[TriLUG] Choosing a new home computer (small devices)

Dewey Hylton plug at hyltown.com
Mon Jan 6 14:11:10 EST 2014


> >While I'm excited to discover the cubox I'm equally concerned there
> >are others, yet, that I might be overlooking.
> 
> 
> Zac,
> 
> I will give you my experience on embedded devices. The day you buy
> something is the same day you will find something better. There is
> so much out there that you will rack your brain trying to compare
> them all. The pace of development is ridicules. I look for two
> things.
> 
> 1. Is the system current with their linux distributions, ie active
> development and ideally a good history of development.
> 2. This is lock step with item (1): They have multiple linux
> distributions/solutions ready and well tested.
> 
> You have to just bite the bullet when you find this combination and
> jump in. The good news is you don't have to spend too much these
> days if you don't get the perfect item and most likely what you find
> in the near future will be a much more capable device for the same
> or even less.
> 
> I say this, because I used to rack my brain trying to find the best
> and ended up never buying anything. Analysis Paralysis!
> 
> Have Fun!
> 
> John Vaughters

analysis paralysis - that's great. been dealing with it since before the amiga ... and i completely agree. 

this kind of stuff is so cheap these days i don't wait any longer. i've tried a lot of embedded-ish devices and several have worked out for different projects.

i have a couple of dns/dhcp/web servers out there on super-cheap hardware

a bit more expensive, and a little warm, but one of my favorites is the fit-pc2i (http://www.fit-pc.com). larger than the cubox in order to hold a 2.5 inch disk, but still plenty small for my purposes. i've tried with ssd, but i usually just boot via usb in raid1 configuration (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005FYNSZA). metal case, solidly built and very reliable.

speaking of reliability, i've had a lot of enbedded-ish devices through the years and most have something in common: the least reliable part is the power supply, followed by the boot media. if you've ever "had to" replace a wifi router or similar device, it was possibly due to the wall wart and not the device itself. so if your device becomes important to you, invest in a backup power supply - and keep a backup of the boot media. 

just this weekend i had a raspberry pi (running asterisk) go down due to a failed sd card. having said that, i've never experienced a single hiccup from any of my deployed fit-pc devices - not even their power supplies. and those are booted from the cheapest/tiniest thumb drives i could find. 

i have in the past also had an outages with my alix (http://store.netgate.com/Netgate-m1n1wall-2D3-2D13-Blue-P217C83.aspx) and lanner (http://store.netgate.com/Netgate-FW-7541-P1846C83.aspx) devices: each were attributed to either failed power supplies or compact flash cards.

recycled mac minis? failed power supplies (i boot these via thumb drives once the internal drives fail).

funny thing is, some of the cheapest devices i've purchased have yet to fail (http://www.amazon.com/Pogoplug-Series-Backup-Device-Version/dp/B006I5MKZY).

if you're in the least bit interested, i say jump on it. just understand you probably won't end up with enterprise-grade, well, anything. :)



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