WorkPad z50 and GnuPG

[Emanuele Santoro]

Hello guys,
I've definitively decided to buy the z50.
I'm thinking: i usually use mutt to sign and/or crypt my emails via GnuPG.

Is signing and crupting too heavy operations for the z50's
micro-processor?

Thanks,
Emanuele Santoro

--
And it makes me wonder...

[der Mouse-3]

> I'm thinking: i usually use mutt to sign and/or crypt my emails via
> GnuPG.

> Is signing and crupting too heavy operations for the z50's
> micro-processor?

Depends on how patient you are.

Seriously, you can do real crypto in practically any environment; the
only question is how fast it'll be.  Given enough RAM, I could probably
do crypto a la GPG on a 6502, provided speed is not important.

Unless you demand "finishes before you can get your finger off the
keystroke" levels of performance, I see no issue with the z50.  Mine
does fine with SSH, which I believe is comparable in computational
load, provided I'm mildly patient.  (Well, did, at least - since the
add-on RAM died, I haven't done anything with it.)

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[Emanuele Santoro]

On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 12:04:50AM -0400, der Mouse wrote:
> Depends on how patient you are.
>
Ah... ok.

> Seriously, you can do real crypto in practically any environment; the
> only question is how fast it'll be.  Given enough RAM, I could probably
> do crypto a la GPG on a 6502, provided speed is not important.
>
Ah, ok.
The z50 i'm buying has only got 16 megs of ram.
How much may I wait? about 10, 15 seconds?
I mean... ok, it's slow. But how much?

I may only need to sign or crypt an email, so about max 40/50 lines of
clear text.



> Unless you demand "finishes before you can get your finger off the
> keystroke" levels of performance, I see no issue with the z50.  Mine
> does fine with SSH, which I believe is comparable in computational
> load, provided I'm mildly patient.  (Well, did, at least - since the
> add-on RAM died, I haven't done anything with it.)
>
Ok.
I plan to do study some networking... Like, leaving my computer turned
on and connected to the internet at home, go to school, connect to the
wireless network and try to access my resources via the net, or try to
set up a basic vpn or so.. something like this. Mounting nfs shared
folders, starting graphic apps via networked X..

Well, i may say i am planning to play a lot with my z50 :D

I hope to find a memory module too. Any one in this list would like to
sell his/her (her? a girl following port-hpcmips ??) one ? Just send me
a private email.

Thanks,
Emanuele Santoro

[der Mouse-3]

> The z50 i'm buying has only got 16 megs of ram.
> How much may I wait?  about 10, 15 seconds?

Dunno.  I don't use GPG; when I do anything PGPish, it's
pre-standardization PGP, and I don't do it on the z50.

But I do know that 30 seconds was not unusual for an ssh login.  (That
sort of speed - or lack thereof - is one reason I implemented
connection sharing in moussh.)

I say "was" because my machine now has only 16 megs of RAM too, since
the add-on memory module broke and I don't have another.  MemoryX (my
usual source for memory) doesn't have them, and I haven't yet gotten
around to ferreting out anyone who does.  (MemoryX thought they did,
but what they sent me didn't fit mechanically, and when I sent them
photos of everything relevant they got back to me saying sorry, they
don't have anything suitable.)

And 16M is a bit too cramped to run much in, so I haven't been using it
since then.  (I need to do some OS hackery....)

> I plan to do study some networking... Like, leaving my computer
> turned on and connected to the internet at home, go to school,
> connect to the wireless network and try to access my resources via
> the net, or try to set up a basic vpn or so.. something like this.
> Mounting nfs shared folders, starting graphic apps via networked X..

> Well, i may say i am planning to play a lot with my z50 :D

:-)

> I hope to find a memory module too.  Any one in this list would like
> to sell his/her (her? a girl following port-hpcmips ??) one ? Just
> send me a private email.

Much the same goes for me too; if anyone has a z50 memory module for
sale, I'm interested in hearing about it.

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