So, as I stated before, I decided to use Linux. How did I decide on this I hear you ask? Why aren't you using BSD? How about an old version of Windows?
All of these questions, and more, did I ask myself. What of the answers? Well I'll explain that here.
From my initial information, I had only found people running embedded Linux or BSD (which can be tiny) on these boxes, so I first tried BSD.
BSD is great. It's nice to use real UNIX, stable and quite fast. But I had problems. As the site before suggested, there's lots of IRQ issues. I initially thought that they were due to the hardware, but I then tried something I didn't really want to. I installed Windows 98.
Windows 98 is... Windows 98. I don't think I can say much else about it, and I'm not sure I'd want to. I'm not here to bash it, however, as it provided me with something very important. It provided me with the knowledge that all the hardware, with the right drivers (look for drivers for the Virgin Webplayer, it's the same chipset) works. Now this is important in that I now know that I can boot up and install an OS from a CD-ROM on the same IDE bus, and then configure everything to
work. I even put an old version of QuickTime on and played the sample movie flawlessly. So that works.
Why did I decide on Linux then? Well I'm used to it, and I can easily set it up to do what I want. Sure it's more stable than 98, but so is a unicycle. 98 might make a reappearance if I decide to flash an OS to the DiskOnChip.
Before deciding on Linux, I tried to use BeOS. BeOS is brilliant, media-centric and supports the chipset. Interestingly, the chipset was for embedded applications (no surprise, this was a thin client after all). Unfortunatly, although the BeOS installer ran, and installation completed, the drive wouldn't boot. I might revisit this at some point and try again, but the bootloader just kept failing to find the boot drive.
So, what to conclude? Linux is currently the best choice, but there are a few other options left (Perhaps QNX, maybe even plain FreeDOS?). We shall see!
Hi Adam
ReplyDeleteI know it has been a long time since you played with the Neostation, but do you have a image of your 98 DiskOnChip? I would like to play arround with my Neostation - mostly for radio programming..
The "Virgin Webplayer" tip is a good one, but how did you boot a CD and at the same time install the DOChip ? As far as I can see, there can only be one device on the IDE, or is it just me connecting the two-device-cable wrong??
have a good one..
Niels