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2016-02-01T03:34:11.000Z

Turn your PC upside down to boot into Linux (2003)

http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/windowsxpbox/?page=4

PascLeRasc

176

1454297651

story

author_PascLeRasc

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11009558

2003

Source

mini-itx.com - projects - windows xp box.. so good they slashdotted it twice...

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| Project Browser |

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September 05, 2017
Choosing the right DC-DC PSU

August 27, 2015
AMD's Project Quantum

August 13, 2015
The Redstone PC is the ultimate Mini-ITX Minecraft Machine

October 09, 2014
The "Restomod TV"

April 09, 2013
Installing NAS4Free

February 28, 2013
Building an XBMC 12 Home Theatre PC

January 25, 2011
XBMC Guide updated to version 10.0

August 06, 2010
Building a Green PC

February 15, 2010
Building an ION powered HTPC with XBMC

October 10, 2008
The "Cambridge Autonomous Underwater Vehicle 2008"

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Mini-ITX Online Store

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September 12, 2008
"Florian", the DVD burning robot

September 05, 2008
The "i-EPIA"

May 22, 2008
The "GTA-PC"

April 14, 2007
The "Digg" Case

January 19, 2007
The "ITX-Laptop"

December 07, 2006
The "Tortoise Beetle"

October 02, 2006
The "DOS Head Unit"

August 31, 2006
The "Janus Project"

August 05, 2006
The "Leela PC"

June 26, 2006
Nano-ITX in a Football

May 17, 2006
The "EPIA Alloy Mod"

April 11, 2006
Neatorama's Collection of Case Mods

February 18, 2006
The "Rundfunker"

October 24, 2005
The "ITX TV"

October 06, 2005
The K'nex-ITX

August 05, 2005
The "Waffle Iron PC"

July 21, 2005
The "Supra-Server"

July 18, 2005
The "Mega-ITX"

July 07, 2005
The "Encyclomedia"

May 25, 2005
The "Accordion ITX"

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Mini-ITX Online Store

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May 16, 2005
The "FileServerRouterSwitch"

May 15, 2005
The "Mini Falcon"

May 13, 2005
The "Bender PC"

May 11, 2005
The "BBC ITX B"

May 10, 2005
The "Frame"

April 20, 2005
The "Jeannie"

March 09, 2005
The "Cool Cube"

January 30, 2005
First Nano-ITX Project?

January 17, 2005
The "iGrill"

January 15, 2005
The "Gumball PC"

December 15, 2004
The "Deco Box"

December 03, 2004
The "TERA-ITX"

October 06, 2004
The "Coealacanth-PC"

September 17, 2004
The "Gramaphone-ITX-HD"

August 26, 2004
The "C1541 Disk Drive ITX"

August 25, 2004
The "SEGA-ITX"

August 13, 2004
The "Quiet Cubid"

August 06, 2004
The "BMWPC"

July 14, 2004
The "Moo Cow Moo"

July 02, 2004
The "Mini Mesh Box"

Full alphabetical archive on right hand side of page...

The "Windows XP Box"

| ----- | | By Andy France
Posted on 1 December 2003 | Jump to: Introduction The Back Panel The Motherboard Finishing Touches |

And from the right to show the CPU fan and prove there are no unsightly bulges:

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Finally the ultra low profile memory I was waiting for arrived and so at last I had Windows XP running inside my "Windows XP Box", and one of the most compact Mini-ITX projects ever. The cooling solution with two case fans and a ducted CPU fan works like a dream and is both quiet and effective. So far it has shown no tendency to burst into flames.

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Finishing Touches

Windows XP is fine, but sometimes it's nice to be able to run Linux too. A dual boot system is the obvious solution, but it could provoke attack if I had Linux running in my "Windows XP Box". The only solution was to take a Linux boxed distribution and cut it to fit the support case to make a "Linux Box". There is a definite lack of industry standardisation in software distribution boxes. I was able to find a Red Hat Linux 9 boxed distribution that was 4mm narrower than my XP box, but obviously this was not usable as I had no room to spare and needed something the same size or bigger. But not too big as it would look silly to put the tiny support case into one of the massively wide Linux boxes that comes with dozens of manuals. In the end I was given an old Linux 7.1 box that was 15mm wider than the Windows XP box but otherwise the same depth and width. I used some roughly cut bits of Wonderboard to make packing pieces that would fit inside the Linux box on either side of the support case, and then cut the box to fit the support case.

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The problem now was that I ran the risk of accidentally booting Linux from the "Windows XP Box" or even worse, booting Windows from the "Linux Box". That would not be good. It needed to be fool proof.

The solution is already visible in the picture of the Linux Box. It is cut for the inner support case orientated upside down from the way it is in the "Windows XP Box" (hint: the CD drive is at the bottom instead of the top).

In order to detect which way up the box is I built a little detector module. This is made out of a tilt switch and a resistor soldered on to a 10 pin IDC plug. This fits onto the internal serial port COM2 header on the Mini-ITX board just behind the parallel port connector. The resistor connects between the serial port DTR (Data Terminal Ready) output pin and the CTS (Clear To Send) input pin. The tilt switch connects between CTS and the serial port ground pin. By programming DTR high I can read the state of the tilt switch directly from the CTS line. It's a very small assembly so this photograph doesn't help much.

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The final step was to take an assembly language MBR boot loader program and modify it to read the state of the tilt switch and make it boot the partition containing Windows XP or the partition containing Linux. To those that don't know the secret of how it works it looks like magic. It boots the right O/S for the box it is in.

So here we have it, Windows XP Professional running in a Windows XP Professional box .....

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... and Red Hat Linux 9 running in a Red Hat Linux box.

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