[SLUG] Smallest and Cheapest Linux Computer ?

[David Lyon]

Is this the worlds cheapest Linux board ?

It runs Arch Linux.

It's interesting reading their user guide:

-
https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/iMX233/iMX233-OLinuXino-MICRO/resources/iMX233-OLINUXINO-MICRO.pdf
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[Chris Barnes]

Looks nifty.

doesnt have a lot of ram but it does sport an external memory interface to
increase the available ram.

Looks like you can get them from element14

a fraction pricier than the RaspberryPi

--
Kind Regards,

Christopher Barnes

e. chris.p...@gmail.com

[James Linder]

On 30/04/2013, at 10:00 AM, slug-r...@slug.org.au wrote:

> https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/iMX233/iMX233-OLinuXino-MICRO/resources/iMX233-OLINUXINO-MICRO.pdf

I've just built a Rasp-pi with archlinux. I guess it is cheap, challenging, busy and although I'm going to get one (OLinuXino) for the video input IMHO it offers no advantage over Rasp-pi, which it can argue has advantages.

James

[Chris Barnes]

Well i think it depends what you want to do with the thing.

The Olinuxino has something like 60 GPIOs compared to the Pi's 17 or so.
2 UARTs
16 channel ADC
External memory interface
RTC
Also it looks like the Olinuxino has a built-in hardware crypto engine.

so really it depends what you want to do because some might say the above
features are advantageous.

--
Kind Regards,

Christopher Barnes

e. chris.p...@gmail.com

[James Linder]

On 30/04/2013, at 11:41 AM, Chris Barnes wrote:

> Well i think it depends what you want to do with the thing.
>
> The Olinuxino has something like 60 GPIOs compared to the Pi's 17 or so.
> 2 UARTs
> 16 channel ADC
> External memory interface
> RTC
> Also it looks like the Olinuxino has a built-in hardware crypto engine.
>
> so really it depends what you want to do because some might say the above features are advantageous.
>

Chris I absolutely agree, but I was offering the opinion so that those-without-direction would not feel rasp-pi is somehow a beast of lessor proportions. It is quite cute and well worth playing with. My 1 sec read misled me to believe Olinuxino had video input, with luck V4L. alas.

Over the years a few people on list have really contributed to my deep technical queries, they would definitely appreciate dual uart or rtc etc, but most people on list?

ciao

[Grant Bailey]

Is either device powerful enough to act as small business server? I
realise that some people have turned the Pi into a server but I'm not
sure whether they have been deployed for commercial applications.

Regards,
Grant Bailey

[David Lyon]

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 3:39 PM, Grant Bailey <
grant_malc...@westnet.com.au> wrote:

> Is either device powerful enough to act as small business server? I
> realise that some people have turned the Pi into a server but I'm not sure
> whether they have been deployed for commercial applications.
>

That Depends on the expectations.

The main consideration is that the Pi has a really low performance disk
interface.

Out of the box it has an SD disk interface. It should be fastish* but SD
cards have limited capacity.

It can accept a portable USB disk but the USB transfer rate on the Pi is
not great. But it might give you
500GB or more at slowish transfer rates.

Still, depends on how much you load it. Samba will run. Sounds like it's
worth experimenting to come
up with some performance numbers.

[David Lyon]

Here's some benchmarks that were previously done:

- http://jalada.co.uk/2012/05/20/raspberry-pi-sd-card-benchmark.html

[Chris Barnes]

I've got a few Pi's and at the moment I'm experimenting with Astrisk PBX to
deploy in a small 5 person office. Model B (512M) works really well -
search for Incredible PBX Raspberry Pi

In terms of a file and print server, I think David is right about the disk
performance. I tend to use at least class 6 SD cards which makes the Pi
feel faster but you're limited to about 64gigs of space which isnt much.

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 3:39 PM, Grant Bailey <
grant_malc...@westnet.com.au> wrote:

> Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/**mailinglists.html<http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html>

>
>
>
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>



--
Kind Regards,

Christopher Barnes

e. chris.p...@gmail.com

[David Lyon]

I'm really slow to get new stuff. I only just got a sata SSD.

However, I've seen these:


-
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Free-PP-Case-USB-2-0-to-2-5-SATA-Hard-Disk-USB-Interface-Converter-Adapter-/181006710919?pt=AU_CablesConnectors&hash=item2a24d73887


That might allow me to connect an SSD. The one I have is really tiny like
this:


- www.ebay.com.au/itm/360579278186


It's an indirect path. It has to sit on a SATA convertor:


-
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/SYBA-SY-ADA40050-mSATA-PCI-E-PCIE-SSD-50mm-to-2-5-inch-SATA-Adapter-Converter-/390550912626?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5aeea5fe72

It's a lot of adaptors...

[Michael Chesterton]

I use an odroid u2 as a server at home. It has the same problem as the pi
with usb ethernet and disk.
but it's fast enough to watch videos over wifi, so that's all I care about.

there are pi like boards that have sata, but the one I saw around the same
time I bought the odroid
had only one sata port, and I needed 2 or more. If i was going to use it
for a small business server,
i would want 2 sata ports for raid1.

odroid u2 is about $100 usd, quad core arm cpu, quad core gpu, and 2GB ram.
looks awesome, very few
cases available for it, but that wasn't important to me. It's basically a
short business card size pcb
mounted onto a heatsink. has an option for a fan for hot environments and
overclocking, but it runs fine without,
and has an option for what I think they call emmc storage, which from what
I can gather is really fast storage
with a micro sd interface. With emmc it compiles a kernel in a few minutes.

It runs on 5v 1amp (needs a 2amp PS for headroom and to power usb devices)