[Noisebridge-discuss] a little bit of info on the excel program, and an idea to move forward

[Michael Shiloh]

Andy Isaacson wrote:

> The whole Arduino package is around 30 MB, including the IDE and
> everything.  I doubt it'd be OK to run on a 128MB machine, but 512MB
> will be fine.  (Unfortunately Ubuntu has abandoned the low-end, you
> can't even run the 8.10 installer in 128MB.)  I bet you can do a
> bootable Ubuntu+Arduino thumb drive in 512MB.

We can certainly avoid Ubuntu for one of the less demanding options like 
Puppy or DSL or even Xubuntu, but if the Arduino IDE and Ubuntu are both 
happy with 512MB we may as stick with the default.

Does anyone have an underpowered laptop with only 512MB? The first 
experiment would be to make sure you can boot from a live Linux CD. I 
can provide one if you don't have, or can't create one. Booting off USB 
thumb drive would be an extra benefit, but probably only works on more 
recent laptops. I'm trying to determine the low end here.

Does anyone else agree this is a useful path to follow? If we can bring 
Arduino to the class at the price of a $12 RBBB plus assorted components 
and a discarded laptop, I think that would be immensely cool. If we can 
control something that will impress high school students, like a high 
powered light (no, we are not using lasers) on a pan/tilt mechanism 
(servo motors), or car horns, or a subwoofer, we may just be able to 
interest those folks who would benefit the most from our program.

We have only about 5 days left to finish our proposal. I'm having a 
really hard time getting any concrete answers. The best advice I've 
heard so far is to aim for the sky, and allow for the program to be 
reduced to bring the price into what they can afford. To this end, I'm 
in favor of proposing the Arduino project.


> 
>> Netbooks are also somewhat fragile, so the price would have to consider 
> 
> My Eee 900 is a lot *less* fragile than my Thinkpad X40 or any Dell I've
> ever touched.  I think nothing of throwing it in my shoulder bag without
> a sleeve.  The smaller monitor means less leverage on the hinge.

Excellent point. I'm sure the solid state disk is less fragile as well, 
and the cheaper price makes it less fragile in a monetary sense. I'll 
have to check my original source.


> 
> Also, Arduino should run OK on OLPC's XO-1.  Now *there*'s an intriguing
> idea...


Hmmm!!!!!!!