Windows 11 | Windows 10 Modifying => Hardware => Topic started by: javajolt on June 14, 2012, 12:37:35 AM
Title: Puppy Linux on the MK802 $74 mini PC
Post by: javajolt on June 14, 2012, 12:37:35 AM
The MK802 is a tiny computer that looks like a large USB flash drive. It has a 1.5 GHz Allwinner A10 processor, 512MB of RAM, and 4GB of storage, as well as USB and HDMI ports.
But one of the most interesting things about this little $74 computer is the microSD card slot. That’s because while the MK802 ships with the Google Android 4.0 operating system, you can also boot a different OS directly from a microSD card.
We’ve already explored how to run a version of Ubuntu Linux on the MK802. Today I took a light-weight operating system called Puppy Linux (http://puppylinux.org/main/Overview and Getting Started.htm) for a spin.
(http://i45.tinypic.com/1zwx6p.jpg)
Puppy is designed to run well on computers with slow processors, little RAM, and other limitations — which makes it an excellent choice for a low power device like the MK802.
Following links from CNX Software, I found a version of Puppy (http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/arm/releases/alpha/) pre-built for devices with Allwinner A10 processors, and then loaded it onto a microSD card using the same steps involved in creating an Ubuntu 10.04 bootable SD card (Basically just extract the mele-sd-4gb-lui-5.2.90.img file and then use Win32 Disk Imager (http://launchpad.net/win32-image-writer/ download) to write the image to your microSD card).
Once that was done, all I had to do was insert the microSD card in the MK802, connect a display, power source, and mouse and keyboard. A few minutes later, Puppy was up and running.
Puppy isn’t the prettiest or the most user-friendly Linux-based operating system I’ve used. But it runs pretty quickly on the MK802, and most features seem to work right out of the box.
I had no trouble connecting to my wireless network or running most of the the apps that came pre-installed including a spreadsheet app and text editor. The SeaMonkey web browser didn’t seem to want to open, but I used the Puppy package manager to download and install Firefox 3.6. While it took a little while for the browser to launch or load web pages, I’m still kind of impressed that a $74 , mini computer can handle full desktop-style applications at all.
For the most part, I’ve only been playing with operating systems that have been compiled by other users so far. But CNX Software has instructions (http://www.cnx-software.com/2012/04/28/how-to-create-your-own-debian-ubuntu-image-for-mele-a1000-allwinner-a10-based-stb/) for building your own disk image based on Debian, Ubuntu, or another operating system. The images can be used for a MK802 (http://www.windows8newsinfo.com/smf/index.php?topic=20511.0), Mele A1000 (http://www.windows8newsinfo.com/smf/index.php?topic=20644.0), or other tablet or mini PC with an Allwinner A10 CPU.