G-Key, a Linux “bootable” USB key, that fires up the Gdium and stores all your personal information

So will any usb memory stick

So will any usb memory stick be usable as a g-key? If yes, then will extra g-keys be competitively priced as compared to other usb memory sticks? or will they be marked up as official 'compatible' accessories. If no, why not? Is there a technical reason or is purely for cosmetic or profit reasons? Thanks for your time.

Technically yes. Now the Gkey

Technically yes. Now the Gkey has a specific form factor that fits into the Gdium nicely without protruding. It is also faster and optimised for what it is supposed to do, i.e. carry the OS. GKeys will eventually be sold separately, price competitive within the same range of devices.

Is the RAM upgradeable? Will

Is the RAM upgradeable? Will be able to sell a netbook with, say 4gb of RAM? Thanks for your time.

Re: RAM on #gdium was told

Re: RAM on #gdium was told that 2GB A-Data brand SO-DIMM has worked, and that 2GB is the max that can be used with the Loongson 2f CPU. I tried 4GB SO-DIMM and gdium wouldn't even show anything on screen.

Is the G-Key MLC or SLC

Is the G-Key MLC or SLC Flash? Has testing been done on how long they last before wearing out? My understanding was that you really don't want swap or /tmp on MLC flash due to relatively low number of read/write cycles before fail (between 10k-100k). I've moved swap to a 4GB transcend SLC SD card and am using tmpfs for /tmp at the moment; that seems to work fine, but would be good to know if I am being over-paranoid or not :-)

Hi, why not a PCMCIA

Hi, why not a PCMCIA interface? I don't know the transfer rate of the "G-key" (some info about please) but usually USB devices' rates are quite poor compared to a hard disk.

Hi, Actually there are three

Hi, Actually there are three elements: 1) Flexibility: a) we need an affordable extractible device, this is the basic concept of the "G-Key" b) We need it to be avaiable on "more or less" all "PC" so that the user can plug it's key into "the other" computer. PCMCIA is being phased out, and is not avaiable on most desktops. (particularly in schools and universities) So we have the choice between SD Cards and USB devices 2) Ressilience So think of "one SD card" per child vs "one USB card per child ?"... 3) Performance once we fixed on point 1 and 2 we worked on maximizing the perf.. And yes à SCSI, Hyperchannel, ... are faster, but ... Cheers

SLC vs MLC The G-Key is MLC,

SLC vs MLC The G-Key is MLC, but the Key has an internal wear leveling system, and we developped an "helper" service to enhance the embedded wear leveling system. Therefore the real lifetime depends on the effective usage, but we expect it to resist to multiple years of intensive usage.

One GKey per child.... a

One GKey per child.... a Gdium mini desktop (fuloong alike) would fit great in the model then ;-)

@PatrickOk I get it, I've

@Patrick

Ok I get it, I've researching last days and the powerfull adapter seems to be now the express cards (I was quite outdated with the PCMCIA I recognize it), personally I've been looking  for some device that let me get my whole desktop computer with me inside my pocket, this is how arrived to your product, the problem is that I don't wanna loose the speed performance of a hard drive on this change, I don't know if this is a bit crazy, but what about of an hybrid disk device? one way plugs as USB (compatibility), the other way plugs as an express card (performance)

It's hard to tell from the

It's hard to tell from the pictures, but it looks like the G-Key is a bit bigger than a lot of the flash drives currently on the market

I can't help but wonder if there's enough room in the G-Key for a SD-card (or mini-sd, or transflash), so the user would have a convenient place to backup their documents.  If something like that could be added I'd hope it would handle the newest addition to the SD-family, the one that has a limit of 2TB on a card.  That should be enough for a few months at least. 

It's hard to expect a new company to be able to match Lexar and Sandisk on price alone.  Some kind of piggyback function would be a bit of added value, a diferentiation from all the other commodity products that, to the average user, appear to do the exact same function.

Re: RAM on #gdium was told

Re: RAM on #gdium was told that 2GB A-Data brand SO-DIMM has worked, and that 2GB is the max that can be used with the Loongson 2f CPU. I tried 4GB SO-DIMM and gdium wouldn't even show any

Are these G-keys available

Are these G-keys available for individual sale in western europe (specifically the Netherlands). Does anyone know?

I would even consider ordering them from Belgium, France or Germany if I could find any online shops that offer them.