It seems that Picotux is the world’s smallest Linux running computer.
Its sizes are 35mm×19mm×19mm. Inside there’s an ARM7 CPU running at 55 MHz and an uClinux kernel 2.4.27 + Busybox 1.0.
Being this small, you might think the communication/connectivity part would have to suffer, but that’s not true.
It also has an 10/100 Mbps half/full duplex Ethernet and a serial port with up to 230.400 baud.
You may want to check the full list of technical specifications here.
The price may vary from ~100Euros (the cheapest) and it can go up to ~240Euros for advanced features. Aditional features can be bought as well.
Here’s a picture of it. What do you think?
This is cool, but I’d like to know these things:
(1) Where’s the OS? Is it in the 2 megs of flash? Can we add programs to it? How?
(2) Example uses of such a machine?
That’s pretty scary…
How exactly would you install the operating system? Where do you put the CD?
Phill, you can boot off network on many pc’s through PXE. Id assume something similar, or connection to a regular pc to update.
The point of something like this is to quickly turn an existing device into a networked host. It’s not something you would sell directly to customers, but something you’d integrate into another product.
For example, imagine you’re a manufacturer of warehouse management equipment. For each of your devices, there is a manual control to open a door or activate a conveyor belt. Your customers want to automate it all from a central location, but you don’t want to have to redesign your platform. Enter this thing, which is relatively easy to deploy.
In the long run it’s not a very good proposition, because it lowers up-front costs but increases per-unit costs. Also, there’s no guarantee these guys will be around in a year or can actually ship in the quantities you need. Still, it may be a good band aid to cover legacy devices and maintain a customer base while you develop a new version.
You can load a Linux image on it with TFTP.
Afterwards you can either run all stuff from the image or load the root filesystem from a NFS server.
Programms can be added to it when the Linux image is created (e.g. in a cross-compile environment) or on the NFS server.
Its the same device as http://www.digi.com/products/serialservers/digionesp.jsp except that it runs Linux and therefore can be modified to provide additional features.
Seems that something like it could be used for public places like libraries where all people really need is internet, and programs could be run off a network.
Can it use PoE?
Check out:
http://www.gumstix.com/
I’d embed it in my arm or something.
“Yeah, just plug that in here….”
Can i play bf2 on it?
Jesus christ, this is nothing but an fairly standard embedded computer, you slould all read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embedded_system and find out this is nothing special..
If you want to se something really cool you should check out Atmel has done with linux on their AVR32 chip, they’ve got Doom running on a chip smaller than this.
lol @ Brod =))
Couple points in dispute of claim of “world’s smallest Linux running computer”:
* It’s not running Linux, it’s running uClinux, which is like “linux lite”
* It’s not the world’s smallest, since at 35x19x19=12635mm^3 it’s about 30% larger than a gumstix (80x20x6=9600mm^3)
Where’s the hard drive?
Where are ps/2 port?
The Smallest Linux Computer !…
I know you have heard about the world’s largest LCD monitor and thinnest laptop. But have you ever heard about the smallest linux computer? The smallest linux computer must be Picotux.
Why say it is the smallest computer? Its size dimension only …