[NTLUG:Discuss] OT: $30 ThinNet system

[Fred Hensley]

Keep us posted Jack, as I'm very interested in how you (and others) fare
with these boxes.  I'm hoping I can eventually turn this box into a
small and inexpensive firewall (IPCOP?)by utilizing the Ethernet port
for a red interface and one of the USB ports via a USB hub as the green
interface.

Just a few days ago I was literally walking out of Tanners with a couple
of these $30 wonders under my arm when a guy walking in asks if I'd
heard about it via NTLUG.  Turns out, after a short greeting, that it
was none other than the original instigator himself (Jack).  Many thanks
to Mr. Snodgrass for the tip! 

Also, for those who purchased these and haven't yet starting playing
with them, I learned how to clear the required password setting from the
bios so that it can be both accessed *and* modified.  To do so, you need
to:
1.  Unplug the power and remove the board
2.  Move the upper jumper setting (J10?) from positions 1-2 to 2-3.
3.  Reconnect the power to the board and turn on the front panel switch
for a few seconds.
4.  Turn off the power, disconnect the power cord, return the jumper to
it's original position, and button it up.  Done.

Email me off list if anyone wants a PDF copy of the original manual.

Are we having fun yet?  Yep!

Cheers,

-Fred-

-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at ntlug.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at ntlug.org] On
Behalf Of Jack Snodgrass
Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2004 10:48 AM
To: discuss
Subject: Re: [NTLUG:Discuss] OT: $30 ThinNet system

On Thu, 2004-09-09 at 17:59 -0500, Jack Snodgrass wrote:
> Tanners in Dallas ( Vallwood Parkway and 35 ) has several 
> IBM ThinNet boxes that have 
> Geode 233Mhz CPU
> video
> usb
> keyboard port 
> mouse port ( I think it had these... ) 
> and a few other things for $30. 
> 
> Might make an interesting linux platform if someone 
> wanted to take a look at something like that. 
> 

A few more things about this
there is no PS/2 style connectors. You have to use a 
USB mouse and keyboard.... I wonder if a usb hub would 
work, so you could add something like a usb drive... and 
have a usb mouse and keyboard.... 

it has an internal 16Meg compact flash drive that can be 
replaced. I put a ext2 file system on a 256MB flash card
and that was recognized as /dev/hda1. The orignal card 
is partitioned into /dev/hda1, /dev/hda2, and /dev/hda3. 
I tried to mount /dev/hda1 and /dev/hda2 but my system 
couldn't detect a filesystem on them... not sure why. 
The stuff on /dev/hda3 looked like terminal ( 3270 and 55xx ) 
settings. 

Anyway... I got a 2.4.18 kernel to boot ( loads over NFS ) 
but I haven't figure out how to get the rootfs to load over NFS
and I can't figure out how to tell the kernel to load /dev/hda1
for the rootfs. I did an rdev on it, but that didn't work. 

This stuff is kinda-sort-a documented on:
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/text/NC-HOWTO
but either it's out of date... or I didn't read it 
closely enough. It's a start though. It takes all of the 
fun out of hacking it from scratch thought. ;) 

I think I'll try and put a isoliunx or syslinux image 
in the CF card and see if I can just do a boot from 
there without worrying about ( for now ) nfs root... 
or maybe look at the NFS Root/DHCP stuff in the kernel 
docs... I know they mention this stuff... just haven't 
read it closely enough. 


-- 
Jack Snodgrass <jack at jacksnodgrass.com>


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