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Linux Computer in USB Key Form-Factor

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wed Jun 27, 2007 11:05 AM
from the put-that-in-yer-pipe-and-smoke-it dept.
Software Hardware Hacking Linux
PMBjornerud writes "A start-up located in the French Alps near Grenoble is readying a tiny ARM-based Linux single-board computer (SBC) in a USB key form-factor. Calao's USB-9260 USB key-sized SBC measures 3.3 x 1.4 inches (85 x 36 mm). It is based on an Atmel AT91SAM9260 processor, an SoC (system-on-chip) powered by an ARM926EJ-S core clocked at 190MHz. The SoC targets "advanced applications such as GPS application processors," according to Atmel. Here is a Spec sheet PDF. With a 10/100 Ethernet port, firewall usage springs to mind. Other interfaces are 2 USB host ports and room for an expansion card. Which should allow some creative uses. "
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  • imagine (Score:3, Funny)

    by trollercoaster (250101) on Wednesday June 27 2007, @11:06AM (#19664205) Homepage Journal
    a beowulf cluster of these!

  • But does it.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by mulvane (692631) on Wednesday June 27 2007, @11:08AM (#19664223)
    Run Windows Vista?

  • OBLIG: Imagine a beowolf... (Score:4, Funny)

    by martyb (196687) on Wednesday June 27 2007, @11:18AM (#19664351)

    Just imagine a beowolf cluster of these... Seriously!

    The SBC had TWO usb host slots into which TWO of these could be plugged (back-to-back) and EACH of these could have TWO more! And so on and so on. Sure there'd be power considerations (duh).

    So, more realistically, plug a multiport USB hub into your PC, and plug one of these into each of the ports... instant cluster!

    Yes, I know, there's probably has no _practical_ use like this (190 MHz; 64MB SDRAM), but just for the geekiness of it, I'd love to see someone DO it!

    • Re:OBLIG: Imagine a beowolf... (Score:4, Informative)

      by mabhatter654 (561290) on Wednesday June 27 2007, @11:26AM (#19664469)
      It's like a tidied up Gumstix. For small computers those guys rule the market right now. All the power of a WinCE or Palm in a tiny little board. They are missing USB hosting and video for the complete package. But they have Bluetooth and robot servo control... kinda makes up for it.
      • Gumstix now has a PXA270 based board that has USB host. As far as video, I think the best you could probably do is either a USB video device (assuming you can get a driver working) or the onboard LCD controller (which is picky to say the least because LCDs are evil).
    • I, for one, welcome our new USB stick fractal overlords.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by iabervon (1971)
      Unfortunately for that idea, it's too wide to plug two into adjacent ports on a hub and too tall to plug into adjacent ports on a computer. They need to offer a version with a mini-USB socket for the device end before you can make a cluster of these.

    • Re:OBLIG: Imagine a beowolf... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by caseih (160668) on Wednesday June 27 2007, @12:07PM (#19665059)
      I disagree. I presume the device can run with only power (ie standalone). If so, and if it was cheap enough, stick one of these inside a Linksys WRT54GL case, attach it to an ethernet port, and you have a very nice parental filter dansguardian box. The Linksys itself isn't powerful enough to run dansguardian (not enough ram), but this device has sufficient ram. Or it could be used to augment the capabilities of linksys itself, like to do a PBX, or something.

  • network analysis tool? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by apodyopsis (1048476) on Wednesday June 27 2007, @11:28AM (#19664495)
    With Ethernet on one end, USB2 on the other and stacks of ARM9 power?

    I bet that security researchers turn it into some kind of network analysis tool before I can say "whippit".

    And then the hackers get their hands on it.....

    I bet your there are waaay more uses for a sexy little gizmo like this then the manufacturers realize.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by FauxReal (653820)
      I'd like to see one with ethernet jacks on both ends... then it could be an inline analysis tool.

  • but does it run... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by saleenS281 (859657) on Wednesday June 27 2007, @11:29AM (#19664517) Homepage
    Opensolaris? No... seriously, does it?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by zergl (841491)
      Assuming your question was seriously serious:

      I can't see how it does, considering there's no Opensolaris for ARM that I know of.
      • ahh, didn't see the ARM, I thought it was powerPC based. There are rumblings of an ARM port in the future, but you are correct in that it has not been done yet.

  • Coming soon (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pestilence669 (823950) on Wednesday June 27 2007, @11:32AM (#19664551)
    These guys have inherited the old BlackDog & K9 platforms. Rather than ARM, it uses a PowerPC core. New models coming soon:
    http://echoidentity.com/ [echoidentity.com]
    • I rather like my BlackDog box. It took a bit of effort to get it to work reliably on Ubuntu, but it works on Windows like a champ. I still haven't gotten it to work on a Mac though.

  • beowulf posters take note (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27 2007, @11:34AM (#19664583)
    There is a right way, and a wrong way to do a beowulf post.

    First of all, you do not put the word "imagine", or "beowulf" in the subject line. Your subject line MUST pertain directly to the subject at hand. In this case, the subject is a USB key computer that runs LINUX. It is also important to use the word "these" instead of the word "those".

    I have taken the opportunity to display a properly formatted beowulf post, conveniently reproduced below:

    Subject: USB Key form factor computer

    Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!

  • Israeli companies have been making them for years (Score:5, Informative)

    by Organic User (1103717) on Wednesday June 27 2007, @11:35AM (#19664587)
    Many Israeli companies have been making computer-on-a-stick for quiet a while now. For example, Yoggie [yoggie.com] has been making some running linux to be used for security applications. I pick up a regular computer-on-a-stick for about $40USD 3 years ago in Tel Aviv.

  • firewall? duh? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Wakko Warner (324) * on Wednesday June 27 2007, @11:42AM (#19664685) Homepage Journal
    "With a 10/100 Ethernet port, firewall usage springs to mind."

    Maybe if you're retarded. How effective is a 190 MHz computer with a single 10/100 interface?
    • It can be done. Good luck doing rule based routing with tk though.

      Anyhow, I was checking this out when it came out on Linux Devices the other day and it's intriguing but it's still more of an embedded device and they don't give you much access to the IO without an additional module that sort of detracts from the small form factor sexiness. I'd like to see something like a DIY Arduino type board based on the chip though.
    • Assuming your switch supports it, you could use 802.11q packet tagging and vlans.
    • You seem to be confusing physical and logical networks...

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by X0563511 (793323) *
        You realize that USB is the most CPU-intensive bus around?

        You would be better off assigning two IP addresses to two aliases on the device and using the one ethernet jack.

  • Hardhack? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Telvin_3d (855514) on Wednesday June 27 2007, @11:51AM (#19664777)
    After seeing this and a few other things tagged with 'hardhack' I decided to find out just what a 'hardhack' is. Turns out that it's a shrub http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardhack [wikipedia.org]. Who knew?

  • A few more (less legal) appliactions come to mind (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Opportunist (166417) on Wednesday June 27 2007, @12:00PM (#19664931)
    Let's see. A computer that can easily be hidden inside your pocket. With a network interface.

    All you need now is a UPS uniform and a target.
  • what versions of Windows will it run?

  • That's right, a Linux computer in a USB drive (Score:3, Insightful)

    by suitepotato (863945) on Wednesday June 27 2007, @12:36PM (#19665509)
    and all you need to use it is another computer to plug it into. (insert giant rolling eyes emoticon here) The Linux world still isn't getting it... Here's your chance to start working on the other stuff like the projection keyboard, 3D sensor for hand movements and gestures, voice recognition, and heads-up displays. Wait, that's all hardware techie stuff and works with Windows as well as Linux. Which means in the next ten years we'll be getting /. stories about how Windows (Whatever) based pocket computers with all of the above are now being made to run Linux.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by iggymanz (596061)
      Linux is already being used in tons of embedded and monitor/control applications, what are you talking about?
  • At least, the picture of their office is nice !

    I'd like to be able to see a mountain like that when looking at the window.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by tigerc (628630)
      I think the only advantage of this particular linux usb key is it's size. Otheriwse, the gumstix are a helluva lot more powerful and almost as small (think size of a gumstick). Anyway, gumstix also has a variety of expansion boards. I'm waiting for the gsm module so I can make something off the OpenMoko platform or a cobbled together iPhone.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The Gumstix may have a higher clock, but they use the XScale microarchitectrue. The 926 is the same architecture, but the microarchitecture has superior performance, particularly with regard to memory access. I'd be interested to see real world benchmarks between the devices.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by owlstead (636356)
          It seems this one is quite a bit smaller as well. Furthermore, it has 256 MB flash instead of max 16 for the gumstix I saw. Then again, you can easily upgrade the memory of the gumstix using SD or compact flash. And the gumstix seem to have more options. Of course, it depends on the price as well. The gumstix seem to be pretty sweetly priced, we'll just have to wait for the prices of these.

      • Re:Firewall (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Andy Dodd (701) <atd7@nOsPam.cornell.edu> on Wednesday June 27 2007, @01:12PM (#19666051) Homepage
        Yeah, except that all gumstix products put Ethernet on a daughterboard using a Hirose connector that's a complete non-starter in a severe high-vibration environment.

        This thing still uses an RJ45 connector which means it still can't be used in such a severe environment in its off-the-shelf form, but it's much easier to desolder a connector and solder a jumper cable to something like a MIL-C-38999 and pot the whole thing in epoxy than try to ruggedize those Hirose connectors (hopeless).

    • Re:Firewall (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ringfinger (629332) * on Wednesday June 27 2007, @11:24AM (#19664445) Homepage
      This seems like the ultimate in upgradable technology -- just unplug an old one and plug in a new one. Put this in a car as the on-board computer, then you could pull it out and plug it into another machine to perform diagnostics or upgrade software. This seems extremely useful to me.
    • Saw one at a trade show a couple years back - using one of the dime-sized disks for memory.

      Appears as a drive to the system and launches a full-screen window displaying its own X server's screen buffer when plugged in (to a Windows, BSD, or Linux box).

      Has enough power storage in a capacitor to automatically save state when suddenly unplugged - so you can just pull it out, take it somewhere else, plug it into another box (perhaps with a different underlying op system), and pick up right where you left off (cursor position, keystroke, and all).

      Was intended to be licensed to manufacturers and to sell for $100 for kids to carry between school, library, and home. I think they eventually got a model to market for $125 with a flash drive.

      Don't recall the name right now (a somewhat simian word) but there have been a number of stories about it on Slashdot.

      The one in THIS article isn't it. Doesn't seem to have any mass storage onboard.

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