[nylug-talk] Re: Linux Newbie Seeks Embedded Wisdom
Jason Van Anden
Fri Sep 29 12:18:08 EDT 2006
Thanks for the feedback thus far - I was pretty psyched about the PCM
story until I found out its vapor.
I can live with the argument that I may be making more work for my
self than is really necessary - is this the consensus? I was
approaching this from a solid state would be better - especially for
an app that need not log.
Jason
On Sep 29, 2006, at 11:57 AM, nylug-talk-request at nylug.org wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: new jersey to tax (Tom Limoncelli)
> 2. Re: Linux Newbie Seeks Embedded Wisdom (Paul Robbins)
> 3. Re: new jersey to tax (Peter C. Norton)
> 4. Re: Linux Newbie Seeks Embedded Wisdom (Jason Van Anden)
> 5. Re: Linux Newbie Seeks Embedded Wisdom (Andrew Pliszka)
> 6. Re: Linux Newbie Seeks Embedded Wisdom (etamme at optonline.net)
> 7. Re: Linux Newbie Seeks Embedded Wisdom (etamme at optonline.net)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 11:06:19 -0400
> From: "Tom Limoncelli" <tal at whatexit.org>
> Subject: Re: [nylug-talk] new jersey to tax
> To: "NYLUG Technical Discussion" <nylug-talk at nylug.org>, "Kevin Mark"
> <kevin.mark at verizon.net>
> Message-ID:
> <a1942750609290806t620689dene3c01613df93ad9b at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> This sounds like the urban legend that has circulated as far back as
> the 1980s under various terms: modem tax, internet tax, etc.
>
> What's the source of this rumor? Do you have a bill number from
> http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/ ?
>
> Tom
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 11:06:45 -0400
> From: "Paul Robbins" <robbins.paul at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [nylug-talk] Linux Newbie Seeks Embedded Wisdom
> To: "NYLUG Technical Discussion" <nylug-talk at nylug.org>
> Message-ID:
> <c66448360609290806y71cc6644r5a5da71e5b37af58 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Just note that the read/write life of the CF cards is very limited,
> some as
> low as 10,000 writes. I looked at creating miniATX linux firewalls
> with CF
> cards, but dropped it due to that limitation. Basically, you can
> do no
> logging on the system. We figured that we would have to have a
> seperate box
> with a hard drive that we could send all of the logs to. Then that
> really
> defeated the purpose. So instead, we used ClarkConnect on a small
> footprint
> PC with a hard drive so we could use it. Jason's requirements for
> this box
> may be different, but a system without logs isn't really valueable
> from my
> perspective. And the alternative of swapping CF cards monthly isn't
> either.
>
> On 9/29/06, jh <jhlists at hirschman.net> wrote:
>>
>> Jason Van Anden wrote:
>>> Hello List!
>>>
>>
>>> To be more specific - I have setup a system that works well off a
>>> hard
>>> drive. I would like to run this off of compact flash instead.
>>> There
>>> are a few articles out there that describe how to do this, but
>>> they are
>>> sprinkled with just enough jargon to confuse me.
>>
>> As Eric said, it is trivially easy to replace a hard drive with a CF
>> flash card; I built a box for a client for a single-purpose
>> project that
>> might have parallels to what you're trying to do.
>>
>> Some tips:
>>
>> * Don't turn swap on. It'll chew up the limited read/write cycle
>> lifetime of flash memory.
>>
>> * Try to turn off everything that needs to write to the disk, period,
>> unless your project requires it.
>>
>> * Don't use a full-fledged distro if you don't have to. My project
>> involved a box that really only did three things:
>>
>> - Dialed into a server via a phone line,
>> - Downloaded certain textual and binary updates,
>> - Used that to play some songs.
>>
>> I didn't need all the cruft from a full distro - no X, no web
>> server, no
>> mail server, etc. etc. All I needed was an MP3 player, Python and
>> some
>> networking kit. That all fit in a few megabytes. Hell, I didn't even
>> have a full "normal" root directory structure - it just wasn't
>> required.
>>
>> In my case, I built my own using Linux From Scratch as a
>> guideline, but
>> today there are many, many good tiny distributions that you can use
>> instead of Ubuntu (Damn Small Linux, for one).
>>
>> Of course, it could be that your project really benefits from some or
>> many of the goodies that Ubuntu brings, or that you want or need
>> something like full OS functionality. In that case, you might be
>> better
>> with something like a tiny hard drive, which has more space and
>> doesn't
>> carry the same read/write cycle limits. Hitachi has microdrives that
>> have a CF card formfactor, but go to 8 gigs.
>>
>> jh
>>
>>
>>
>> _____________________________________________________________________
>> ________
>> Hire expert Linux talent by posting jobs here :: http://
>> jobs.nylug.org
>> The nylug-talk mailing list is at nylug-talk at nylug.org
>> The list archive is at http://nylug.org/pipermail/nylug-talk
>> To subscribe or unsubscribe: http://nylug.org/mailman/listinfo/
>> nylug-talk
>>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 08:13:19 -0700
> From: "Peter C. Norton" <spacey-nylug at lenin.net>
> Subject: Re: [nylug-talk] new jersey to tax
> To: NYLUG Technical Discussion <nylug-talk at nylug.org>
> Message-ID: <20060929151319.GV31073 at lenin.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> It's all over the news this AM. The bill is coming from the governors
> office for now.
>
> -Peter
>
> On Fri, Sep 29, 2006 at 11:06:19AM -0400, Tom Limoncelli wrote:
>> This sounds like the urban legend that has circulated as far back as
>> the 1980s under various terms: modem tax, internet tax, etc.
>>
>> What's the source of this rumor? Do you have a bill number from
>> http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/ ?
>>
>> Tom
>> _____________________________________________________________________
>> ________
>> Hire expert Linux talent by posting jobs here :: http://
>> jobs.nylug.org
>> The nylug-talk mailing list is at nylug-talk at nylug.org
>> The list archive is at http://nylug.org/pipermail/nylug-talk
>> To subscribe or unsubscribe: http://nylug.org/mailman/listinfo/
>> nylug-talk
>
> --
> The 5 year plan:
> In five years we'll make up another plan.
> Or just re-use this one.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 11:41:17 -0400
> From: Jason Van Anden <jason at smileproject.com>
> Subject: Re: [nylug-talk] Linux Newbie Seeks Embedded Wisdom
> To: nylug-talk at nylug.org
> Message-ID: <93FB6A81-2789-43D1-B109-2915D13BD65B at smileproject.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>
> That was fast - thanks.
>
> First off, this system will devoted to running one application - a
> full screen java (1.4.2) art video game (of sorts) using a touch
> screen. In a perfect world, I would run a flavor of Linux devoted to
> running Java on a VIA C3 with multimedia capabilities - but so far I
> have not found it. I was able to install all of this running off a
> hard drive and I am very pleased with the results. What I want to do
> now is run it off CF instead.
>
> I understand that there are ways to abstract Linux to install just
> what you need, but I am too new to grasp this and not interested in
> investing the time involved to ramp up on this at the moment. I have
> an IDE CF reader and two 4 gig CF cards to play with. My C3 system
> has 1 gig of RAM.
>
> I stumbled upon a few articles about installing Linux on a compact
> flash card. These articles warn that CF has a limit on writes - so
> it recommends installing Linux without a swap and turning off
> logging, etc... but these articles raised a number of questions for
> me - and this is what I am looking for help with.
>
> I was typing a bunch of questions/concerns but then realized that
> this all could come down to one question ... assuming I have enough
> space on the CF card to contain the installation, is it OK for me to
> install directly onto the Compact Flash card, customize the
> configuration (remove applications I do not need, install java,
> recompile the kernel for C3, etc ...) and then afterwards set it to
> "read only", and eliminate the swap drive to safe guard it against
> repeated writing or will the installation itself write so many times
> to the CF disk that it will use it up?
>
> Thank You,
> Jason
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 11:45:06 -0400
> From: Andrew Pliszka <apliszka at alienforceit.com>
> Subject: Re: [nylug-talk] Linux Newbie Seeks Embedded Wisdom
> To: NYLUG Technical Discussion <nylug-talk at nylug.org>
> Message-ID: <451D3F82.3040902 at alienforceit.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Hi,
>
> Check out m0n0wall, it is a firewall designed to be run on small
> boards,
> there is a lot of resources, and couple fo companies make boards for
> this firewall like WRAP etc.. It could be a good place to start your
> research since m0n0wall is already running in production. I am
> using it
> and it works great. It is running FreeBSD, and know it is not linux
> but
> it might be faster for you to customize that platform, then building
> from scratch. I would try to use m0n0wall as base platform and install
> the services that you need on top of that, if it works you will save
> yourself a lot of time and hedaches.
>
> They optimized their design to be run on CF.
>
> Andrew
>
> Paul Robbins wrote:
>
>> Just note that the read/write life of the CF cards is very limited,
>> some as
>> low as 10,000 writes. I looked at creating miniATX linux firewalls
>> with CF
>> cards, but dropped it due to that limitation. Basically, you can
>> do no
>> logging on the system. We figured that we would have to have a
>> seperate box
>> with a hard drive that we could send all of the logs to. Then that
>> really
>> defeated the purpose. So instead, we used ClarkConnect on a small
>> footprint
>> PC with a hard drive so we could use it. Jason's requirements for
>> this box
>> may be different, but a system without logs isn't really valueable
>> from my
>> perspective. And the alternative of swapping CF cards monthly isn't
>> either.
>>
>> On 9/29/06, jh <jhlists at hirschman.net> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Jason Van Anden wrote:
>>>> Hello List!
>>>>
>>>
>>>> To be more specific - I have setup a system that works well off
>>>> a hard
>>>> drive. I would like to run this off of compact flash instead.
>>>> There
>>>> are a few articles out there that describe how to do this, but they
>>> are
>>>> sprinkled with just enough jargon to confuse me.
>>>
>>> As Eric said, it is trivially easy to replace a hard drive with a CF
>>> flash card; I built a box for a client for a single-purpose
>>> project that
>>> might have parallels to what you're trying to do.
>>>
>>> Some tips:
>>>
>>> * Don't turn swap on. It'll chew up the limited read/write cycle
>>> lifetime of flash memory.
>>>
>>> * Try to turn off everything that needs to write to the disk,
>>> period,
>>> unless your project requires it.
>>>
>>> * Don't use a full-fledged distro if you don't have to. My project
>>> involved a box that really only did three things:
>>>
>>> - Dialed into a server via a phone line,
>>> - Downloaded certain textual and binary updates,
>>> - Used that to play some songs.
>>>
>>> I didn't need all the cruft from a full distro - no X, no web
>>> server, no
>>> mail server, etc. etc. All I needed was an MP3 player, Python and
>>> some
>>> networking kit. That all fit in a few megabytes. Hell, I didn't even
>>> have a full "normal" root directory structure - it just wasn't
>>> required.
>>>
>>> In my case, I built my own using Linux From Scratch as a
>>> guideline, but
>>> today there are many, many good tiny distributions that you can use
>>> instead of Ubuntu (Damn Small Linux, for one).
>>>
>>> Of course, it could be that your project really benefits from
>>> some or
>>> many of the goodies that Ubuntu brings, or that you want or need
>>> something like full OS functionality. In that case, you might be
>>> better
>>> with something like a tiny hard drive, which has more space and
>>> doesn't
>>> carry the same read/write cycle limits. Hitachi has microdrives that
>>> have a CF card formfactor, but go to 8 gigs.
>>>
>>> jh
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ____________________________________________________________________
>>> _________
>>>
>>> Hire expert Linux talent by posting jobs here :: http://
>>> jobs.nylug.org
>>> The nylug-talk mailing list is at nylug-talk at nylug.org
>>> The list archive is at http://nylug.org/pipermail/nylug-talk
>>> To subscribe or unsubscribe:
>>> http://nylug.org/mailman/listinfo/nylug-talk
>>>
>> _____________________________________________________________________
>> ________
>>
>> Hire expert Linux talent by posting jobs here :: http://
>> jobs.nylug.org
>> The nylug-talk mailing list is at nylug-talk at nylug.org
>> The list archive is at http://nylug.org/pipermail/nylug-talk
>> To subscribe or unsubscribe: http://nylug.org/mailman/listinfo/
>> nylug-talk
>>
>>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 15:55:17 +0000
> From: etamme at optonline.net
> Subject: Re: [nylug-talk] Linux Newbie Seeks Embedded Wisdom
> To: "NYLUG Technical Discussion" <nylug-talk at nylug.org>
> Message-ID:
> <1371583973-1159545317-cardhu_blackberry.rim.net-1573500664-
> @bxe026-cell01.bisx.prod.on.blackberry>
>
> Content-Type: text/plain
>
> Well.. From whst you havw said.. I don't know why it nneds to be on
> cf.. It sounds like you are only making more work for yourself..m
> especially if you are not willing to invest time to learn about it.
> If this is for an art instalation.. Again you going the wrong
> route.. The cf will burn out.
>
> Okay.. If you still decide to go with cf.. Swap is easy to disable
> during the install of most systems.. There is almost always a "disk
> configure" point in all insallers.. You would disable swap here.
>
> A note for the future.. Check out PCM, intels replacement for flash
> memory.. Its on slashdot today.
>
> -Eric
> Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jason Van Anden <jason at smileproject.com>
> Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 11:41:17
> To:nylug-talk at nylug.org
> Subject: Re: [nylug-talk] Linux Newbie Seeks Embedded Wisdom
>
> That was fast - thanks.
>
> First off, this system will devoted to running one application - a
> full screen java (1.4.2) art video game (of sorts) using a touch
> screen. In a perfect world, I would run a flavor of Linux devoted to
> running Java on a VIA C3 with multimedia capabilities - but so far I
> have not found it. I was able to install all of this running off a
> hard drive and I am very pleased with the results. What I want to do
> now is run it off CF instead.
>
> I understand that there are ways to abstract Linux to install just
> what you need, but I am too new to grasp this and not interested in
> investing the time involved to ramp up on this at the moment. I have
> an IDE CF reader and two 4 gig CF cards to play with. My C3 system
> has 1 gig of RAM.
>
> I stumbled upon a few articles about installing Linux on a compact
> flash card. These articles warn that CF has a limit on writes - so
> it recommends installing Linux without a swap and turning off
> logging, etc... but these articles raised a number of questions for
> me - and this is what I am looking for help with.
>
> I was typing a bunch of questions/concerns but then realized that
> this all could come down to one question ... assuming I have enough
> space on the CF card to contain the installation, is it OK for me to
> install directly onto the Compact Flash card, customize the
> configuration (remove applications I do not need, install java,
> recompile the kernel for C3, etc ...) and then afterwards set it to
> "read only", and eliminate the swap drive to safe guard it against
> repeated writing or will the installation itself write so many times
> to the CF disk that it will use it up?
>
> Thank You,
> Jason
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> _______
> Hire expert Linux talent by posting jobs here :: http://jobs.nylug.org
> The nylug-talk mailing list is at nylug-talk at nylug.org
> The list archive is at http://nylug.org/pipermail/nylug-talk
> To subscribe or unsubscribe: http://nylug.org/mailman/listinfo/
> nylug-talk
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 15:56:41 +0000
> From: etamme at optonline.net
> Subject: Re: [nylug-talk] Linux Newbie Seeks Embedded Wisdom
> To: "NYLUG Technical Discussion" <nylug-talk at nylug.org>
> Message-ID:
> <1808573824-1159545401-cardhu_blackberry.rim.net-726735903- at bxe059-
> cell01.bisx.prod.on.blackberry>
>
> Content-Type: text/plain
>
> FreeBSD+java equals ?????
>
> Heh heh
>
> -Eric
> Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andrew Pliszka <apliszka at alienforceit.com>
> Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 11:45:06
> To:NYLUG Technical Discussion <nylug-talk at nylug.org>
> Subject: Re: [nylug-talk] Linux Newbie Seeks Embedded Wisdom
>
> Hi,
>
> Check out m0n0wall, it is a firewall designed to be run on small
> boards,
> there is a lot of resources, and couple fo companies make boards for
> this firewall like WRAP etc.. It could be a good place to start your
> research since m0n0wall is already running in production. I am
> using it
> and it works great. It is running FreeBSD, and know it is not linux
> but
> it might be faster for you to customize that platform, then building
> from scratch. I would try to use m0n0wall as base platform and install
> the services that you need on top of that, if it works you will save
> yourself a lot of time and hedaches.
>
> They optimized their design to be run on CF.
>
> Andrew
>
> Paul Robbins wrote:
>
>> Just note that the read/write life of the CF cards is very limited,
>> some as
>> low as 10,000 writes. I looked at creating miniATX linux firewalls
>> with CF
>> cards, but dropped it due to that limitation. Basically, you can
>> do no
>> logging on the system. We figured that we would have to have a
>> seperate box
>> with a hard drive that we could send all of the logs to. Then that
>> really
>> defeated the purpose. So instead, we used ClarkConnect on a small
>> footprint
>> PC with a hard drive so we could use it. Jason's requirements for
>> this box
>> may be different, but a system without logs isn't really valueable
>> from my
>> perspective. And the alternative of swapping CF cards monthly isn't
>> either.
>>
>> On 9/29/06, jh <jhlists at hirschman.net> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Jason Van Anden wrote:
>>>> Hello List!
>>>>
>>>
>>>> To be more specific - I have setup a system that works well off
>>>> a hard
>>>> drive. I would like to run this off of compact flash instead.
>>>> There
>>>> are a few articles out there that describe how to do this, but they
>>> are
>>>> sprinkled with just enough jargon to confuse me.
>>>
>>> As Eric said, it is trivially easy to replace a hard drive with a CF
>>> flash card; I built a box for a client for a single-purpose
>>> project that
>>> might have parallels to what you're trying to do.
>>>
>>> Some tips:
>>>
>>> * Don't turn swap on. It'll chew up the limited read/write cycle
>>> lifetime of flash memory.
>>>
>>> * Try to turn off everything that needs to write to the disk,
>>> period,
>>> unless your project requires it.
>>>
>>> * Don't use a full-fledged distro if you don't have to. My project
>>> involved a box that really only did three things:
>>>
>>> - Dialed into a server via a phone line,
>>> - Downloaded certain textual and binary updates,
>>> - Used that to play some songs.
>>>
>>> I didn't need all the cruft from a full distro - no X, no web
>>> server, no
>>> mail server, etc. etc. All I needed was an MP3 player, Python and
>>> some
>>> networking kit. That all fit in a few megabytes. Hell, I didn't even
>>> have a full "normal" root directory structure - it just wasn't
>>> required.
>>>
>>> In my case, I built my own using Linux From Scratch as a
>>> guideline, but
>>> today there are many, many good tiny distributions that you can use
>>> instead of Ubuntu (Damn Small Linux, for one).
>>>
>>> Of course, it could be that your project really benefits from
>>> some or
>>> many of the goodies that Ubuntu brings, or that you want or need
>>> something like full OS functionality. In that case, you might be
>>> better
>>> with something like a tiny hard drive, which has more space and
>>> doesn't
>>> carry the same read/write cycle limits. Hitachi has microdrives that
>>> have a CF card formfactor, but go to 8 gigs.
>>>
>>> jh
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ____________________________________________________________________
>>> _________
>>>
>>> Hire expert Linux talent by posting jobs here :: http://
>>> jobs.nylug.org
>>> The nylug-talk mailing list is at nylug-talk at nylug.org
>>> The list archive is at http://nylug.org/pipermail/nylug-talk
>>> To subscribe or unsubscribe:
>>> http://nylug.org/mailman/listinfo/nylug-talk
>>>
>> _____________________________________________________________________
>> ________
>>
>> Hire expert Linux talent by posting jobs here :: http://
>> jobs.nylug.org
>> The nylug-talk mailing list is at nylug-talk at nylug.org
>> The list archive is at http://nylug.org/pipermail/nylug-talk
>> To subscribe or unsubscribe: http://nylug.org/mailman/listinfo/
>> nylug-talk
>>
>>
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> _______
> Hire expert Linux talent by posting jobs here :: http://jobs.nylug.org
> The nylug-talk mailing list is at nylug-talk at nylug.org
> The list archive is at http://nylug.org/pipermail/nylug-talk
> To subscribe or unsubscribe: http://nylug.org/mailman/listinfo/
> nylug-talk
>
> ------------------------------
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> _______
> Hire expert Linux talent by posting jobs here :: http://jobs.nylug.org
> The nylug-talk mailing list is at nylug-talk at nylug.org
> The list archive is at http://nylug.org/pipermail/nylug-talk
> To subscribe or unsubscribe: http://nylug.org/mailman/listinfo/
> nylug-talk
>
> End of nylug-talk Digest, Vol 38, Issue 44
> ******************************************
Jason Van Anden
The Smile Project
149 Prospect Park SW, Studio 5
Brooklyn, NY 11218
www.smileproject.com
718.388.5063
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