Requirements
Before getting started make sure you have the required hardware. The devices vary depending on which vendor you buy them from. All the testing I did was on a MK808 I bought on Amazon (two different vendors). Check the compatibility page below and make sure you buy one with a supported wifi chipset. Wifi does not work RK3066 dual core Mini PCs with Bluetooth integrated. However it looks like you can use an external wifi dongle Ubuntu Linux (Picuntu RC3) on Measy U2C (RK3066) with WiFi dongle.
- RK3066 based Mini PC. (I used the built in wifi)
- A monitor or TV with an available HDMI input (I used an Atrix Lapdock)
- An OTG USB cable appropriate for your device. For the Windows PC side we need a full size USB A connector. The Mini PC side of this cable varies, depending on the device. A MK808 uses a Mini USB male connector. The UG802 and the MK802 III use a Micro USB male connector.
- A MicroSD of at least 4GB in size to hold the linuxroot filesystem. (I used a 32GB class 6 SDHC)
- A windows based PC, preferably a desktop PC, as laptop PC's usually have underpowered USB buses. The USB bus of the Windows PC will need to provide all power required by both the mini PC and any USB devices you are connecting to it. A typical laptop is not up to this task. (Here I used a Windows XP SP3 VirtualBox guest under an Ubuntu 12.04 Desktop)
- A linux based PC or PC that can be booted into Linux via dual boot or Live CD boot. ( I used my Ubuntu Desktop for this)
- A USB Mouse and Keyboard to control Mini PC.
- A UVC compatible USB webcam. See Skype on MK808, UG802, MX1, Neo G4 and MK802 III – Androydz.com for a list of cameras. (I used a HP Webcam HD-2200 for testing). USB cameras can be funky under Linux, so stick to one that someone has reported working or you risk compatibility issues. You should get a camera that supports MJPEG compression, but raw YUYV works as well.
- An Internet connection, in order to download the 2 required files to complete this process and also to allow picuntu-da-server.sh to download packages once the Picuntu install is running on your device. (These are all in the GitHub repo)
You can get most of the hardware shipped from the US, but some of the optional hardware I bought off of ebay from Chinese retailers. ePacket shipping usually takes a couple of weeks and you can track it. Some other free shipping comes within a month. Be careful to check the shipping method.
- MK808 ~$40-$50 US
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UVC compatible USB Camera ~$10-$20 US (for a cheap high definition starter camera. Below are cameras I have tested)
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Kinobo USB "Origami" Webcam This camera is cheap and only supports RAW video. It's a cheap way to get 1600 X 1200 resolution. I'm running this full time 1280x1024 @ 5 FPS. It uses about 30% CPU since it has to encode raw images with gstreamer. Image quality is pretty good. Leave it to the cheap camera to be the most solid. The camera sits nicely on top of a aluminum vertical sliding window and blends in perfectly. No mounting required.
- HP Webcam HD-2200 This camera didn't work too well for outside daylight. I also received broken images while recording motion. I cannot recommend this camera except for development use maybe.
- Microsoft LifeCam HD-3000 for Business I'm using MJPEG mode and you will get a bad JPEG now and then. I ran this full time 1280x720 @ 10 FPS. It only pulls ~20% CPU doing motion detection and saving MJPEG videos. I use a worker to convert it to an MP4 video and SCP to another server for people detection. Image quality is pretty good. After 4 months of 24/7 use I cannot recommend this camera. It would disappear from USB devices (lsusb) and would require a power off to get it back online. This happened at least once a week. Update - after switching to 800x600 resolution the camera became very stable and has not failed over a couple of months. It seems with a lot of the cameras you cannot use maximum resolution and FPS or they will malfunction over time.
- 32G microSDHC Class 6 Memory Card ~$20-$30 US (Obviously you can use a smaller size or different class as long as it's compatible with your Mini PC. I tested a 64GB micro SDXC card and it will not format using ext4.)
- Output 5V DC 2A USB Charger Adapter Supply Wall Home supply US ~$5-$10 US (This is handy
when you need more juice for devices attached to the Mini PC. I am however testing with a
headless Mini PC with just power and USB camera attached)
- Output 5V DC 2A USB Charger Adapter Supply Wall Home supply US
- Be careful because I received a bad one from a vendor that caused the MK808 to shut down randomly. I've had another that works perfectly fine. The last MK808 I bought had a 2000mA charger, so check with the vendor.
- USB Slim Cooling Cooler Fan for PS2 Playstation Console ~$3-$5 US (I used this to keep the Mini PC cool while running over 1.0 GHz. People have hacked in heat sink mods, but I'm trying to keep it simple here)
