Miniature Linux MIPS Laptop
Everyone is talking about various miniature PCs with custom architecture. I have been sick with this topic for a long time, and I was reckless to get myself a Linux MIPS laptop, the closest relative of the Vogue video player. The
cultured Vogue
Laptop I have been with for many more than a year, but only now I got around to write a review on it and paint my impressions and its insides. Since this piece of iron is still for sale, this review can be very relevant. So let's get started.
Remember, not so long ago there was a terrible hysteria about the video player in Vogue magazine. Then I was very lucky, and I was able to get as many as 11 magazines. Having got them, I decided not to be greedy, but to share with the people. At the same time, in order to somehow motivate himself, they decided to sell them at a premium, plus the cost of sending. For reference: I bought at 200 rubles, sold at 400. On the one hand, of course, but I took almost nothing out of gratitude, taking into account the fact that I spent a lot of time in the queues at the Russian Post. Total revenue amounted to 4,500 rubles (one vog was sold for 500 rubles), and I decided to buy something for myself.
If you remember, the main trouble and ambush of video players was that it does not have a USB host. According to this, with Linux installed, it remains, in fact, a fun, useless piece of iron. But somewhere in the vogue descriptions, a link to a laptop slipped on a similar processor, but the JZ4750 processor supports a USB host !!! It is sold at a great and terrible dilekstrim, and costs only 127 bucks www.dealextreme.com/p/7-tft-lcd-linux-2-6-xburst-jz4750-cpu-umpc-netbook-w-wifi-360mhz-128mb -ram-1gb-flash-disk-42888? r = 24219562 . Realizing that this of course can be a worthless purchase, I decided. Nevertheless, there is Linux by default. True, I did not think that it would be such a crap purchase. But first things first.
A month after payment, I received such a wonderful box that I ran home and ran in a hurry to unpack.
Box
Inside the charger, instructions (generally useless) and the laptop itself.
The contents of the box
first, of course, what struck me - this is its miniature size and, at the same time quite comfortable keyboard
MIPS-laptop, beneath comparison eeePC 1000
Unfolded
Keyboard
His 3 USB-ports, microphone, Ethernet headphones jack for mmc -cards
Left side
Right side
Forage The
screen for an ultra-cheap laptop is quite nothing. The touch is also quite convenient.
But the most interesting is how it works. Turn on the
Welcome Messagi when you turn
it on. It immediately became clear that the system does not shine with speed. Booted up relatively quickly. The desktop looks like this:
Screenshot of the desktop.
A screenshot was taken according to all the canons with the PrtScr button. But on this the positive emotions of using the laptop ended. Firstly, the laptop stubbornly does not want to connect Wifi, no, not even open. He sees the network, but does not catch. The settings are so primitive that I tried all the possible options in 5 minutes. I had to connect it via Ethernet. He went online with him. Each page loads monstrously long. My communicator, on the fig japarese itself, loads 10 times faster than this piece of hardware on a 30 megabyte Ethernet. Those. the Internet cannot be parsed from it, alas ... But can it be possible to type texts on it? No, only three languages are preinstalled in the system: Chinese (who would have thought!), English and French. Well, at least you can watch movies? Here you can movies, but with lags. Headphones, by the way, also somehow work very shitty, although the speakers sound quite passable.
An example of work.
Video short description: Downloading a laptop, then launching a browser, trying to access my blog. It can be seen how long the site loads on a 30-megabit Internet, and it does not load pictures. Then I go to the connected flash drive and play a video from it. Video brakes may also be related to the fact that the data transfer rate is limited by the USB 1.0 standard. Do not scold much for quality - filmed on an ancient soap dish. Shot silently, because did this at three in the morning yesterday and did not want to wake anyone.
Music Video: Carbon Based Lifeforms - Twentythree Composition System
The interface of this non-Linux is closest to Windows. Even the discs are called Tse and De ... Of all the most, I was saddened by the lack of a console! Those. you can’t get into it in any way. However, knowing the ip-address of the laptop, you can get to it by telnetom !!! By entering root without a password.
On this raspberry ends. The ipkg team refuses to install any packages, saying that they are not in the repositories (I believe that the repositories themselves are not there either).
Googling on what and how to put on this laptop, I found almost nothing. Nothing useful without the harsh linux-way .
Saddened, I decided to look inside the shaitan of a machine created in the communist east.
First, we turn this laptop booty up, and see what kind of screws it has.
Booty to the top
Having unscrewed two screws, we see the battery. I involuntarily associate with vogue itself, the processor is more powerful and the battery too. By the way, who can tell me where exactly the same batteries can be bought and where to read about them?
We got to the battery.
Then we unscrew all the screws, a little dance with a tambourine at the plugs of the monitor mount (the most hellish place when parsing the laptop). The plugs
were removed.
Then we pull out the plugs on the laptop monitor and unscrew all the screws. We remove the panel. And to our eyes is this
Screen without clothes. The WiFi module is visible on the left.
We remove the monitor mount, and get access to the motherboard
Monitor mount The
gutted laptop
Almost everywhere traces of manual soldering. Made, on the other hand, relatively neatly, well, as you can do with manual production.
Manual soldering.
On this side there is a wide large connector, a hike for connecting another display.
We remove
Mommy and look at her from the other side. Mommy from the other side.
For those who want to look even larger: img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/5701/dolin-s.5/0_58f3f_eed82b0a_orig
In the center is a stone in a BGA-case. On the right is the connector for mmc-cards and connectors for headphones and a wheelbarrow. Above the stone and on the other side of the mother 4 microcircuits of RAM, which is 128 meters. To the left of the flush stone. Connectors on top of the mother (pay attention to the manual soldering curve and traces of rosin) from left to right: USB, Ethernet and power. Chips on the left are peripheral controllers. The yellow plaque is the battery for the internal clock. The small button at the bottom right, near the processor is the Reset button. The black plaques to the right of the stone with the inscription 220 and 6R8 are inductors. Power converters to power the processor and peripheral circuits.
For iron, this laptop as a whole is quite nothing to itself. I would even say that it is definitely assembled at 4 with two pluses, even despite the manual soldering. A comfortable keyboard, a beautiful, albeit very easy to scratch, case, an excellent screen, 3 USB ports (only 1.0) (true), Ethernet, wifi (not finished, but there is), sound. It can be easily used to control some kind of home crafts, or as a Wi-Fi radio. Small films can be watched. You can even try to pick up the desired bags manually. But the main trouble of this laptop is probably not that it does not work properly with its native firmware or a slow stone. His main trouble is that he does not have a team of fanatical developers who are ready to support and write new software for this hardware. Collect a fresh kernel, etc.
In general, unfortunately, a great idea (and I believe that 100 bucks laptops on non-standard architecture is a breakthrough!) Was poached due to the lack of some creative team of like-minded people.
cultured Vogue
Laptop I have been with for many more than a year, but only now I got around to write a review on it and paint my impressions and its insides. Since this piece of iron is still for sale, this review can be very relevant. So let's get started.
Why exactly it?
Remember, not so long ago there was a terrible hysteria about the video player in Vogue magazine. Then I was very lucky, and I was able to get as many as 11 magazines. Having got them, I decided not to be greedy, but to share with the people. At the same time, in order to somehow motivate himself, they decided to sell them at a premium, plus the cost of sending. For reference: I bought at 200 rubles, sold at 400. On the one hand, of course, but I took almost nothing out of gratitude, taking into account the fact that I spent a lot of time in the queues at the Russian Post. Total revenue amounted to 4,500 rubles (one vog was sold for 500 rubles), and I decided to buy something for myself.
If you remember, the main trouble and ambush of video players was that it does not have a USB host. According to this, with Linux installed, it remains, in fact, a fun, useless piece of iron. But somewhere in the vogue descriptions, a link to a laptop slipped on a similar processor, but the JZ4750 processor supports a USB host !!! It is sold at a great and terrible dilekstrim, and costs only 127 bucks www.dealextreme.com/p/7-tft-lcd-linux-2-6-xburst-jz4750-cpu-umpc-netbook-w-wifi-360mhz-128mb -ram-1gb-flash-disk-42888? r = 24219562 . Realizing that this of course can be a worthless purchase, I decided. Nevertheless, there is Linux by default. True, I did not think that it would be such a crap purchase. But first things first.
What is he like?
A month after payment, I received such a wonderful box that I ran home and ran in a hurry to unpack.
Box
Inside the charger, instructions (generally useless) and the laptop itself.
The contents of the box
first, of course, what struck me - this is its miniature size and, at the same time quite comfortable keyboard
MIPS-laptop, beneath comparison eeePC 1000
Unfolded
Keyboard
His 3 USB-ports, microphone, Ethernet headphones jack for mmc -cards
Left side
Right side
Forage The
screen for an ultra-cheap laptop is quite nothing. The touch is also quite convenient.
But what about software?
But the most interesting is how it works. Turn on the
Welcome Messagi when you turn
it on. It immediately became clear that the system does not shine with speed. Booted up relatively quickly. The desktop looks like this:
Screenshot of the desktop.
A screenshot was taken according to all the canons with the PrtScr button. But on this the positive emotions of using the laptop ended. Firstly, the laptop stubbornly does not want to connect Wifi, no, not even open. He sees the network, but does not catch. The settings are so primitive that I tried all the possible options in 5 minutes. I had to connect it via Ethernet. He went online with him. Each page loads monstrously long. My communicator, on the fig japarese itself, loads 10 times faster than this piece of hardware on a 30 megabyte Ethernet. Those. the Internet cannot be parsed from it, alas ... But can it be possible to type texts on it? No, only three languages are preinstalled in the system: Chinese (who would have thought!), English and French. Well, at least you can watch movies? Here you can movies, but with lags. Headphones, by the way, also somehow work very shitty, although the speakers sound quite passable.
An example of work.
Video short description: Downloading a laptop, then launching a browser, trying to access my blog. It can be seen how long the site loads on a 30-megabit Internet, and it does not load pictures. Then I go to the connected flash drive and play a video from it. Video brakes may also be related to the fact that the data transfer rate is limited by the USB 1.0 standard. Do not scold much for quality - filmed on an ancient soap dish. Shot silently, because did this at three in the morning yesterday and did not want to wake anyone.
Music Video: Carbon Based Lifeforms - Twentythree Composition System
The interface of this non-Linux is closest to Windows. Even the discs are called Tse and De ... Of all the most, I was saddened by the lack of a console! Those. you can’t get into it in any way. However, knowing the ip-address of the laptop, you can get to it by telnetom !!! By entering root without a password.
dlinyj@dlinyj-desktop:~$ telnet 192.168.1.122
Trying 192.168.1.122…
Connected to 192.168.1.122.
Escape character is ‘^]’.
Ingenic linux machine
Kernel 2.6.24.3 on an mips
(none) login: root
# ls
MyDocuments home opt sys
bin lib proc tmp
dev linuxrc root usr
etc mac_tmp runfonts.sh var
gameHistoryList mnt sbin workspace
# uname –a
Linux (none) 2.6.24.3 #153 PREEMPT Wed Dec 23 08:39:23 EST 2009 mips unknownOn this raspberry ends. The ipkg team refuses to install any packages, saying that they are not in the repositories (I believe that the repositories themselves are not there either).
Googling on what and how to put on this laptop, I found almost nothing. Nothing useful without the harsh linux-way .
Give IRON !!!
Saddened, I decided to look inside the shaitan of a machine created in the communist east.
First, we turn this laptop booty up, and see what kind of screws it has.
Booty to the top
Having unscrewed two screws, we see the battery. I involuntarily associate with vogue itself, the processor is more powerful and the battery too. By the way, who can tell me where exactly the same batteries can be bought and where to read about them?
We got to the battery.
Then we unscrew all the screws, a little dance with a tambourine at the plugs of the monitor mount (the most hellish place when parsing the laptop). The plugs
were removed.
Then we pull out the plugs on the laptop monitor and unscrew all the screws. We remove the panel. And to our eyes is this
Screen without clothes. The WiFi module is visible on the left.
We remove the monitor mount, and get access to the motherboard
Monitor mount The
gutted laptop
Almost everywhere traces of manual soldering. Made, on the other hand, relatively neatly, well, as you can do with manual production.
Manual soldering.
On this side there is a wide large connector, a hike for connecting another display.
We remove
Mommy and look at her from the other side. Mommy from the other side.
For those who want to look even larger: img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/5701/dolin-s.5/0_58f3f_eed82b0a_orig
In the center is a stone in a BGA-case. On the right is the connector for mmc-cards and connectors for headphones and a wheelbarrow. Above the stone and on the other side of the mother 4 microcircuits of RAM, which is 128 meters. To the left of the flush stone. Connectors on top of the mother (pay attention to the manual soldering curve and traces of rosin) from left to right: USB, Ethernet and power. Chips on the left are peripheral controllers. The yellow plaque is the battery for the internal clock. The small button at the bottom right, near the processor is the Reset button. The black plaques to the right of the stone with the inscription 220 and 6R8 are inductors. Power converters to power the processor and peripheral circuits.
Conclusion
For iron, this laptop as a whole is quite nothing to itself. I would even say that it is definitely assembled at 4 with two pluses, even despite the manual soldering. A comfortable keyboard, a beautiful, albeit very easy to scratch, case, an excellent screen, 3 USB ports (only 1.0) (true), Ethernet, wifi (not finished, but there is), sound. It can be easily used to control some kind of home crafts, or as a Wi-Fi radio. Small films can be watched. You can even try to pick up the desired bags manually. But the main trouble of this laptop is probably not that it does not work properly with its native firmware or a slow stone. His main trouble is that he does not have a team of fanatical developers who are ready to support and write new software for this hardware. Collect a fresh kernel, etc.
In general, unfortunately, a great idea (and I believe that 100 bucks laptops on non-standard architecture is a breakthrough!) Was poached due to the lack of some creative team of like-minded people.