Tomb Raider... not Doom, I'm shocked

funny thing - the SDRAM used provides 300kb/sec, while the SDcard used as storage provides 200kb/sec. Performancewise they could just skip most of the ram outside of booting and use the SDcard without losing much performance, especially since the SDRAM needs to be refreshed every 62ms for a duration of 3ms regardless of use.

Edit: I LOVE this part:

It takes about 2 hours to boot to bash prompt ("init=/bin/bash" kernel command line). Then 4 more hours to boot up the entire Ubuntu ("exec init" and then login). Starting X takes a lot longer. The effective emulated CPU speed is about 6.5KHz, which is on par with what you'd expect emulating a 32-bit CPU & MMU on a measly 8-bit micro. Curiously enough, once booted, the system is somewhat usable. You can type a command and get a reply within a minute. That is to say that you can, in fact, use it. I used it to day to format an SD card, for example. This is definitely not the fastest, but I think it may be the cheapest, slowest, simplest to hand assemble, lowest part count, and lowest-end Linux PC. The board is hand-soldered using wires, there is not even a requirement for a printed circuit board.

6 hours to get into X is ridiculous- and i misread - it takes 6 hours to boot , and then hours more to get an X server running lol

Ok, but with emulation and enough time, you can run any software on as much as a light switch.

Well, as two people already pointed out, turns out somebody got Linux to run on the 8-bit ATMega1284p microcontroller which comes in a DIP package, though it's 44 pin rather than 32.

BSD isn't Linux.

Oh I am aware. Just hoping to prompt some self awareness in these young nerds.

I run arch btw

I wonder how they'd make the shared runtimes and whatnot work without using extra space. Soon you'd be back at the original repo model with the issues that come with that.

that is like 15+ gb by itself.

Well, yeah. But once you install more, they reuse parts you already have. Looking at a single programs space use alone is pretty meaningless.

It's like complaining that a calculator app takes 15 gigs because I installed a whole OS for it. Of course that'd be insane. But the next program you're installing, you are using that already installed 15 gigs. Then more you install, the less it is using per program, thanks to deduplication and shared runtimes.

Is that Old Norse?