Hi All,
I've been playing around on and off for the last few years with these 8363 thin clients made by IBM. They are really brilliant machines and are powerful enough to use either diskless (running local apps via NFS), as thin clients, or as standalone devices (CF).
They are also x86 (Cyrix chipset) with a Geode VGA. They have VGA out, sound out, mic in, 2 USB and a NIC. It also has a built in CF card that is seen as hda when used.
More info can be found here:
http://www.bluetrait.com/archive/2005/08/07/installing-linux-2200-onto-the-i...
However an issue with them is that the bios that is supplied with them is annoying to say the least. It does not support any boot loaders (lilo/grup etc...) but instead loads up an elf uncompressed kernel. For reasons I'm not yet sure, the kernel (2.4) needs to be compiled by gcc 2.95, and requires various patches to get it to work. I've never got 2.6 working, and never got even 2.4 working with a compiler other than gcc 2.95.
However, with the old kernel, I've gotten a pile of these going and they are fantastic. They can play mp3's, play video, and as I test I setup 20 of them with distcc and used them to assist in compiles. Also they are extremely low voltage and could possibly run in a car from the cigarette lighter.
I believe that this device is a perfect candidate for LinuxBios. You can pick them up dirt cheap (~$10) from ebay, and in fact there are LOTS of these just floating around, and a decent bios that will allow one the flexibility of loading a newer kernel would be great. You can run them diskless as I mentioned before or can install to CF, with the CF seen as a drive.
The bios is a 32ping socketed PLCC AM29F040B.
I was wondering if anyone has tried LinuxBios on this and what the results were? Would anyone be willing to get it going? I would be happy to package one of these up, with a working linux distro on its internal CF and mail it (to keep) if it would help. Ideally it would be great if it was possible to be able to boot via NFS (PXE would be brilliant) and also have the option of direct from the internal CF.
Cheers, Brendan
(lilo/grup etc...) but instead loads up an elf uncompressed kernel. For reasons I'm not yet sure, the kernel (2.4) needs to be compiled by gcc
Most likely for boot speed. Devices with out a lot of cache take much longer to decompress the Kernel.
I was wondering if anyone has tried LinuxBios on this and what the results were? Would anyone be willing to get it going? I would be happy
Hmm.. Looks a bit troublesome.
I don't see a serial port mentoned anywhere or in the picures. Is there a serial port? or a serial port mod?
Flash part is soldered onto the board but at least its a PLCC so it will be pretty easy to replace with a a socket.
VGA is handled by VSA but I think others have made that work on some of the other geode boards.
Are the datasheets for the MediaGX available?
(Resent from the correct email account this time)
Richard Smith wrote:
I was wondering if anyone has tried LinuxBios on this and what the results were? Would anyone be willing to get it going? I would be happy
Hmm.. Looks a bit troublesome.
I don't see a serial port mentoned anywhere or in the picures. Is there a serial port? or a serial port mod?
There are no serial ports.
Flash part is soldered onto the board but at least its a PLCC so it will be pretty easy to replace with a a socket.
I've had a closer look at the picture on the website and it definitely shows it soldered in... which is interesting because every single 8363 I've ever had has it socketed. The one have to the right of me definitely has a socket, else I would already have given this up as too-hard ;-)
Brendan
I don't see a serial port mentoned anywhere or in the picures. Is there a serial port? or a serial port mod?
There are no serial ports.
With out a serial port the complxity of the port goes up by several orders of magnitude.
Neet to get the datasheet for the southbridge and see if we can hack a serial port in there.
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Brendan Grieve -
Richard Smith