The Little Linux Laptop or a Rockbox Music centre?

[alsaf]

There has been a recently new addition in electrical stores called netbooks which are basically below spec, physically light weight laptops without cd/dvd drives used for web browsing on the move. A 'sub-genre' is the 'subnetbook' which is a embedded device running Linux.

These subnetbooks, although under the different names, seems to be the same machine except with different brand stickers. A site has been set up for it called Little Linux Laptop. The site is:

http://www.littlelinuxlaptop.com/software.htm

The specs of the machine are as follows (from the Elonex onet wiki entry):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elonex_ONEt

Processor, Main Memory

    * Ingenic JZ4730 JzRisc Processor (incorporates the XBurst CPU core)
    * On-board 1Gb Flash Memory, (2Gb in t+ model)
    * 128MB RAM

Dimensions

    * Display: 7" LCD display; 800 x 480px Widescreen
    * Dimension: 21 x 14 x 3 cm (W x L x H)
    * Weight: 625g

Networking

    * Wi-Fi
    * Ethernet

Peripherals, Ports

    * 3 USB ports
    * RJ45 network port
    * 2 built-in speakers
    * audio in & out
    * SD Card slot

Battery

    * Li ion 7,2V 2100 mAh - approximately 3 hours usage

Energy Consumption

    * approximately 4.5 Watts

According to wiki, the processor JZ4730 is a MIPSEL chipset which has a compiler?

http://www.linux-mips.org/wiki/Toolchains

I think the datasheet is here?

http://www.suncoming.com/pdf/jz4730c.pdf

Although according to the blurb, the linux distro is embedded on a chip but can't be updated, alternative versions of Linux have been installed on machine that can accept the .IMG file type:

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/elonexone/browse_thread/thread/aa256a81bf1bb2ee

Could this family of subnetbooks be upgraded to run rockbox as the main firmware?

The reason why I pose this question is that from the reviews, running linux applications is sluggish. While a 335Mhz + 128Mb memory machine can run linux but can it realistically run linux with the added X-windows/Gnome overlay?

Could these subnetbooks be run with a Rockbox firmware with extra functionality of a custom made internet browser and extras like word processor/spreadsheet and mulitimedia like MPEG player? If the Rockbox port was viable, the added functionality would be exciting with the added features of a keyboard/mouse, an internet connection and a bigger screen.

Any thoughts?

[Llorean]

Rockbox isn't designed to be a full operating system. It would be entirely impractical to try to run a web browser or other larger scale app without a significant redesign of Rockbox itself.

Instead, what you want is a light weight windowing system, and simple applications. Linux has been around and running web browsers since before 335Mhz was "unimaginably fast" so it's more bad software choice than anything else.

Rockbox is entirely unsuited for this purpose.

[mcuelenaere]

These laptops run the same chipset as the Onda VX747 does, so you could port Rockbox to it if you really wanted...

[alsaf]

Llorean @ 10:03:12 PM

I was thinking that about the bad software choice because I believe Dillo would be a better choice of browser but apart from that is a low powered processor up to running Linux/X-windows applications especially if the viability of an alternative port would be extra battery life?

mcuelenaere @ 10:08:52 PM

Rockbox could be an alternative but as Llorean says this is not possible for Rockbox  without a significant redesign of Rockbox.

As far as I can see the first hurdle as always with any Rockbox hurdle is getting the firmware to boot. As per links supplied in original post, alternative Linux distros can run on the Little Linux Laptops that use the .IMG file type. It can be done so it's just trying to figure out how to boot on machines that use the .REC file type.

Linux can be put on these machines but would there there be interest in joint co-operation in figuring out how to get Linux/Rockbox on the machines that use the .REC file type (Sorry, I don't own one of these machines at the moment, I have only been googling for info)?

[saratoga]

As far as I can see the first hurdle as always with any Rockbox hurdle is getting the firmware to boot. As per links supplied in original post, alternative Linux distros can run on the Little Linux Laptops that use the .IMG file type. It can be done so it's just trying to figure out how to boot on machines that use the .REC file type.

Thats usually the first hurdle.  If they tell you the file format though it should be pretty simple to create a tool for packaging a rockbox binary into whatever format they expect.

Linux can be put on these machines but would there there be interest in joint co-operation in figuring out how to get Linux/Rockbox on the machines that use the .REC file type (Sorry, I don't own one of these machines at the moment, I have only been googling for info)?

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/NewPort#Who_will_help_you

[alsaf]

I've done some further googling on this and the .rec and .img files are Linux recovery images so would therefore be totally irrelevant to a Rockbox port.