5 ms·

Linux computer the size of a thumb drive

65 points by iwwr 15y ago

icefox 15y ago
No built in flash?
- dangrossman 15y ago
  None listed in the specs; it has a MicroSD slot for storage.
miahi 15y ago
> It's also possible to plug the Cotton Candy into a conventional computer and boot from it like you would from a regular USB mass storage device. How can you boot an ARM-compiled Linux in a conventional computer?
- jablan 15y ago
  Boot _from_ it, not _boot it_, I guess. Using it just as a thumb drive.
  - miahi 15y ago
    Why would you do that? To use precious SD storage to install yet another x86 OS to painfully slowly (10-20MB/s and huge latency) boot up another computer, that in 99.99% of the cases already has an OS. And I don't think they implemented a shared storage between such a computer and the embedded one through the USB storage interface.
- sciurus 15y ago
  I think you're actually booting both your computer and the Cotton Candy from their internal storage, then using something like VNC on your computer to access Cotton Candy.
dangrossman 15y ago
Neat, but the existing plug computers on the market (TonidoPlug and all the other SheevaPlug variants) seem to fulfill the same purpose at half the price. I've had my 3-watt 4-inch Ubuntu ARM plug running nightly server backups and a streaming music server for a year and a half now, and it cost me less than $99.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  I bought a SheevaPlug. It's a piece of junk. The actual plug is terrible, I would be afraid that it might slip out of the socket, so a floor surge protector is the only reasonable place to put it. This at least looks well made.
  - dangrossman 15y ago
    Mine certainly never fell out of a socket, and you'd want a computer to be plugged into a surge protector anyway. I've been running it continuously as long as I've owned it; it's not a piece of junk. It's a reliable Linux server that uses 3% the power of my laptop and 0.6% the power of my desktop computer... and it was less than $100.
vincentkriek 15y ago
This would be cool if it had a killer suspend feature. Which means that you could plug this out, ride to school, plug it in and continue whatever you were doing.
- freehunter 15y ago
  I actually had a Windows 95 computer that was like that. It had so little RAM that anything I was doing was being cached to the hard drive anyway. If I pulled the plug and then turned it back on, whatever I was typing in Notepad would appear right back on the screen without saving it.
seclorum 15y ago
Would be a nice Android development machine if it were possible to get the Android SDK/NDK components built on it somehow ..
- greyfade 15y ago
  Looks like it dual-boots Android and Ubuntu, maybe?
  - seclorum 15y ago
    Yes, but we'd have to get the Android SDK/NDK built for Ubuntu-ARM targets. Not impossible, but a fair bit of work ..
tluyben2 15y ago
Why so expensive? I would like this as $50 thing, but $199...
- bwarp 15y ago
  RAM, separate GPU+core and profit buy the looks.
  - jws 15y ago
    The CPU alone is probably $25 in high volume, and these guys are not high volume. (Guesstrapolated from an iSupply teardown of a kindle fire.) If you want $50 then you are looking at a Raspberry Pi grade CPU. Those are ok for getting data in and out of a H.264 decoder, but you would not mistake them for modern workstation performance. (But good news, they might announce shipping in 15 hours.)
darkane 15y ago
Ignoring the absolutely horrible name, this will be dead on arrival because of the price alone. Even for a new or small company that doesn't have the industry clout or initial unit production numbers necessary for minimal component pricing, there's just no way to justify a $200 price tag for what appears to be less than $15 worth of actual hardware. Especially when the only significant difference from competing hardware (priced nearly an order of magnitude lower) is wi-fi and what will amount to an unnoticeable performance increase. Yes, controlling via wi-fi is a nice potential feature, but they would really need to have the appropriate third party software interfaces (Android, iOS, and browser) ready by the ship date. And even then, it is unfortunately not a $165 feature.
- freehunter 15y ago
  If by competing device you mean the Raspberry Pi, I wouldn't consider their hardware to be in the same market. That's like saying the HTC G1 is competing with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. They're generations apart. A 1.2Ghz dual-core processor doesn't come cheap, nor does the 1GB of RAM on top of that. Your statement that it's only $15 worth of hardware makes me question the validity of everything you say.
- greyfade 15y ago
  It looks like they've gotten access to Samsung's Exynos 4412, which is definitely not a sub-$20 part.
lucb1e 15y ago
Another one? http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs Okay okay, nearly the size of a thumb drive, but a hell lot cheaper.
- greyfade 15y ago
  Also using a lot less powerful hardware. The Raspberry Pi is using a BCM2835, a 700MHz single-core ARM11. The Cotton Candy is using an undisclosed quad-core Cortex A9 at 1.2GHz. The best information I can find points to it being probably an Exynos 4412 with a Mali 400-MP GPU. The Raspberry is a hell of a lot cheaper because it's a hell of a lot less powerful.
sciurus 15y ago
The manufacturer's product page: http://www.fxitech.com/products/ http://www.fxitech.com/products/
mrbill 15y ago
$199? No way. At $75-100, I would think about it.
Gryftr 15y ago
I'm happy to see linux computers being sold at all.

65 points by iwwr 15y ago

icefox 15y ago

No built in flash?

dangrossman 15y ago
None listed in the specs; it has a MicroSD slot for storage.

miahi 15y ago

> It's also possible to plug the Cotton Candy into a conventional computer and boot from it like you would from a regular USB mass storage device. How can you boot an ARM-compiled Linux in a conventional computer?

jablan 15y ago
Boot _from_ it, not _boot it_, I guess. Using it just as a thumb drive.
- miahi 15y ago
  Why would you do that? To use precious SD storage to install yet another x86 OS to painfully slowly (10-20MB/s and huge latency) boot up another computer, that in 99.99% of the cases already has an OS. And I don't think they implemented a shared storage between such a computer and the embedded one through the USB storage interface.
sciurus 15y ago
I think you're actually booting both your computer and the Cotton Candy from their internal storage, then using something like VNC on your computer to access Cotton Candy.

dangrossman 15y ago

Neat, but the existing plug computers on the market (TonidoPlug and all the other SheevaPlug variants) seem to fulfill the same purpose at half the price. I've had my 3-watt 4-inch Ubuntu ARM plug running nightly server backups and a streaming music server for a year and a half now, and it cost me less than $99.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago
I bought a SheevaPlug. It's a piece of junk. The actual plug is terrible, I would be afraid that it might slip out of the socket, so a floor surge protector is the only reasonable place to put it. This at least looks well made.
- dangrossman 15y ago
  Mine certainly never fell out of a socket, and you'd want a computer to be plugged into a surge protector anyway. I've been running it continuously as long as I've owned it; it's not a piece of junk. It's a reliable Linux server that uses 3% the power of my laptop and 0.6% the power of my desktop computer... and it was less than $100.

vincentkriek 15y ago

This would be cool if it had a killer suspend feature. Which means that you could plug this out, ride to school, plug it in and continue whatever you were doing.

freehunter 15y ago
I actually had a Windows 95 computer that was like that. It had so little RAM that anything I was doing was being cached to the hard drive anyway. If I pulled the plug and then turned it back on, whatever I was typing in Notepad would appear right back on the screen without saving it.

seclorum 15y ago

Would be a nice Android development machine if it were possible to get the Android SDK/NDK components built on it somehow ..

greyfade 15y ago
Looks like it dual-boots Android and Ubuntu, maybe?
- seclorum 15y ago
  Yes, but we'd have to get the Android SDK/NDK built for Ubuntu-ARM targets. Not impossible, but a fair bit of work ..

tluyben2 15y ago

Why so expensive? I would like this as $50 thing, but $199...

bwarp 15y ago
RAM, separate GPU+core and profit buy the looks.
- jws 15y ago
  The CPU alone is probably $25 in high volume, and these guys are not high volume. (Guesstrapolated from an iSupply teardown of a kindle fire.) If you want $50 then you are looking at a Raspberry Pi grade CPU. Those are ok for getting data in and out of a H.264 decoder, but you would not mistake them for modern workstation performance. (But good news, they might announce shipping in 15 hours.)

darkane 15y ago

Ignoring the absolutely horrible name, this will be dead on arrival because of the price alone. Even for a new or small company that doesn't have the industry clout or initial unit production numbers necessary for minimal component pricing, there's just no way to justify a $200 price tag for what appears to be less than $15 worth of actual hardware. Especially when the only significant difference from competing hardware (priced nearly an order of magnitude lower) is wi-fi and what will amount to an unnoticeable performance increase. Yes, controlling via wi-fi is a nice potential feature, but they would really need to have the appropriate third party software interfaces (Android, iOS, and browser) ready by the ship date. And even then, it is unfortunately not a $165 feature.

freehunter 15y ago
If by competing device you mean the Raspberry Pi, I wouldn't consider their hardware to be in the same market. That's like saying the HTC G1 is competing with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. They're generations apart. A 1.2Ghz dual-core processor doesn't come cheap, nor does the 1GB of RAM on top of that. Your statement that it's only $15 worth of hardware makes me question the validity of everything you say.
greyfade 15y ago
It looks like they've gotten access to Samsung's Exynos 4412, which is definitely not a sub-$20 part.

lucb1e 15y ago

Another one? http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs Okay okay, nearly the size of a thumb drive, but a hell lot cheaper.

greyfade 15y ago
Also using a lot less powerful hardware. The Raspberry Pi is using a BCM2835, a 700MHz single-core ARM11. The Cotton Candy is using an undisclosed quad-core Cortex A9 at 1.2GHz. The best information I can find points to it being probably an Exynos 4412 with a Mali 400-MP GPU. The Raspberry is a hell of a lot cheaper because it's a hell of a lot less powerful.

sciurus 15y ago

The manufacturer's product page: http://www.fxitech.com/products/ http://www.fxitech.com/products/

mrbill 15y ago

$199? No way. At $75-100, I would think about it.

Gryftr 15y ago

I'm happy to see linux computers being sold at all.