Tiny Core Linux
Off-Topic => Off-Topic - Tiny Core Lounge => Topic started by: cast-fish on February 15, 2013, 11:15:39 AM
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this is Ubuntu linux stable...for those dual core tiny PEN computers running at 1.6ghz dual core.
it is free 110 meg download and does not interfere with the Android already on the machine.
http://liliputing.com/2013/01/picuntu-brings-light-weight-linux-to-rk3066-mini-pcs-mk808-ug802-etc.html
Vince.
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"stable" what do you mean?
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i think it means it's not a release candidate. Its a regular distro
V.
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I've been using kirkwoods, rpi and mk808 for a while now and I want to share my experience with these devices. Sadly I can't compare to A10.
Kirkwood is super cheap ARMv6, still the best platform for headless USB/gigabit linux (I'm using it as USB NAS, router, print server, http server). debian and arch installation works and is well documented.
The mk808 has USB, integrated wifi instead of ethernet, mali 400 graphics, hdmi and armv7 neon/vfp3 processing power. debian or ubuntu on that device is very capable especially compared to raspbian on rpi, which must be the slowest combination I ever used in the last 10 years.
It seems the "picuntu" brand stands mostly for very scattered or non-existing docs, mostly windows/novice/android-user style forum posts.
But there are some people in that community that make available good working kernels, one of them runs debian instead of picuntu's ubuntu.
All solutions still require flashing the kernel image from a windows PC.
the picuntu installer is a joke - a non-working bloated bash script, you'll probably want to edit it or do manually what it tries to do for you - I'm still searching for better docs.
The rpi is completely unresponsive, the usb hub that provides the 2 USB ports at the front is buggy, ethernet is connected via USB also and just 100Mbit/s.
If all you want is a very simple hdmi terminal without need for any processing power tinycorelinux on rpi might be an option, but don't even think about compiling stuff, it will take days.
In practice it's not cheaper than a mk808, which already comes with all needed accessories (cables, power adapter, smaller case), so I don't see any reason to buy this overpriced old ARMv6 hardware.
One good thing might be the accessible gpios, but I never tried them.
After my (8gigs) SD card got filled twice, first time because of swap and second time because of oversized source and build directories, it broke completely with fs corruption so I lost all my compiled libraries: boost, cheetah, wpa_supplicant, openssh,...
I dumped my rpi after that.
netbooting would have been useful...
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From strictly technical point RPi is really a low and device compared to others due to not only poor USB performance but the v6 architecture's arithmetic limitations. For sure you can find many other boards with much better hw. And now it is the problem. Segmentation.
The big deal with RPi its wide availability and the user community behind. There are so many applications, hw extensions developed for the RPi which are not available for other boards. Also, if you have a strange idea to make for example an RPi based High Altitude Balloon for sure there will be others interested in, or if you are using it as a headless Software Defined Radio server, you will find others to establish a project. And it makes a difference!
Once upon a time there was a ZX81. It was really a crap. For example they saved the cost of the bus driver IC's using serial resistors, etc. From engineering point it was a nightmare. But they made a revolution.
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I don't think rpi has been able to create a revolution. The plug computers, kirkwood, dockstar, etc. introduced this new form factor that is now available to many people, even in consumer products. rpi just added a hdmi port to this underpowered platform. they also forked debian to raspbian and did some marketing. Not appealing to me at all. Only confusing.
I was able to use the rpi with rtl_sdr, but whereas I can decode my data without problems directly on the mk808 best I managed on rpi (with just as high cpu usage) was forwarding the raw data from usb via (usb-)ethernet. that's not really useful I think.
gnuradio really wants neon/vfp3 to work properly on ARM, on rpi it's way too slow.
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I don't think rpi has been able to create a revolution. The plug computers, kirkwood, dockstar, etc. introduced this new form factor that is now available to many people, even in consumer products. rpi just added a hdmi port to this underpowered platform. they also forked debian to raspbian and did some marketing. Not appealing to me at all. Only confusing.
Because how many of those plug computers give you easily accessible GPIO pins? Because how many of those plug computers only cost $35? THESE are the two things that make the RPi special, not it's HDMI port. Point me to somebody building robots or embedded devices with a SheevaPlug.
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Oh, I agree with you about the GPIO pins, but still most people who seem to blog about their rpi don't use them :D
My first kirkwood years ago was 20euros and the last 5 I bought were each 10 euros and there was no waiting time.
All these devices already had a case btw - consumer products.
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The $35 has been greatly exaggarated - if you don't take a case, power supply and so on, it's still VAT + shipping = over 50 eur for us Europeans. With a case etc it's closer to 100.
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My first kirkwood years ago was 20euros and the last 5 I bought were each 10 euros and there was no waiting time.
All these devices already had a case btw - consumer products.
Which one are you using?
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seagate dockstar and pogoplug. I also have 2 iomega iconnect which must have been between 30 and 50 euros at their times.
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What is about porting TC?
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Basic pogoplug cost $49.95 net in US.
Basic shiva-plug cost 82.50 GBP net (available in June)
So what is about the prices?
Here in Budapest Rpi Model 'B' is 43 EUR including 27% VAT , Model 'A' is 30.3 EUR, no shipping, on stock.
If you are integrating with a robot, balloon, terminal, etc. you do not need a case and also power is provided by the hostings ystem.
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I grabbed my devices when I saw whatever ARM stuff on sale in supermarkets, computer stores and online. Perhaps general availability of the rpi is better.
Tinycore would be a good option, but I'm still waiting for a non-windows installer. When i finish my current projects I might come back to this.
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these pen computers are now quad core i see. There are many many brands "rockchip" etc...i have seen about 5 quad core brands.....starting at like 59 dollars. Those are A9 cortex cores, boxed with
power bricks etc.
Several of them have the custom ubuntu all ready to go. They basically compete greatly with
things like the HardKernel things and are a lot cheaper.
I have seen quad core A9 cortex tablets 7 inch at 99 dollars now......running Jelly Bean Android. The review by some gurus pointed out that the actual global review of this tablet model is wrong!. It's been
banded around the globe as using a5 cortex cores but they are infact a9 cortex cores and the
chinese company tool the almost unprecendented step of building their own SOC chip and also
modifying the ARM internals under licence from ARM.
Them tablets give the same performance as a google Nexus but three times less cost.
http://www.cnx-software.com/2013/04/06/ainol-novo-7-crystal-ii-quad-core-7-tablet-is-available-for-99/
seen this heavily bench tested and the results were good. People complain a little about the GPU
but it really isn't an issue. It performs great as a 3D games tablet also
Vince.
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this one a winner
http://www.focalprice.com/CE0356X/Allfine_Fine7_Genius_7_Android_411_Quad_Core_ATM7029_15GHz_Tablet.html?source=CJ&SSAID=314743#.UWInO0nDQak
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seen this heavily bench tested and the results were good. People complain a little about the GPU
but it really isn't an issue. It performs great as a 3D games tablet also
Actually it is an issue, because we don't have linux drivers for the decoder it seems. But the competition is not much better, it's all about proper documentation.
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say you got yourself a quad core android tablet then you could really use its cores to good effect...
however its still a bit of a grey area....say for example that you are using three different apps on your quad core android tablet...at the same time....say those apps are all single core apps (not multi-core) I wonder how your quad core tablet deals with them?
say you take your quad core tablet and instruct your first android app to do some work which is gonna take about 5 minutes....so you start it off then push that app to the back burner.....will the CPU give that app a whole core to itself?....
essentially what I am asking is ......does a quad core CPU have the intelligence to see that the droid that it is currently sitting in has 3 different "single core" apps running at the same time and will the CPU therefore give each off those apps its own dedicated core..?...(or do all the 3 apps simply share the gateway entrance of core 1....then as core 1 becomes maxed out, core 1 calls on its sister cores 2,3,4 to do some extra housekeeping for itself....and report back the results to core 1 and out to the apps? (in other words ,cores 2 3 4 become slaves for core 1.......)
or ...is it true that because all 3 apps are "single core apps" then the CPU will never employ its 2 3 and 4 cores.......all the apps will just only ever share core 1 as core 1 slowly does the work of all three apps?)
I realize that when an app is "multi-core" it sees and uses all the cores of the CPU at the same time...(like "mxplayer" app)
to be honest....I think its a worste case scenario here and all those 3 apps above will just have to share one core....(core 1)
I know android itself is "multi core" and uses all the cores of the CPU so its very fast and smooth....but only a microcosm of the 800 thousand android apps are actually "multi-core" apps......mostly about maybe a few thousand 3d games...
(i don't want to get and deaper about cores and core redundancy with regard to cpu and gpu
on certain scenarios but i imagine the "truth table" for it is actually not too complicated and would
reveal the full story.
I am told that because iOS by apple is NOT a multi tasking operating system, then APPLE simply
buy the cheapest chip baking production line with some archicteture mods done to the cpu
chips SOC's by say "chinese factory's".
i think apple do Tube line streamling of DUAL CORE chips so that the extra core does very basic
stuff to help the OS out a bit. LIke upadted background apps in realtime and other HELPER things
but esstentially the DUAL second core is redundant in ALL APPLE devices for 90 percent of the time
and on 90 percent of all software interaction even at OS level. (its just cheaper for apple to use
DUAL CORE backing in the iphones of the world. Same for Quad core etc.....it's all just REDUNDANT
horse power sitting in the worlds devices doing absolutely nothing.
This is my understanding. Then the way CORPS like apple control the hardware and software
lifecycle (and like you said, you don't have the drivers for Vivanti) means they ultimately control
the capitalization of the consumer. (worlds consumers). The start to SELL several APPS which
cost MORE than any hardware....simply because those APPS complete several TASKS at the same
time...so are user desirable. (Consumers don't realize the have just payed for the Hen House, the Hen, the Egg box to puts i'ts daily lay in, then the water and food for the Hen and then the MATING
RIGHTS of all other cocks with that Hen) Analogy. (i don't understand your annalogy....Thats EXACTLY what the consumer does not understand....and its how the giant CORPS want the consumers hoodwinked.....sunscribing to everything known to man....like APPLE have
So that is again, just my understanding.
Android is multi tasking so once you put a flavor of linux onto it...you have a nice desktop
quad core tablet or something like that...(HDMI out)....it can do true multi-tasking and seems
to be ok.
I know nobody cares about this. It just was some obsession of my understanding. If anything, perhaps in a retail store i could be a good salesman by only instruction a consumer to certain
hardware in respect of requirementst they have of the hardware. See , this is all very well
until perhaps you start talking about equiping an corporations buildings with thin client terminals
Say 20 thousand. THen knowing what's what can help. $$$$
(that is non relevant....some would say) But do people realize just how much of society;s
equipement is NOT even paid for. IT's not even owned at all....it's not even the property of
the corporation themselves. It's leased under heavy heavy licensing terms.
Well it;s ridiuclous ramblings here. More so, than perhaps could have been needed where by
you guys here would be even able to create an entire new OS....which was something brilliant
like you have with TCL.
ANother irrelevant thing...but just a comment from some where but because Android is so free
now it's stopped the awful notion to pirate tools (for many )....i seems to somehow be a cool
reality now.
Yes lots of this thread is squat diddly Nothing to do with TCL....sorry for the ramblings.
I think the thread CORE was about cheap costing hardware and such like. Tried to stay on
topic.
Android is modular. Does seem to be nice how it works on hardware.
I am amazed what comes out of A11winner A10 clocked at 1.2 ghz. It seems to work flawlessly
with maybe 10 apps at the same time. I was wondering WHY would anybody need quad core?
or the whole redundancy topic above.
do i have any TCL stuff to add here?
for what it's worth i think SCM is where it shines. This was from a simple common sense aspect.
I should really take a look at TCL....
these opinions above are just that....so
I know Rpi have not got android have they?....again it's about the releasing of proprierry GPU
code and blobs.
A side note, i had a genius idea for Apple to put at SLOT ONE in the app store the advert of the
HDMI cables and such like so that the world can use their i phones as desktop computers. That
would be such a resourceful thing would.n't it.
Vince.
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sorry that earlier post has a tonne of stuff missing from it....
had typed it all out at the start...it simple dissappeared .
My initial comments were that the FINE7 GENIUS tablet looks very good.
There was almos another page of text.....thats gone missing. Really not sure
why? (perhaps the post was too long?)
Vince
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I was puzzled with central processing chips.....what I mean is the arrays of the chip design...."single core"....."double core"....."quad core".....?
I was told android is a multitasking os .......but apple iOS is not....
what does that mean?......I think it means that you can't run several apps at the same time on an apple...if the app is not front screen then it won't be processing...
whereas android can run many apps at the same time...even if they are not front screen...if you told the apps to process something then they will do what they are told even when not at the front of the screen...
Vince
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http://ubuntu.g8.net/
sorry i feel like more of a fool....
the Topic was about Picuntu OS for RK3066 devices.
Yes.
well it seems to work fine from the youtube videos showing it.
It has an apps database "sudo apt get" of some ten thousand
apps via ubuntu repository. USB audio works Mic and Speaker.
There is some custome Kernels that give you fully opened GPU
acceleration. They are also free.
There is all of this also in other Ununtu flavors now for the "quad
core" devices with rockchip RK 3188
it's such a shame that hardware of the world can't realize
it's OS software potential just due to some information intellectual
property rights.
(handycapped)
I expect its the same with cell phones and those operating systems also. The
apps also. Java.
When you start to think about it , it gets ridiculous. See Android and google
although free (Google is valued at 685 billion dollars top of fortune 500 and
most wealthy company). So seems there is a lot to protect.
See there is only maybe 6 to 10 oerating systems in the consumer markers
hand helds devices in the world. In the sense of office and Msoft etc. Android etc
(Sorry lost my train of thought) but yes...then you just have about 40 CPU models
in the entire world. (currently for hand held devices globally) Those are ARM based
as it seems. The rights and licenses start to get ridiculous ramifications.
what was i originally posting about?
oh right. Operating Systems. TCL. great to see such a innovation.
V.
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perhaps the post was too long?
suggest you use preview for a longish reply next time, it should say it exceeded a certain number of characters, IF it exceeded,
otherwise it displays the true preview
I forget how many
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Spotting that orphaned
[/color]
at bottom of that very long post, something might have gone wrong independent of total length.
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yes Tinypoodle etc
thanks for the points....
TO be honest there is somekind of copy poaste issue on this laptop here. You see the laptop keyboard
has not worked for ever. Somehow it also somtimes gets copying and pasting adrfit....PS2 keyboard
(on certain scenarios with TWO processes and tool(s) open)
so...(usually it's down to me....heavy handed and misstakes)
It's a shame because the post started by covering the into about the topic.
It was generalizing about cheap hardware palm held hardware....what OS"s there are for
the devices and the relationship(s) with apps and such like.
Yes.
i take it that you kind of got the idea. Probably you are not particularly interested in that topic.
Redundancy with cpu chip designs. It must be all concerning the manufacturing for just-in-time
production. (maybe)
Still enjoy getting by myself real good with buying this gear and knowing what's what.
it's busy for a sunday...topic..........sorry
Vince.
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no point in making so many guesses.
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Uh
not sure. it doesn't matter.
This is my understanding. Then the way CORPS like apple control the hardware and software
lifecycle (and like you said, you don't have the drivers for Vivanti) means they ultimately control
the capitalization of the consumer. (worlds consumers). They start to SELL several APPS which
cost MORE than any hardware....simply because those APPS complete several TASKS at the same
time...so are user desirable.
Consumers don't realize they have just payed for the Hen House, the Hen, the Egg box to puts i'ts daily lay in, then the water and food for the Hen and then the MATING RIGHTS of all other cocks with that Hen) Analogy.
Thats EXACTLY what the consumer do not understand....and its how the giant CORPS want the consumers hoodwinked.....subscribing to everything known to man....like APPLE have.
corrected the paragraph above.
"no point making so many guesses"......one can only assume your referring to the thread contents
do you know much about that CORE theory?....it is a very simple description i have rendered
and would be most grateful for any feedback. The way cores are used or redundant as blocks
of concrete at the bottom of the ocean from Day one they are baked into a cpu?
I know that AMD for example, check the final FABS of the cpu chips off the production line. Say they check the first million chips using infra red cameras. The batch of a million then gets a YIELD value. Zero is best. So say they fall below yeild 5...then AMD will turn off TWO OF THE CORES for ever. They are just placed as electronicially dead. Those can never be used ever in that batch of global cpu chips. Then the batch is just sold as a Lower model in the family....sporting only two cores etc
BUt i am not just talking about production quality...but also about if the OS and archictecture
actually handycaps the cpu chip together with only "single core" user land apps.
ye.....do you know how cpu's and their cores manage "single core" apps and "multi core apps" at the same time?...either in groups of EITHER / OR.....How much of the time is the cpu processing cores such as ....cores 2 , 3, 4 totally idle....?
doen't matter if you don't know. It's heavy for Sunday
Vince.