> I am making some thin client machines for a > NGO based on Open Brick platform for internet access > in rural bangladesh . I will be burning OS image into > flash memory so that maintence and other issues is > minimum. > Do you guys have any idea about where I can find of > cheap flash memory but durable 64/128/256 in market > also transmeta cruso or cyrix chip > > If have any experince regarding thin client > development and want share it would great
Sorry if my reply does not answer your question directly. We've played around with M-Systems DOC (Disk on Chip) from its early days, when kernel support for it was quite primitive. We even got it to boot from DOC. That was at least four years ago. Recently, kernel support has improved, and new hardware products have come up which make plugging in a DOC much easier... they just plug into the FDD data path, and act as an FDD, I'm told. They cost slightly more than just the raw chip, but you need a special motherboard which supports the chip, if you want to go the raw-chip route. However, of late, our thin client work has moved in the direction of CD-ROM-based distros like Knoppix. I think they are easier to deploy in large quantities than DOC-based solutions because (i) no special hardware is needed, and (ii) it's easier to distribute a new release. What's more, the CD-ROM-based version is cheaper; a CD-ROM drive usually costs much less than the DOC chip. One problem with the CD-ROM-based approach is to store per-machine config information. To tackle this, we use a FDD in addition to a CD-ROM drive. The FDD holds just the data files and config files. At boot-up time, we just copy files from the FDD to the in-RAM file system. After boot-up, the floppy can be removed from the FDD. This makes distributing config changes easy; just re-distribute the floppy. In some cases, no local config needs to be maintained (use DHCP for IP config, and then get the rest of the config data using TFTP, for instance), in which case the floppy can be eliminated. Just my ten-paise based on work done at Starcom. :) Shuvam _______________________________________________ ilugd mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd
