Puppy Linux on an $30 internet appliance (i-opener)

[sunburnt]

I looked for Rules Linux on lots of distro sites with no luck, gotta link?

I took Slim Linux which has Xwin & a min. WM & put Puppy's Opera into it, no big suprise... no workie.
It says the startup script has an unclosed { , I looked & of course the script's just fine.
I tried to run the executable how the script does it & it says opera not found (it's there of course).
I copied ldd from Puppy into Slim & running it on the Opera exec. gets a syntax error.

Anyway... the size is < 8MB, 18MB expanded with kernel, so the flash has ~ 8MB free & memory > 12MB free.
If the ramdisk image file were made into a squash file & use Puppy's kernel then < 30MB of mem. is free.
If it Opera could be made to work the rest of it might be worth the trouble.

[mikeymckay]

Browsix, Slim Linux, Rules Linux - these all sound very interesting... but google isn't making their sites obvious. Any urls?

[sunburnt]

http://slimlinux.freezope.org/
http://freshmeat.net/projects/slimlinux/

I can't find Rules Linux either.

A good site for lots of Linux distros. all in a list.
http://old.lwn.net/Distributions/

There's distros for handhelds, but most of them seem to be for paticular models, some say they'll work on other units.
That probably is definately worth some time looking into, if one will work it'll have apps & stuff for it.

As I said, I put Slim Linux & Opera together & it's ~8MB, but Opera doesn't want to work, can't see what's wrong.

[BlackAdder]

Rule Linux is the one I think you are referring to.
http://www.rule-project.org

[sunburnt]

Searching for login info I found this:

http://projects.o-hand.com/matchbox/
http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT5966737838.html

A WM that looks to be VERY close to what your looking for!

[RobertB]

Now, there was also a mention of that fully-capable IDE adapter (no moving parts) in this Forum, though I cant locate it now. I had it saved somewhere, though...

Will be back as soon as I find the link. Cheers to your project!

Is this the link you were looking for?

http://www.coyotelinux.com/store/index.php?ByCategory=4

Here's the list of no-moving-parts hard drive replacements. While they aren't cheap, I suspect Vortech could cut a deal for a group that wants to buy a large number of units without the CF cards.

Direct-Plug IDE Flash Adapter with 256MB Compact Flash
$79.95
Replacement for 3.5" hard disk drives, plugs directly onto a 40 pin IDE connector, uses a floppy power connector, and is hard-wired as a master device. Not recommended for high vibration environments.

3.5" IDE Flash Adapter with Compact Flash
$79.95 (256MB) / $69.95 (128MB) / $59.95 (64MB)
Replacement for 3.5" hard disk drives, 40 pin IDE connector. Mounting hole locations are the same as the bottom holes of a hard disk drive. Board dimensions are 2" x 4". Jumper configuration for master or slave.

My goodness, it wasn't all *that* long ago that a 256MB spinning-platter hard drive would have cost several times that price... I recently showed the kids how you'd need around half a dozen 1.44MB floppy disks just to store the data in a .mp3 file of a couple of popular songs.

[sunburnt]

Those prices seem horrible, on Ebay you can get an IDE to CF Flash adapter for $10.
And the flash cards (there are so many different types) are about the same as the USB drives.
So an IDE adapter + $20 should get a 256MB or even a 512MB Flash card = $30 tops.
The newer faster Flash cards are more expensive of course, but for your use I think that's a waste.

NOTE: I also saw disk compression for Linux (like DOS's DriveSpace) which would give ~30MB on Flash storage.
There was also a memory data compressor which would give ~ 60MB of memory, but slows the CPU down.
The disk compressor would be the biggest help & slow the system down the least.