[olug] single board computers

[neal rauhauser]

    A few days ago I got a Soekris NET4511 single board computer. The 
machine has 64 meg of memory, a 486/100 processor, two ethernet ports, a 
miniPCI and a cardbus slot, and a compact flash slot. Mine came in a 
steel box 1" x 5" x 8" and the box is predrilled to take two RP-TNC 
bulkhead connectors - this is the same style of pigtail as used by 
Linksys and Cisco access points. It can take wall wart power or power 
over ethernet.

    I used the OpenSoekris configuration script on an OpenBSD 3.3 system 
and I generated one 64 meg and one 128 meg image. I loaded the images to 
compact flash using a USB flash reader attached to my Redhat 9.0 
workstation. I had some trouble at first but once I updated the board to 
ComBIOS 1.22 everything worked fine.

   The miniPCI slot has many uses but Soekris sells the VPN1211 - a 
miniPCI crypto accelerator with a Hi/fn 7951 processor. The little 486 
backed with one of these cards is roughly as fast as a Pentium 166 for 
handling crypto operations.

   Soekris has come out with the NET4801 - a 266 MHz Pentium class 
processor with 256 meg of dram. The VPN1411 with a Hi/fn 7955 will be 
in production by the end of the year - roughly 10x faster than the 
VPN1200 series.

   IBM makes compact flash sized hard disks up to 2.2 gig. I think the 
1.0 gig model is $160 and these will fit in all Soekris machines. The 
4801 can be equipped with a 2.5" IDE drive carrier.



   I've deployed Alvarion Breeze Access II frequency hopping 2.4 GHz 
radios, Lucent AP1000, Cisco AP352 and BR352 802.11b gear for access and 
I've used Adtran Tracer, WiLan AWE120, Aperto, Proxim Tsunami, and 
Proxim Quickbridge for backbone links. I must say that I am completely 
and utterly sick of the crap being put out for access gear and the lower 
end backbone gear is equally frustrating to use - the only thing I've 
named that I don't utterly hate is the Tsunami line and even those have 
their moments.



    If anyone else is looking at doing a wireless project and would 
prefer to use something that did not suck I'd be happy to help bring you 
up to speed on the Soekris platform. If you've got an idea for a single 
board computer project let me know - I'm going to have spare units 
sitting around and I'd like to see what fun stuff other people find to 
do with single board computers.











-- 
mailto:neal at lists.rauhauser.net
phone:402-301-9555
IM:Neal R Rauhauser
"After all that I've been through, you're the only one who matters,
you never left me in the dark here on my own" - Widespread Panic