Arkadian.eu

29 Aug 2011
Omnima UK sell a tiny little board for less than £40, that runs on openWRT Linux and has ethernet, WiFi and a USB port. It seems to be a great base for simple projects, when we need more power than one arduino.

Link to product

I’ve ordered one to try something I have in mind.

Btw, at the openWRT site, there is a VM available. I downloaded and tried it yesterday, but I had problems connecting USB peripherals…. Never mind. I have to say I loved the web interface and the precompiled binaries and the fact you can ran python on it!

11 Sep 2011
I’ve now received the device. It runs Fonera (have a look at some screenshots and more info here). Easy to access through a web interface. I tried to load the latest Fonera software and it didn’t quite work; now the device won’t boot. I’m able to log in to it using telnet and a serial cable, but I haven’t been able to load the old bin file yet… I’ll keep you posted…

O2, the UK mobile phone operator had an amazing offer a few days ago: they were selling their O2 Joggler for £49.99.

This little gadget, with a touchscreen, wifi and an intel atom processor, wasn’t really a best seller for your average cosumer and O2 ended up selling them at a loss.

I picked one up and installed Ubuntu successfully on an 8GB stick, following religiously the instructions from this
site.

Other interesting/useful sites on the Joggler are:

http://www.canonical.com/projects/ubuntu/unr

http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?p=87157&sid=ed063024114914ddf6e977294bcb427a

http://www.backtrack-linux.org/forums/hardware-compatibility-list/2738-o2-joggler-openpeak-open-frame-7-touch-device.html

http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=80756&view=next

The installation was pretty straight forward and uneventful but a bit long. I installed everything on the usb key, using my linux laptop. Everything was supported and worked out of the box, including the touch-screen and the wifi. I added a belkin bluetooth adaptor (which also worked out of the box) and installed skype on it. Unfortunately, the performance of skype with a bluetooth headset was below expectations. I’m also having performance issues: sometimes it’s slow, but I think this is because of my usb key being relatively slow.

It’s a great little system and for £50 I can’t fault it (I’ve paid more for photo frames!). I wish it had a few additional usb ports that I could use (instead of my ugly hub).

Also, it would be great if linux could be loaded on the device (instead of doing this on an additional external usb key).

I just had a look on the O2 site: it’s now priced at £99.99, but cheaper ones are available on ebay.

Stay tuned for more news and comments on this little gem!