Koolu.com

Jon 'maddog' Hall maddog at li.org
Wed Feb 14 09:50:46 EST 2007


On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 08:19 -0500, Andrew W. Gaunt wrote:
> The Koolu unit has my attention as a proven mythtv frontend unit.. The small
> size, potential for no moving parts (diskless boot) and low power make it
> attractive.I expect it will get cheaper in the not too distant future. 
> For the interim,
> I've obtained a cute little used compaq deskpro with a PIII/600Mhz which
> works fine as a front end
> 
> I wonder if the Koolu  will boot from a USB drive???????
> A co-worker and I recently picked up some 1GB Sandisk USB thumb drives
> at Radio Shack for $20 during a lunch break. The next day we were booting
> our laptops with Knoppix 5.something from an image crafted for USB drives.
> Pretty neat tool.. We plan to use them for machines that won't boot because
> of a software corruption (Windows PCs) yet still have data on them that need
> to be copied off before it gets the standard "reload the operationg 
> system" fix.
> Check out: http://pendrivelinux.com/
> 
Yes, the Koolu can boot from a USB drive.  It is one way that we deliver
software to units that have no disk in them.

I shared the information about the other system with my Technical
Director, and here is what he had to say:

> Interesting. I had looked at the SiS550 chips, and decided that they
> would most likely have a sub-par user experience. I did a lot of
> research on embedded boards and chips prior to accepting the Geode, as
> did the OLPC folks.
> 

> A few other things to point out:
> a)They most likely won't be able to have as high a resolution as our
> box. Although certain SiS chips have video acceleration routines, the
> 550 used in this box does not. So, scratch multimedia.
> b)The USB ports are USB 1.1 speeds. Scratch any USB wifi devices that
> need big data pipes.
> c)The power requirements are 5V at 3A = 15 watts.
> 
I also would scratch it for any type of data store.  USB 1.1 is fine for
keyboard, mouse, printers, etc.  But backing up even a 40GB internal
disk is not fun.

Another feature of Koolu's box is that it is certified by Canonical (the
support arm of Ubuntu) which is Koolu's major thrust as an OS.  This
means that Canonical has a commitment to keep supporting it (they are
using Koolu boxes in their support center), and offer lower prices on
software service due to having a known quantity.  Other boxes may be
certified in the future, but this is certified now.

Probably every box has some point that makes it good for a particular
situation, and this is not to say that this is the only model or style
of boxes that Koolu will support in the future.  However, as our
Technical Director says, it seemed to be "best of breed for general
purpose", and to meet a lot of our target markets.

I am planning on having a Tiny-PC at one of the future GNHLUG meetings.

md



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