[PLUG] Freedom Toaster

[devendralaulkar at gmail.com]

Hi,

On Friday 07 April 2006 06:06 pm, Rohan Dighe wrote:
> > Maybe a low cost version of this can be produced here and deployed in
> > some places like schools, colleges etc.
> >
> > It need not have a screen and all the hoopla. Just a small low end
> > machine with a goodish hard disk (a 20 Gb will hold around 25 cd's I
> > think), a small one line lcd panel and a keypad might do the trick.

> Can anyone do a feasibility study abt this and post it !!!

Feasibility study in sense ?

Technically it is very much feasible. I think lcdproc + some shell scripting 
will do the trick. You can have a small keypad and take input from parallel 
or serial port.
Just have a printed catalog saying 1. Mandriva Linux 2. Fedora Core etc with 
some more information. You can have much more than only Linux distributions, 
things like Gutenberg e-texts, wikipedia stuff.
 
User has to just put in a blank cd, key in the number. 
I think a 500-600 Mhz machine with 64 Mb or 128 Mb RAM will be sufficient. 
However I don't know how the requirements would scale up for having multiple 
cdwriters burning cd's simultaneously.

There are many ways in which this can be extended of course.

As an experiment, we can setup such a machine at some mall or some college for 
a month or so. 

-Devendra Laulkar.