Make an Inside Out Computer

For the end of the year my AP students are working on projects. This year I left it very open ended, use anything in the lab and just make something awesome.

They can make with code or something physical. I have students doing everything from a scratch version of Doom to building a cell phone signal amplifier.

One of my favorites at this point is this - the Inside-Out Computer. The parts are all recycled from a couple of old 486s that were donated. Once we can find a non USB mouse the plan is for them to load Linux on it.

Im pretty excited about having this in the lab next year when we need to teach hardware. 

I am particularly excited about this for next year when we go over computer hardware. Having a running computer while you point out all the various parts and pieces seems like it will be very helpful.

Basically theyre attached all the parts to an old plastic crate using zip ties. The have booted it up several times and it works perfectly, except for the no mouse thing.

We have five weeks from the AP exam until the end of the school year, which is a lot of time to fill. In order to get grades on the books I give them a daily Ted Talk to watch and respond to on a discussion board. More on that later.

Update: Another student turned in their final project today. It is a bike with a chainsaw motor added to make a moped. Did all the welding themselves. I was kind of expecting a poster, then they rolled this in:

Amazing!

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openSUSE 12 2 on a Samsung R510 almost perfect out of the box!

Had the brightness function buttons worked...but the solution is very simple.

Just  add acpi_backlight=vendor to the boot loader and the brightness buttons will now work as intended, controlling the backlight.

This will also apply to other Samsung Netbooks/Laptops.

On the subject of openSUSE 12.2, I have to say it is a very nice release.

Everything seems to be working, it is fast and nippy!

The two months of extra stabilisation have really paid off, I find it annoying when a distribution that has an emphasis on stability such as openSUSE or Ubuntu is released in a too much of a buggy state.

But we must meet the release schedule....

In the case of a community project, is meeting the release schedule more important than providing users with a better experience?

I think we can safely say no, and if the release schedule has to be delayed in order to provide users with a better experience it should be done without question.

Putting the users first is what makes a true community project, so well done openSUSE.

You fulfilled one of your guiding principles, to make users happy.

One comparison I always make when using a Linux distribution is how speedy / responsive it feels when compared to Windows 7, with concern to openSUSE 12.2 I am having a hard time deciding.

Thats a good thing if you ask me.

I dont expect the battery time to be better as some Windows drivers have better power management features, such as the Intel display driver which allows you to adjust the power setting (High performance / lower power consumption) and create a profile when using the battery / mains power.

I have yet to poke around in the Intel Linux driver / kernel module, maybe an equivalent setting is there.

I noticed KDE no longer provides a battery time estimate, a decision made by the KDE team. See here for further information - https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=304510

Essentially it was too inaccurate, which I would have to agree with. Even Windows is inaccurate for that matter.

There must be something to complain about?

Works well, looks really good, the artwork in 12.2 really goes that extra mile but there is no point making things look good if the end result is not going to be practical.

Try editing your kernel boot entry at start up, that really nice light green background does not go well with the light grey text. It is a struggle to read certain parts.

I was feeling too lazy to set up a VirtualBox but this photo of my laptop screen gives a good idea.

Overall, my first impressions of openSUSE 12.2 are positive and it is a distribution worth trying at the very least. And if it remains on my R510 till the end of the year, I would award openSUSE 12.2 best distribution of 2012.

You did a good job on this one openSUSE Project!

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