, Funny)
I use someone else's.
Re:Security risk (Score:5, Funny)
I've been trained to *never* plug a rogue USB into my PC, since this could introduce malware, etc.
The README states:
"Hi, as you can read in my resume, I have extensive experience in creating ransomware. You are now p0wned. I hope you have some Bitcoins handy. Nice to do business with you!"
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Just label the usb drive Spotify and you'll be fine!
Re:Security risk (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been trained to *never* plug a rogue USB into my PC, since this could introduce malware, etc.
Except that this card isn't a rogue USB that you found on the street. It would have been handed to you by Mr. Hilliard who would have said something like, "it's nice to have had this discussion, I'm looking forward to working together," after a business meeting in some corporate board room. Or some other situation that would have explicit or implied bona fides to eliminate the possibility of a social engineering attempt. It is a business card with lots of attention-drawing features to ensure you don't forget the person it represents, not an untraceable made-in-China USB flash drive handed out by a sales drone a conference.
Trying not to fall over laughing (Score:2)
You mean you don't sign your legal name to your malware attacks? /s
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What is more rogue:
a) A USB flashdrive that you get handed in person by someone you know, whose contact details you have and who has a reason for giving it to you?
b) A part you pick up from a shop, bought by that shop from a supplier you don't know, who got it from OEMs manufactured by an unknown person in an unknown factory somewhere in China?
Alibaba sells (Score:2)
Re: Wow (Score:3)
All the cards put together could conceivably be as much as one broken Christmas toy! Oh the humanity!
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That's what I was about to say. That much electronic waste to hand out a stupid resume is disgraceful.
Having said that, the guy is trying to pass another message with his bootable business cards: he means to demonstrate that he's technically competent. Back in the naughties, I used to hand out my resume on credit card-sized CDs that booted into what was not yet called a live Linux system, that I had carefully crafted myself. I landed a job a couple of times thanks to those CDs.
Nowadays, I carry my business
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It means I can steal your identity by cutting off your hand.
Happy Christmas.
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It means I can steal your identity by cutting off your hand.
That'll look cool on a lanyard ...
Imagine a Beowold Cluster of these! (Score:3)
Very cool project and one I'll have to try out.
It will be interesting to see what can be done with it and going further. A lot of things that I'm sure people are thinking about (battery power, touch screen displays, WiFi, etc.).
Incidentally, when I worked in manufacturing, lifting the leads to provide places to put the wiring was always called a "dead bug".
Great job by George!
Dead bugs. (Score:2)
Incidentally, when I worked in manufacturing, lifting the leads to provide places to put the wiring was always called a "dead bug".
Interesting.
Where I'd encountered the term up until now, "dead bug" always referred to gluing a DIP-packaged chip upside down on a board and running wires to its leads, as one would have wired to a terminal strip in electronics that predated printed circuits. "Dead bug" because it looks like an insect that died and ended up upside-down.
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I've only seen it once with PTH DIPs and that was in the '90s and on test equipment where the designers weren't all that careful.
Normally with prototyping of product boards we'd have SOICs and TSSOPs that had an incorrect layout with the power and ground pads being right but everything else wrong - so if it was an 8 leaded chip with Vdd and Vss, the two power pins would be on the pads and the six other pins would be up in the air with "fly wires" attached to them.
Insects abound in electronics and computers.
Five star award ***** (Score:2)
Yes! (Score:5, Insightful)
This project is frelling awesome!!! I mean, he set a reasonable goal, understood the parameters, and methodically went about doing something that would impress the heck out of me as a hiring manager. He didn't just do something derivative with a Raspberry Pi, or re-program one of those horrid USB flash drive business cards, he built the entire thing from scratch in an impressive feat of soup-to-nuts engineering!
To the Slashdot editors -- MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE, PLEASE!!
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'This project is frelling awesome!!!'
Brilliant, I'd say. Especially when you consider the reason for the design. Guaranteed it won't be necessary to provide any to a prospective employer, and that there's now more offers than he could ever imagine.
I'd say mission accomplished, well done.
Clever, but.... (Score:1)
I designed a business card that's black ink on white stock paper. It displays my name, location, and contact information. It also has a short tag line on what I do. On the back it's a QR Code that has all the info on the front plus a few more categorization tags. It cost just a few pennies each in quantity. People scan it into their contact database and then throw it away. Vanity cards only prove you're willing to throw money away (since I could buy vanity cards and have zero skill what's so ever excep
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He's an embedded systems engineer. It showcases some of his work and creativity.
Yeah, but... (Score:3)
Does it have a watermark?
Re:Clever, but.... (Score:5, Informative)
If he had someone else design it, it would be vanity. However, in this case it constitutes the first evidence that he can do what the front of the card says he can do.
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Or he expects that people who are actually concerned about that sort of thing and work in embedded computing can come up with a Raspberry pi or something they can test the card on.
damn, that's cool (Score:3)
soon my card will be smarter than I am ... ;~)
Uh, Security, walk him outta here... (Score:2)
There's a problem here... take the business card idea out and it becomes a card-based Linux server... boot to that via the power cord and lookout business security!
Problem (Score:1)
Interesting idea only if you can make it read only forever. Otherwise someone could take that card and change it to whatever they want. Then give them out at the next convention, to security people.