Flat Panel Linux Box for $99?

A reader writes "Found an interesting site which describes a hack to modify the $99 Iopener internet appliance to be able to run Linux. Flat panel LCD display, small footprint, 56K (non-win)modem. No ethernet, but a built-in parallel port (for PLIP?). Just add 2.5" HD. The perfect X terminal! "

Awesome!

I always wondered about that... I better go check it out before they realize that their loss-leader price is gonna get 'em screwed. If people aren't buying them to use their service, things might not work out too well for their business...

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Ubiquitousness

I think the craze over putting Linux on anything with a processor is getting ridiculous. Is it really all that horrible to use an item for what it was intended? I mean Christ, I don't see Linux on my digital watch, why doesn't someone fix that? It must be because Casio is conspiring to make it impossible! Open source digital watches!

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please...

Oh C'mon people, give him credit, he did a nice job so stop understating the hack. sure it was easy, but that IS the beauty of it. just because it doesn't take a rocket scientist to do it, doesn't mean the you rocket scientists out there should say it's a piece of crap!

after all, it's the creativity and inventive that counts.

Re:So what?

So... install *BSD. Or OS/2. Or Windows. If you noted, there's nothing saying this only works for Linux.. you could even install x86 Solaris if you were so inclined. :> And yeah, so it might be just putting a hard drive on the motherboard as someone else mentioned, but it still took this person(s) time to figure out that the plug was mirrored I'm sure. It's still a hack (and one that I might be looking in to soon)

Is this thing a "loss-leader" for selling their

online services? The article mentions that it is a custom dial-up but makes no mention if it's the hardware that's been customized or if it's simply that they don't support other connections in the software. I suppose for the price I can assume it software-braindead but if it's not a winmodem and it IS on COM1..
I would question the need for Linux on a device that is limited to 640x480 (no - it doesn't make sense to put Linux on everything, just most everything) not to mention just how useful it would be in everyday life in as limited a manner as it currently exists. Though- on the positive side I can see application where this would be very useful. At $99 bucks it would be the cheapest "smart-typewriter" ever and the added advantage of being able to do not only typing but spreadsheet work and presentations might make it a very useful tool for some administrative staff...

Netpliance impressions

I purchased one of these for my wife's grandmother. Nice easy to use platform, does e-mail well and surfs. Javascript, no java, no PNG. Does fine on slashdot, CNN, etc...

Its a slick little box as is. The pointing device is not suitable for arthritic fingers, but they can take an PS/2 pointer as well.

The LCD is VERY sensitive to viewing angle, but if you only have one head on your neck that shouldn't be too bad. Its also very susceptible to ducking. Moving items vanish.

Their original plan was to sell them for $400 with a $5/mo ISP service. That didn't fly so they flipped to $200 and a $20/mo ISP at their xmas time introduction.

Now at $99 for a linux terminal I'm really excited. I feel a bit bad, since they are probably losing money at $99 and won't be making it up on the ISP service. Not bad enough to refrain from buying a couple though. :-)

Right, but...

The $99 has GOT to be losing them money, but they're counting on their $20 a month for the service, or whatever. Linux users are gonna plunk down $99, say thanks, and never look back.... Selling units at $99 can't possibly make them any money.

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What is the legality behind this?

I know that alot of people here think the EULAs are junk, but in reality some of them are legitimate. Although I think this is very cool, isn't this a blatant misuse of their device. I assume that there is somewhere where they say you can't disassemble them, and in this case, where they are selling them at a loss, they have a legitimate reason to request this.
On a second note, what are the terms of their contract. Assuming you are buying the product, and not just on an indefinate lease, how long are you required to use their internet service before terminating the contract?

ISP Service Cancellation

I just called their customer service line. The operator was a bit confused when I asked her if I could order the appliance without the ISP service, but assured me that I could cancel it at any time. So, you don't need to subscribe to their service. Woohoo!

Parallel Port ethernet

There is an ethernet card that is supported by Linux that attaches to a parallel port. &nbsp It's pretty steep in price (around US$100+) though. &nbsp One of my buddies was considering buying it since his old XIRCOM parallel port wasn't supported.

Can't think of the name of it off hand but will look it up in a hurry unless someone already knows it and posts...

USB networking

From the Linux USB Guide [sourceforge.net]:

Prolific manufactures a range of USB chips, including the PL2301 and PL2302 devices that allow two USB host controllers to be linked, providing a simple point to point link at up to 5Mbps. This driver supports both PL2301 andPL2302 chips.

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A market opportunity?

Although this isn't it, someone needs to mass produce a simple (cheap!) box with a nice flat panel screen, minimal cpu/mb, and most importantly, an ethernet port (100BT would be nice). If someone could design and mass produce something like this for under, say $200 US, they'd make a killing. I know I would personally buy a bunch of them. And no, Sun's sun ray doesn't fit the bill, afaik it requires a Sun server, which will make it rather costly.

I love PC's, and something like this would really be the perfect complement. Why settle for an information appliance hard coded to do one particular thing, when you can a bunch of sleek little x-terminals that can do anything a stand-alone appliance does?

I can think of plenty of uses for something like this around the house, in a business setting, the uses multiply.

So if anyone with the means is listening, build them! The market for appliances of this type will fail until they're cheap enough ($200 would be my price point, can I reiterate that enough?), and as long as they're tied to proprietary systems. Who else would buy a generic, sleek, flat paneled x-term for $200?

Did anyone notice that...

...they're IPO'ing next week?

Hmm... Slow down now..

I was on the point of buying one of these, but while I was thinking about it and taking a shower I came up with a progression in mind...

1. Some geek buys one of these devices
2. That geek hacks the hardware and figures out how to install Linux on the machine
3. The geek shares his knowledge of how to do it with others over the internet
4. Someone submits the site to Slashdot's editors and it gets posted on the main page
5. Slashdot readers see the story and see that they can get a cool Linux box for $99
6. Slashdot users int the thousands go out and buy this device
7. The company sells thousands of these devices at a loss
8. The company assumes they will recover this loss when these thousands of people start paying for their internet service
9. These users don't sign up for the internet service and the company doesn't make their money back
10. The company goes belly-up, blaming malicious Linux hackers for destroying their business (ironically using the right term)

Now unless you're violating a license agreement by not using their internet service you aren't doing anything illegal by turning this machine into a Linux box. Sure, it seems very stupid to me that the company would sell these machines at what can only be a loss assuming they would make up their loss with the internet service -- but that's not the point here.

Whether or not the people buying this machine are doing anything wrong, think of the bad publicity this thing could cause, not to mention the potential moral guilt of destroying a dumb company. It would be different if this company were selling millions of units and only a small handfull of people hacked it and installed Linux, but Slashdot is a big site now, and our "Slashdot Effect" can do more than just take down a small web server.

Something to think about anyhow...

Linux flatscreen for $99-- NOPE!

All this talk of a $99 Linux box puzzles me. I have yet to figure out how such a thing costs $99. If you purchase the unit for $99 and it require mods... will it not be more? Maybe all of you out there have a few extra 2.5" HDs in the scrap parts box... I don't... I am afraid that will be a few extra dollars... you can probably pick a small one up for $75 - $100... by the time you start adding things up (include your time)... you could have purchased a 400 mhz eMachine.

Small footprint... yes... flat panel...yes... $99... no.

I think this thing is awesome... I am going to track one down this weekend... I want to perform the mods... but I'm not fooling myself... this thing is not $99 when all is said and done... I figure to do it right, $350 - $400 to get it up on a network.

Side note: If someone can find a way to retro-fit this thing into a notebook case for under $400... let me know... make this thing portable and keep the modem and I am a happy Linux camper.

Just my $.02

Respect the hack...

...and stop complaining. Putting linux on everything (including Palm Pilots) is just a geek game. Welcome to Slashdot.

If it wasn't for people with this hackish spirit, we may never have had PC's in the first place. Do you have any idea how useless early systems like the Altair were? All you had was switches and lights, but hackers went nuts over them. Over time, they improved them, and now we have our modern PC's.

I think its an interesting post. The hack wasn't very technical, but it is kind of cute.

--Lenny

Super-Nifty!! (CD-ROM??)

An IDE CD-ROM is a lot cheaper and easier to work with than a 2.5" hard disk. If the BIOS supports the El-Torito Bootable CDRom stuff, that's another way to get your favorite linux distro on it -- especially if you can get the 16M flash to work as well. Nifty!!!

it would make a MARVELOUS mp3 player ;-)

if the comm port can be used as a proper port and not some hacky modem-only thing, then it has all you need for a neat mp3 player:

• parallel port to drive an lp3music.com [lp3music.com] (mp3 decoder, audio dac)
• serial port for an IR remote control (realmagic [linux.kz] brand is $20 and has a linux driver)
• video display is already there for songname, bandname, album art graphics, etc.
• add a 10gig notebook drive (under $300) and you have lots of storage for mp3 files

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Re:What is the legality behind this?

I know that alot of people here think the EULAs are junk, but in reality some of them are legitimate. Although I think this is very cool, isn't this a blatant misuse of their device. I assume that there is somewhere where they say you can't disassemble them, and in this case, where they are selling them at a loss, they have a legitimate reason to request this.

I don't think they did, and the EULA wouldn't be needed. All they need is a cell-phone like contract when you buy that you sign up for X months of their $20 service, or pay a sliding termination fee. Which as far as I know they don't (yet) require.

Those contracts are enforcable (since you sign them when you buy the product, not "click" them after). And in my opnion they are also fair since you know the terms before you get home. That's the thing I hate about the EULA. You can buy a product and when you get home discover that there are all sorts of restrictions on it. I want to know what I'm buying before I put my money down. I don't want to get home and then decide I have to drive back to the damm store and return it.

The downside (from netpliance's point of view) is people don't like to make that kind of commitment. Just look at how many more people sign up for the no/low commit moble phones now vs. about five years ago when there were no low commit (let alone no commit) phone plans!

On a second note, what are the terms of their contract. Assuming you are buying the product, and not just on an indefinate lease, how long are you required to use their internet service before terminating the contract?

From what I have read here, there is none. Even if there was one this would be nice because it means there would be a use for this $99 box even if netpliance went bankrupt (and face it, this kind of market is really rough, they have to compete with $0 PCs offering the same kind of deal, but with a 2 to 4 year ISP commitment).

Re:Hmm... Slow down now..

8.The company assumes they will recover this loss when these thousands of people start paying for their internet service
9.These users don't sign up for the internet service and the company doesn't make their money back

If the company doesn't require the purchase of Internet service, it's their own blunder. In capitalistic markets, stupid companies die, and smart ones succeed. Pitying dumb companies is counterproductive for yourself and for the market as a whole. Selling products at a loss without some assurance of a tied-in gain is stupid, and any company that does it is asking to fail.

Fortunately for Netpliance (and unfortunately for me), iOpeners are only $99 with premium service, a whopping $22/mo. If they allow users to cancel the service immediately, we're back to "It's their own damn fault" territory.

clear up some questions on my iopener hack

the screen is the new sharp dualscan 800x600 16bpp you can fdisk and format the internal flash disk it will boot off the flash disk if there is no hard drive plugged in.. and you can replace the kb it just uses a ps2 plug thats how you get into setup ctl+alt+esc ! i use a dlink de620 par either net adapter and it works well.. the cpu does about 80 bogomips i swaped the winchip whith a itel 200 pre mmx 3.4v core and bogomips when about 3x i will update the page and fix the forum tonight thanks for the ./ codeman

Wireless LCD screen Linux terminal for $200

I'm glad this became an article today. I was one of the posters who suggested this should be an article yesterday [slashdot.org], on Microsoft X-box thread.

My plan is to hack one into a wireless LCD screen Linux system for less than $200. I believe this can be done, but I will need some help. Here is the known specs:

• The box uses a Winchip 180MHz processor.
  
• The chipset consists of Trident Cyberglade i7, which is a mobile version of VIA's MVP4 northbridge + integrated UMA video chip. It's fully supported by XFree86, and the person who hacked the i-opener first was kind enough to email me the Xconfig file. The other component of the chipset is a VIA southbridge. The northbridge has the PCI bus interface, and the southbridge has an ISA bus.
  
• The modem is an add-on daughterboard, and sits on an interface that nobody has been able to identify yet. If I were one of the engineers of i-opener, I would have used the ISA bus along with a PC/104 type connector. I haven't seen the board myself yet, but I'm hoping it is either some kind of custom connector for the ISA bus, or PC/104, or some kind of PCMCIA connector.
  
• If the modem is really on an ISA bus, the modem daughterboard can be removed, and an ISA PCMCIA adapter card can be connected here with the help of a custom cable assembly/an ISA slot from an old motherboard. My plan is to use the card that comes with the Webgear Aviator 2.4 IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN kit. Then you can plug any PCMCIA card to this adapter, Ethernet, your choice of a IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN card, etc. (I recommend the $70 Aviator 2.4)
  
• If the modem is connected to a PCMCIA connector(which doesn't make any sense really-the ISA bus is already there, and if they really wanted ISA extensibility, why didn't they just add a proper PCMCIA connector?); then provided that the PCMCIA controller is supported by Linux, it should be easy to connect your choice of PCMCIA card there.
  
  Will anyone who has seen the actual board, or who knows anything about it, please comment on my idea? If anyone can identify the connection of the modem daughterboard to the motherboard, it's even better. Some people suggested that it was PCMCIA, in this case, does anyone know which PCMCIA controller is used?
  
  If this can be done, and we have access to the ISA bus or a PCMCIA connector on the i-opener, possibilities are endless. The i-opener has barely enough space inside to house a small ISA card with the metal bracket removed. With an ISA Ethernet board with a boot ROM, you can build a diskless X terminal; or you can try adding a wireless LAN card like me.
  
  If I can pull this off, I will post it as an article on my Bluetooth Central [bluetoothcentral.com] to share.

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BluetoothCentral.com [bluetoothcentral.com]
A site for everything Bluetooth. Coming soon.

It's got an usb port

Just get an USB-Ethernet adapter. They will probably cost more than the machine though ...

Re:Linux flatscreen for $99-- NOPE!

I priced the components earlier (I'm very intrigued by the possibility) and a 2 gig 2.5" IDE hard drive is $72. That's an IBM hdd, too, so it's likely quite good quality. A USB ethernet card is approx $30 for the low end ones, but I didn't check for supported ones. My guess is that the low end ones are the supported ones.

So we have now a whopping $200, which is what the unit cost originally. So while it's twice the price, it's still undeniably nifty.

Somewhere below (above?) someone mentioned a parallel port ethernet card which is also supported under linux. That, however, costs around $75 or $100, so now we're in the 275$ range.

Not nearly $350-400, though. And $275 (or even better, $200) is a fabulous deal for a tiny little terminal.

-Ed

Re:Linux flatscreen for $99-- NOPE!

If you want to give me $75-$100 for a small 2.5" IDE drive [egghead.com], let me know and I'll send you my address.

Or you could just use its native OS.

Of course, you could just use QNX, the os the iopener is _actually_ using. -William Bull [e-mail]

Flat Panel Linux

For 99 bucks
Those who dare open the box
Run Unix for cheap.

No -- no contract, no extra cost

We just picked 2 of them up. They require no contract at purchase time, so we own the units without being required to purchase service.

Re:Using the 16mb flash

why settle for vnc? You can easily get XWindows up and running in 16 megs of flash.

Their financial model..

They aren't just making money off of the ISP. If you look at the keyboard, where the function keys are, there is instead hotlinks to various services - shopping, email, even a pizza button. They probably get money from every sale made via those hot buttons, similar to amazon's web partnering.

LetterRip

Getting into QNX on the I-Opener

Just went down to Circuit City and bought two I-Openers for $99 a pop (one for me and one for my boss). There wasn't any kind of contract or anything -- just $99 for the thing. Mine has a 180 MHz WinChip, 32MB ram, and a 10" 800x600 display.

Fun things to do with an I-Opener:

1. - Plug in a normal PS/2 keyboard (one with an ESC key). Or, you can take a laptop PS/2 "Y" cable and plug in both the mouse and keyboard (the mouse and keyboard are reversed, ie., plug the mouse into the keyboard connector and the keyboard into the mouse connector).

2. - Wait for the system to boot up and go into the tutorial. Let it get far enough into the tutorial that it waits for your input so that it doesn't keep getting in your way.

3. - Press ESC-4 a few times. This will bring up a shell with root access. You are now in the QNX operating System.

4. - The first thing you will want to do is allow root to login.

: cd /etc
: chmod +www passwd
: vi passwd
(delete the first "x" in the root entry)
: chmod -www passwd

now you can login as root without a password. Note that this change is not permanent. To make the change permanent you have to make the change to the passwd~ file. Note, the system won't let you make the change to the passwd~ file, so you have to mv passwd~ to passwd_old and then copy passwd_old to passwd~ and then make the change.

5. - do a "ps". Probably the very last thing you will see is something like "/app/start-photon".

6. - kill the /app/start-photon

You will now be at a text-only screen where you can login as root.

Notes:

- Don't delete /app/start-photon ! I did this, and now my system does nothing. I will have to get a harddrive to boot from now.

- Hitting the power button to power off only powers off the display (it might also put the processor into sleep mode, I dunno). Powering off doesn't "power off". You have to disconnect power to do a hard boot.

- These things have a telnet daemon and a www daemon running in the background by default.

I'm sure if you knew QNX well enough, you could just use the underlying system there to dialup to the internet, download a linux kernel and install it onto the flash directly. But seeing as I've pretty much hosed up my system by deleting a startup file, I'm going to have to hook up a hard drive anyway.

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Mark Fassler
fassler at verinet dot com