BlackDog Linux: a real pocket PC
posted Aug 11th 2005 12:20PM
At first glance, the BlackDog Mobile Personal Server looks like yet another USB flash drive dolled up with a Linux
distro. Turns out, however, that this really is a computer-on-a-stick, unlike
Finger Gear and
Pertec's recent offerings. Yes, it's flash-based like the
others. But BlackDog is an actual working computer, with a 400 MHz Power PC processor, 64MB of RAM, biometric security
and either 256MB or 512MB onboard storage. Like the other flash-based systems out there, BlackDog still requires a host
PC to operate, but it doesn't rely on that PC's processor or RAM to function; all the work is done on the palm-sized
box. At $199 for 256MB and $239 for 512MB, BlackDog could be a good solution if you need a secure, ultra-portable Linux
system that you can set up anywhere — though, of course, if you don't need the security features and just need a
bootable distro, the other flash solutions may do the trick at a lower price.
[Via Digg]
is i could come with a SD card reader or more flash memory and fedora.. i could use it as a back up web server...hmmmm
This is actually pretty cool -- even besides the whole "saves you setup time when doing tech demos" advantage. You can now also use other people's computers to securely access important data remotely (mail, web servers, etc) without having to think about keyloggers, passwords stored in the browser's password manager, etc.
Depending on your line of work this could be a really big deal.
that biometric scanner looks like the 'press your thumb on it' kind
that in-and-of-itself is not very secure
they should have used the 'swipe' type of reader
other than that! this thing is effing awesome!
eeh. no thanx.
looks like it only works with Lunix or Windows 2000/XP PCs.
more than half the computers i use daily are Macs.... this wouldn't work for me.
I think that this is where computers are headed. It started with never leaving home without your discs, now it's your files, next it's your whole headless computer.
Of course this is way in the future. But imagine just plugging your memory stick into a monitor and it boots whatever OS you have, with all your docs, and...yeah...that's about it...but that's like...really cool...(the hissing of saliva through my retainer is deafening)
It would be great if you could run more than one of these at once on a single machine. It would make a great webserver if you could get 5 or 6 of em in a cluster.
As for me this is only nice attempt. I don't believe that it can be used in any host PC without additional settings and headache. Bootable USB drive with pre-installed OS (Win or Lin doesn't matter) and additional security tools (antivirus, virtual encrypted disk, smart card logon) still looks much better.
WTF? This is faster than my old computer!
So it's a computer... That you have to plug into another computer.
What the heck is the advantage of that over a simple "distro on a stick?"
PowerPC CPU? I wonder if you could install Mac OSX on it, very minimal install. Someone would need to write kernel extensions/drivers for it. Or use Mac-on-Linux.
this is somewhat reminiscent of the computers from William Gibson's cyberpunk novels.. i want one =D
They don't specifically say so on their site but I think the advantage is that it doesn't require a reboot of the host PC - I think (and it's a bit of a guess) that they might be autorunning a VNC or maybe even an NX client and tunneling that protocol over USB.
And since the OS is suspended to flash (i.e. the RAM //is// the hard disk), no bootup of the device itself is needed either - you just supply power to its CPU and you're back to where you were when you shut down (which probably just involves making sure no writes are happening when you disconnect the power - just like 'safely unplugging' a USB stick in XP).
It also means it's more robust as you're not relying on the host hardware being compatible with Linux and being detected correctly - as long as it runs windows on a x86 architecture, you're good to go! (I'm sure they could do the same thing for mac and they would coexist on the same BlackDog box just fine - I don't know a huge mount about macs, but I assume they do autorun and there's an NX client for OSX - if not go compile one from the open source version! - all subject to the assumptions in my first paragraph!!)
On a side note, this also means various naughty people could use it to get access to embedded systems that have exposed USB ports - internet cafes/schools with locked down PCs, kiosks etc (yes, some do have USB ports exposed) - I guess you'd need to leave an on-screen keyboard running for such things (erm.. not that I want to be giving anyone any ideas! ;). In fact it just occured to me that it could even be used to present a fake copy of the kiosk front-end for all sorts of nefarious purposes (bit of a sobering thought there!)
Just as a bit of information I thought you'd like to know - a bit of how it works:
On XP, it first shows up as a usb CD drive, so that's how autorun pulls up the authentication server (first) to scan your thumbprint. Once that's done, it autoruns (off the "CD drive") the X server, xming. Around this time, the "CD drive" spontaneously becomes a "USB Network Adaptor" and gets DHCP'ed an address... Then across that network, XP sees a computer - viola: network access to the PowerPC. Of course, all this magic isn't done purely with a PowerPC - That chip just happens to be embedded in a Xilinx FPGA that does a lot of the fun stuff.
Talk about reconfigurable computing - it's about time FPGA technology came to the consumer. It'll be nice to see open ip development on that as well as the open source for the linux distro.
So, no, this is not at all like a distro-on-flash. This is a hell of a lot more. No reboot necessary - everything running remotely (and securely) off the client pc.
And as a side note to the person who said the "swipe" type reader would be more secure - you really ought to check the specs on the biometric scanner used on this device - it's one of very few that has been approved for use in Asia. It is particularly secure and operates on radio frequencies bouncing off the water content of the ridges in your thumb. Thus, it can accurately detect a dirty thumb, and accurately reject a fake thumb with the same ridge layout.
If you care to disregard security and use a distro-on-a-stick after rebooting a workstation that happens to have usb drivers built into its proprietary bios, feel free.
Personally, I'd rather being able to plug in a BlackDog to (nearly) any running workstation and have secure access to my own encrypted files, accessed and executed within seconds on a server that will only operate for me or whoever happens to own my right thumb.
mingistech - It's a PowerPC of course its compatiable with Mac?!
i think mardoen got it spot on, this is more for job use than homebrew stuff, this essentially means you can have a test kit running off the usb which doesn't rely on any windows components/services once loaded. fantastic stuff, can't wait for the dual processor version to show up.