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How to create a handheld Linux terminal
- gbrindisi 12y agoVery cool! Also I love the design of your blog
- Splendor 12y agoI would prefer if I knew which sections were links without having to hover over everything.
- scoopr 12y agoHm, the 'fi' & 'fl' ligatures seems to be replaced as a middle dot in the text, making it a bit funny to read at places.
- tmikaeld 12y agoVery cool project! Would it be possible to upgrade the screen to a little larger?
- riquito 12y agoFrom the conclusion: > If I was to make this again, I would do a few things differently. First I’d probably add a slightly larger screen like this one from Tindie [https://www.tindie.com/products/hwlevel/40-ips-screen-for-raspberry-pi/ https://www.tindie.com/products/hwlevel/40-ips-screen-for-ra...]
- tmikaeld 12y agoYes, i saw that one as well - but the 17FPS update-rate was very small. I'm looking for more like 5-6" panel with faster updates.
- jsherer 12y agoVery cool and inspiring. I'm doing something similar [1] by replacing the guts of a Toshiba Libretto 50C (a tiny laptop from 1996) with a Raspberry Pi and upgrading its screen to a 7" widescreen. It's slightly larger than your terminal, but in my opinion, will be much more usable as a PC with the larger keyboard. But, to each his own :) What kind of battery life do you get with your machine? [1]: http://restoringmylibretto.tumblr.com/ http://restoringmylibretto.tumblr.com/
- pjc50 12y agoThe Libretto runs linux, or at least used to. I have a libretto 30 on a shelf somewhere :)
- jsherer 12y agoIndeed! But, a broken one does not :)
- TimGremalm 12y agoEstimated 8.6h with idle CPU, based on my calculations. Raspberry Pi A+ 0.52W usage at 100ma 5.2V on CPU idle (http://raspi.tv/2014/raspberry-pi-a-how-much-power-does-it-need http://raspi.tv/2014/raspberry-pi-a-how-much-power-does-it-n...) Adafruit PiTFT - 2.8" Raspberry Pi Touchscreen with full-on backlight the current draw is ~100mA. (http://www.adafruit.com/product/1601 http://www.adafruit.com/product/1601) 0.15=0.5W Powerconsumption of Rpi and TFT should be 1.02W at idle. PowerBoost 500 Charger - Rechargeable 5V Lipo USB Boost @ 500mA+ (http://www.adafruit.com/product/1944 http://www.adafruit.com/product/1944) 2.500Ah 3.7V LiPo 3.7V2.5Ah=9.25Wh Boosted to 5V at 95% efficiency 8.79Wh 8.79Wh/1.02W = 8.6h *Edit: I did a mistake when I calculated the Watt-hour. The Watt-hours of the battery can't increase just because the voltage increases, changed it.
- jsherer 12y agoYou should let it run idle and see how long until the battery is depleted. I underestimated the losses due to efficiency with my Libretto project (boost converters run at different efficiencies depending on the power draw). I was able to get about 4 hours on a 6600mAh battery pack powering a Pi and a 7" touchscreen with wifi and bluetooth enabled (the project draws about 8W when the screen is turned on, about 5W with it turned off).
- marktangotango 12y agoHey author, link to the parts, with a referrer id and monetize this stuff!
- fit2rule 12y agoIf you don't want to build your own, you can buy one: http://openpandora.org/ http://openpandora.org/ Its not just a terminal, though .. ;)
- Karunamon 12y agoEverything related to Pandora has seemed sketchy as hell from day one. For instance, right now, both of the resellers on that site that service the USA don't appear to actually sell the damned thing. I also recall stores of pre-orders not being served for upwards of a year with little to no contact by the seller.
- fit2rule 12y agoYeah those days are over .. the survivor of the OpenPandora project - EvilDragon/Michale Mrozek - is the owner of the DragonBox Shop, and he has been the only trustworthy guy in the project so far, which was severely hamstrung by the financial mis-management of the originator of the project, Craig Rothwell. That is all water under the bridge now - EvilDragon has been selling the OpenPandora through his shop, and he is the principle organizer of the sequel to the Pandora, called the Pyra. (You can follow EvilDragon and see his involvement in the community here: http://boards.openpandora.org/user/1-evildragon/ http://boards.openpandora.org/user/1-evildragon/) I'm the happy owner of two of the original first batch Open Pandora machines, and was lucky to get them (F5 for the win) .. I've signed up for the Pyra too, as I really believe that EvilDragon, and his minions, are a fantastic group of like-minded adventurers, and I have absolutely zero hesitancy in recommending him to anyone interested in this project. He has been a stable part of this whole party ..
- Karunamon 12y agoThis is great to hear - the Pandora is a cool enough device and really needs some more love, but the experience for a random person wanting to buy one is still fantastically bad. Opaque storefronts which lead to opaque "unavailable" messages (despite the previous page declaring "in stock now!"), a news page that looks like the default from some ecommerce package. Let me give you my money! Please! :(
- apricot 12y agoNice. I've been using a Ben Nanonote () for the past few years. It's a nice open hacking platform, not very powerful but very open and tweakable. () http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Ben_NanoNote http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Ben_NanoNote
- RBerenguel 12y agoMine is lying around, not much used for the past years (somehow I can't get it to run a debian image from SD, so I'm stuck with openwrt... Missing some interesting packages then). What do you use it for?
- apricot 12y agoI managed to install Debian on mine without trouble. I've written a mostly-functional Apple II emulator (minus the graphics modes) and enjoy having an Apple II in my pocket. I also use it to learn Chinese by listening to audiobooks. What I regret most about the Nanonote is the lack of wifi support (unless one buys an expensive and hard-to-find gizmo). With wifi, it would make a very useful ultraportable computing platform.
- LeonM 12y agoI think this is pretty neat, and I would have loved this 10 years ago. I now already have a handheld Linux terminal, it's called an Android smartphone.
- hyp0 12y agoYes; and "terminalIDE" includes busybox to fill in the missing commands, vim, tmux, git, javac and gcc. It's fun, usable, but limited: you have to work around a few things. Wintel is making a push, with extra cheap quad-core Atoms and Windows 8. I wonder if this might be easier to get full linux on? BTW: The big problem with proper linux distributions on ARM/Atom is not not getting them to run, but power management.
- ilaksh 12y agoThere is also GNU Root and Linux Deploy/a few other ways to get full linux on Android devices after they are rooted.
- RadioactiveMan 12y agoI really don't feel that way about my Android smartphone. Mobile operating systems are an experience as far from the console experience of freedom as one can get. This looks like exactly the device that I'd like to carry around with me and I think I've finally found that project to use my spare Raspberry Pi for. If I didn't want to make the occasional voice call, I'd be absolutely satisfied with replacing my smartphone with something like this.
- marssaxman 12y agoDoes it have a real keyboard?
- mkesper 12y agoPowering this with something slightly more powerful than a Raspberry and it should completely be usable. http://socialcompare.com/fr/comparison/low-cost-arm-boards http://socialcompare.com/fr/comparison/low-cost-arm-boards (from 2013, does anyone have an up to date comparison list?)
- zokier 12y agohttp://linuxgizmos.com/ringing-in-2015-with-40-linux-friendly-hacker-sbcs/ http://linuxgizmos.com/ringing-in-2015-with-40-linux-friendl... is one list, but frankly there are ridiculous number of these boards/modules available.
- gcb0 12y agoand the guy from novena laptop just posted recently that in china, you can get much more models with much more interesting hardware.
- deaconblues 12y agoThis is truly one of the coolest things I've seen in a while. I can't help but think of the little Atari Portfolio John Connor has in Terminator 2.
- fit2rule 12y agoI upgraded my Portfolio by duct-taping an rPi to it. :)
- zokier 12y ago> I can't help but think of the little Atari Portfolio John Connor has in Terminator 2. Late eighties/early nineties seemed like an interesting period for these sort of handheld computers. Another great example is the HP LX series, eg 95LX or 200LX http://i.imgur.com/pHa8YWD.jpg http://i.imgur.com/pHa8YWD.jpg
- rsync 12y agoAlso this little sony thing from late 90s: http://www.apj.co.uk/technology/apple_sony_clie.htm http://www.apj.co.uk/technology/apple_sony_clie.htm
- agumonkey 12y agoI finally understand that funny feeling every time I carry a computer in my backpack. That exact scene. Thanks a lot.
- deaconblues 12y agoThat scene had a pretty big impact on me as a kid. Here was a movie with time traveling assassin robots, but that scene always seemed totally believable and possible. I think about it a lot, for whatever reason.
- reidrac 12y agoI love how the author found consumer components and put them together to build the handheld. Looks really good! There are a lot of inspiring projects over the web, but very often they require tools that aren't available to everybody or they're not cheap for one-off projects (laser cutter, 3D printers, etc).
- zokier 12y ago> There are a lot of inspiring projects over the web, but very often they require tools that aren't available to everybody or they're not cheap for one-off projects (laser cutter, 3D printers, etc). This is why hackerspaces are a rising phenomenon.
- moe 12y agoAh, the good old Libretto[1] form factor. It actually used to be moderately popular back before smartphones became ubiquitous. It's just amazing what you can build nowadays on a shoe-string budget with off-the-shelf parts... [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_Libretto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_Libretto
- blueintegral 12y agoReminds me of the Zipit Z2, which was a handheld messenger toy that could be hacked to run linux: https://mozzwald.com/zipitz2 https://mozzwald.com/zipitz2 Not as much power as an RPi though.
- networked 12y ago>Reminds me of the Zipit Z2 Yep. That, and Ben NanoNote (http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Ben_NanoNote http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Ben_NanoNote), which is another Linux device in the same size category as the Z2 and with similar specs. The notable differences between the NanoNote and the Z2 is that the NanoNote has a USB 2 host port and no Wi-Fi.
- jmhobbs 12y agoI bought an original Zipit in college and loaded linux on it, it was a surprisingly useful thing. I wonder what happened to that.
- dTal 12y agoThe Z2 is a wonderful bit of kit. A few years back I used one as my main "laptop". If you're a console junkie it's surprising what you can do on modern Debian with only 32 megabytes of RAM. Most software that'll run on it will also compile on it, as long as you stick to C and avoid C++. The sound chip is fantastic as well so it makes a great portable media player, and the keyboard is backlit.
- ekianjo 12y agoOr you can get an Open Pandora :)
- erikb 12y agoI think the key point to efficient mobile linuxing is neither the hardware nor the basic software but the language input. I feel touchpads and mobile keyboards are both not handy to communicate with bash/vim in the subway. We need a better mobile keyboard for that. Does anybody know who's working on something in that direction?
- freehunter 12y agoI was trying to find a small Blackberry-like keyboard for a side project I was working on about a year ago. Doesn't exist, at least not in a form-factor that is easy to integrate (USB, Bluetooth, etc). The best I could find is a USB wireless keyboard that they sell on Adafruit that really, really, really sucked and was still way too big.
- walterbell 12y agoToo bad a Blackberry can't function as a BT keyboard. Nokia N900 and E7 had good keyboards.
- mdm_ 12y agoI think this app: http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/38050888/?lang=en&countrycode=CA http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/38050888/?la... allows you to do just that.
- walterbell 12y agoThis looks excellent, thanks much for the pointer.
- tacoman 12y agoYup, it is. I use this to control my HTPC. It works very well.
- j_s 12y ago
- asd 12y agoBandwidth limit exceeded on the images.:( Edit: He switched over to imgur and the images are now loading fine.
- fit2rule 12y agoWould be great to see someone make a small keyboard/screen accessory that can have one of these plugged into it: http://www.highsnobiety.com/2015/01/12/intel-compute-stick-turns-hdmi-display-computer/ http://www.highsnobiety.com/2015/01/12/intel-compute-stick-t... Maybe we'll see it this year, I predict ..
- zokier 12y agoThe end result looks nice, I'd say even surprisingly so all things considered. This sort of thing is something I have wanted to do for some time, but have been pushing back due lack of money/time/tools/skills. Albeit in my grandiose plans I was thinking of more "engineered" approach, using some nice ARM module[1] instead of stripped RPi, bare LCD[2], custom keyboard[3] etc. [1] e.g. https://www.toradex.com/computer-on-modules/colibri-arm-family/freescale-imx6 https://www.toradex.com/computer-on-modules/colibri-arm-fami... looks quite nice and so-dimm form factor is inherently relatively thin. [2] e.g. http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-6-1280-800-TFT-LCD-HV056WX1-100-Lcd-Screen-Panel-Display-/221287754996?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3385c72cf4 http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-6-1280-800-TFT-LCD-HV056WX1-100-Lc... bit bigger than what OP has, but still should be very portable [3] This is surprisingly something that seems quite difficult to do. Maybe I'll need to 3d-print some keycaps. Or use mechanical switches, like these ones https://www.e-switch.com/product-catalog/tact/product-lines/tl1240-series-illuminated-tact-switches https://www.e-switch.com/product-catalog/tact/product-lines/...
- 9999 12y agoPretty neat. I still like the concept of the kindleberry a bit better though: http://maxogden.com/kindleberry-wireless.html http://maxogden.com/kindleberry-wireless.html
- maghis 12y agoI love that this is totally self contained. Best of the best would be an e-ink version of this (using something like this: http://www.pervasivedisplays.com/products/74 http://www.pervasivedisplays.com/products/74 )
- NeoProgramming 12y agodelightful font!
- fiatjaf 12y agoPlease sell this.
- npsimons 12y agoStep 1: Get an N900 Joking aside, this is really cool, and I'm glad there are still people out there who recognize the value (and want it this badly) of a handheld Linux terminal. Meanwhile, the batteries on my N900 keep getting shorter and shorter charge cycles . . .
- holri 12y agothe battery is cheap to replace. I stay with my N900. I did not see anything better.
- npsimons 12y agoIt's getting harder and harder to find actual BL-5Js, not just cheap knockoffs that won't hold a charge. I've been through at least three already, still have about 4 left. But I'm with you on the "nothing better" front. The org-mode app on Android is a joke compared to having an actual full-blown emacs with org-mode on N900, not to mention how straightforward the FS layout is and the fact that git works nicely.
- dvhh 12y agoI would really liked to get an N950, too bad these are such rarity
- foodstances 12y agoOpenBSD (and Linux) runs on the Sharp Zaurus, they are neat little devices for carrying around an SSH terminal. http://www.openbsd.org/zaurus.html http://www.openbsd.org/zaurus.html
- tlrobinson 12y agoA Raspberry Pi accessory similar to this would probably sell pretty well. It might make sense to use the Raspberry Pi "Compute Module": http://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-compute-module-new-product/ http://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-compute-module-new-p... It would be cool if Adafruit made a PiTFT that just accepted a Compute Module directly. I put together a Motorola Atrix Lapdock Raspberry Pi, like this, but it's pretty bulky: http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Raspberry-Pi-Lapdock-Connection/ http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Raspberry-Pi-Lapdock-Con...
- protomyth 12y agoDespite the whole AlphaSmart thing, I still think there is a small market for the TRS-80 Model 100 or 200 style computers. I would love to have an OpenBSD machine in that form factor.
- memracom 12y agoI had one of these in 2001. It was called the Sharp Zaurus.