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My Business Card Runs Linux

thirtythreeforty.net

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Re: My Business Card Runs Linux

#291

Post by ww520 »

stefan_ wrote: post #289
ww520 wrote: post #204

This is pretty cool. What's the time spent on bootup? Hardware POST? I remember seeing some Linux can boot in under a second. It would be cool to see the business card come to life instantly.

You might know this and use it as a short hand, but just in case: ARM doesn't use a BIOS of any sort, so there is no POST, just a bunch of vendor blobs (burned into the chip) that do bootstrapping then jump to your bootloader. The biggest problem in his case is probably the 8 MiB serial flash; that is going to be rather slow to load from.

Good to know.

Re: My Business Card Runs Linux

#292

Post by steveklabnik »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #241
anchpop wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rust doesn't compile very fast unfortunately, but it's being worked on. General wisdom says it's about as fast as Clang but comparing compile speeds across languages in a meaningful way is difficult

Fair enough, thanks for that, I wasn't sure, all my Rust programs have been small enough to where I havent noticed. I wonder if it would of made sense for Rust to consider this earlier on in the same way that Pascal did. I believe I heard Pascal was designed to be parsed easily by machine code.

Parsing is not the reason why it takes a while to compile.

Re: My Business Card Runs Linux

#293

Post by jchook »

jokoon wrote: post #287
neurostimulant wrote: post #67

To me it's truly mind-bogging that a tiny $1.42 chip contains almost everything needed to boot Linux: a 500mhz cpu, 32MB SDRAM, 2D GPU, SD/MMC support, and USB controller, all packaged inside a 10mm x 10mm chip? It makes me really want to get into embedded development.

I wish raspberrypi could release something similar. Their product are still too powerful for my taste.

Reminds me of the (now defunct) CHIP for $9[1].

Have you checked out some of the alt pi boards like Orange Pi or Onion Omega2Plus?

1. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598272670/chip-the-wor...

Re: My Business Card Runs Linux

#294

Post by kccqzy »

monocasa wrote: post #226
cerberusss wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why you were downvoted. I fully get why the blog writer didn't include USB-C with this awesome project. But there's now a growing group of people who simply can't use USB-A anymore with their laptops. Most will have an adapter, but not all.

A female to C male adapters exist, but C female to A male adapters are forbidden by the spec. That means you need to create A peripherals if you want the largest audience.

Are you sure this is the case? I bought a couple of these to have newer peripherals work on my older laptop.

Re: My Business Card Runs Linux

#295

Post by icedchai »

zimmertr wrote: post #188
nabla9 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling this embedded system feels like insult to the spirit of 'running light without overbyte', because it's so comically capable. My first PC had 66/33 MHz 80486 processor and 8 MB ram, 320 MB HDD. You could run AutoCAD, play Doom, Civilization, have dual boot for Linux, Windows 3.11 etc. It could compile Linux from source.

Oh geez I can't imagine how long it would take to compile Linux on that slow of a processor.

Linux in the 90's wasn't as bloated as it was now. It definitely took well under an hour to compile a kernel. My first Linux box was a 386SX-16. I later upgraded to a 486DX4-100.

Re: My Business Card Runs Linux

#297

Post by yantrams »

serf wrote: post #282
GordonS wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah, you had it great! My first PC was a 286, which IIRC either had no HDD, OR. 20MB HDD (might be mixing it with our next PC, which was a 386). I'm pushing 40, and still shake my head in wonder sometimes about just how much is possible at such small scale and cost. But this is now turning into "when I were a lad..." :)

Oh, you kids! My XT had an 8088 @ ~4mhz in it, and we pushed it uphill to school both ways, in the snow! It was multi-functional though. The power supply was inefficient enough to heat the room, while simultaneously being heavy enough to bludgeon large creatures for sustenance. Something inside me misses the radiant heat, sitting here on a cold day with my chilly metallic laptop.

I honestly thought you were gonna reference the Four Yorkshiremen sketch by Monty Python after the second line!

Re: My Business Card Runs Linux

#298

Post by ridiculous_fish »

jbuzbee wrote: post #211
nabla9 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling this embedded system feels like insult to the spirit of 'running light without overbyte', because it's so comically capable. My first PC had 66/33 MHz 80486 processor and 8 MB ram, 320 MB HDD. You could run AutoCAD, play Doom, Civilization, have dual boot for Linux, Windows 3.11 etc. It could compile Linux from source.

You were living large! My first Linux computer was a 20Mhz 80386SX with a 40MB hard drive partitioned half for Windows 3.0 and half for Linux (SLS) and swap. It had a whopping 4MB of RAM and I also compiled my own kernel making sure to trim down features as much as possible. It was magic seeing X11 come up for the first time just like the big-bucks Sun boxes!

Mine was a Mac IIsi - 20MHz 68030, 1MB RAM. To run Linux, you needed to install a daughtercard with a hardware FPU.

Re: My Business Card Runs Linux

#299

Post by pbhjpbhj »

CreRecombinase wrote: post #190
zimmertr wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh geez I can't imagine how long it would take to compile Linux on that slow of a processor.

I once read somewhere that the time to compile Linux from source on high-end desktop hardware has remained remarkably stable over the years.

My first Linux, Slackware, took me a week to download (Slackware), was on something like 12 disks. I compiled a kernel, took two days.

That was on a second-hand Pentium-S. I probably wasn't doing it right.

Re: My Business Card Runs Linux

#300

Post by foota »

syncsynchalt wrote: post #217

Wellington Ma's business card was a rectangular slice of pink synthetic quartz, laser-engraved with his name, 'The Ma-Mariano Agency,' an address on Beverly Boulevard, and all kinds of numbers and e-mail addresses. It arrived by GlobEx in its own little gray suede envelope while Rydell was still in the hospital. "Looks like you could cut yourself on it," Rydell said. "You could, many no doubt have," said Karen Mendel…

I get serious Snow Crash vibes from this.
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