There's something I want, but is it made?

[Mat]

So my job can entail reconfiguring fibre or Ethernet switches in SAN environments. I have a MacBook Pro provided by work, which is all fine and dandy, but setting it up for terminal access to a switch involves 1: lugging it from site to site and 2: inevitable USB to serial adapters.

I'd love something simple and small (talking mobile phone sized here), that runs Linux and has Ethernet, USB and most importantly a serial port. Preferably with a QWERTY keyboard too. Does anyone make such a thing at a reasonable price? I'm not interested in phones, I just want a neat little handheld PC that will allow me to do terminal and telnet sessions.

Any suggestions?
I've Googled around a bit, yet haven't been able to find anything to my liking. The closest I've come are palmtops from the Nineties.

[Public Hermit]

Well I had a Nokia N900 (still have, in fact, I just replaced it with an iPhone) that runs Linux and has a keyboard, though it doesn't have a serial port.

If you're interested I'll look up a price.

[Misfit]

Aren't small modern things going to be highly unlikely to have serial ports?

[Mat]

Yeah, that's the problem I'm finding Misfit.

[Barney]

Again, there's issues with the Serial port availability but every other box is ticked by the Open Pandora:



There's been problems with production of late, but now that manufacturing has moved away from the U.S. into Germany, things are looking a lot better for the early new year with the first production run just around the corner. I'd certainly recommend it, as it runs a full linux/xfce desktop and has stellar battery life in a pocket-sized form factor just about twice as thick as a mobile phone.

Of course, they're pretty expensive - but then they're comparable to any of today's smart phones without a contract to drag the price down. I got mine last year, and it's a bloody marvellous device - had it nearly a year now and it's still going strong. Currently using it as a media centre hooked up to the TV :-)

[Misfit]

There's been problems with production of late

That may be the funniest thing I've read this year!

[Barney]

There's been problems with production of late

That may be the funniest thing I've read this year!

Yeah, it's kinda absurd the amount of delays this thing has had

Still, it's a bloody marvellous machine, and fingers crossed...

[Stone]

I used to run one of these (Tosh Libretto 70CT):


It was great for what I needed - ran Win98 and Notepad for lectures, and it played Doom and Wipeout just fine I think the more recent ones had USB? I used a PCMCIA card for Ethernet.

I've got a sneaking suspicion you won't find anything even slightly modern that has a regular serial port on, let alone if it has to support proper RS232 levels - most laptops cheat and use 0V and 5V, and not everything works like that. Same issue with USB adapters.

You could try a Psion 5 (real serial port, and a nice keyboard) but they've no Ethernet or USB. Use your phone for half of it and a dedicated device for the other half, maybe?

Stone

[wanye]

what about one of the old sony vaio ultraportables running XP? IIRC they had ethernet and rs232...

[Stuart B]

Dr. Ashen has a rather long look at the Pandora:

[F-ZeroOne]

Dumb question, but is it not possible to get some sort of USB/Serial adaptor cable?

[Wudzi]

Yeah, you are never going to find something modern and small with a serial port. But surely considering you can detach a USB > Serial cable and would only use it when running a long lead to a switch, it's not going to be a hassle?

[Firefox]

The nearest thing I can think of is a Libretto like Stone's already suggested. They're about the size of an old VHS cassette, though.

Is there something in particular you don't like about USB-serial adaptors? The cheap ones can be a PITA, admittedly, but for dev work I swear by the blue 'n' white FTDI ones:


http://www.ftdichip.com/Products/Cables/USBRS232.htm

They're very reliable, have all of the flow control signals connected as well as tx/rx, and have a blue LED in either side so you can when data's flowing each way (this is a surprisingly useful debug tool in its own right).

Slapping one of those into one of the original EeePC netbooks would give you a reasonably small and lightweight Linux setup.

[Stone]

Those FTDI adapters look pretty good actually, cheers for the heads-up. I should point out that the Libretto didn't have a serial port on the back - you had to use the small docking station (which was permanently attached to mine since it was tiny) which gave you serial, parallel and VGA ports. I'm sure there's a better answer, though

Stone

[Mat]

I may very well end up going for something small with a USB to Serial adapter, but the main reasoning is, it's another bit of kit to lug around / remember / get lost.