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Tiny Boxen
swg101 writes "These people (openbrick.org) have developed a small computer designed for open source and free software. I quote: "This great little Linux box can be used as a firewall, micro-server, PABX, thin client, multimedia, almost anything imaginable. It contains a fanless 300 Mhz x86 compatible Geode processor and 128 MB SDRAM. Software can be installed on a Compact Flash or on an optional Hard Disk." Sounds like a nice solution for many applications."
Boxen still isn't a word.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Looks like they're serving their website out of one of these tiny boxes ;)
Of course this all depends on availability of good Linux apps. It isn't just the Linux emphasis of the boxes designers. Windows is just too bloated to run on this kind of system.
I bet they need a fan on that CPU right about now :)
*flames scorch the motherboard*
And geeks the world over just got an ego boost because smaller IS better.
Apparently not for webhosting.
Get the Google cache here: http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:fi5nQ4GvkE0C: openbrick.org/+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Orange
openbrick.com on google.com
MORTAR COMBAT!
... For my home entertainment center,
;-)
I especially like the Fan-less processor to cut back on noise.
but...
I have looked near and far, and can't seem to find a TV tuner card that will fit in those "small form factor" / low profile PCI slots. Do they even exist?
Any suggestions besides going the USB route?
(USB isn't fast enough for a good picture IMHO)
In most cases, I'd rather have a large tower than a "book-pc", but since I'll be running this 24/7, a 50-100 watt power supply should hopefully cut back on my electric bill.
After taking a peek at the article, I gotta admit it does look cool. Too bad it is not black
(My moment of glory as a Karma Whore...)
In a related story, due to Google's secret page-rank algorithm and over 200 messages in this thread linking to "Google Cache", a search for the words "Google Cache" brings up open brick.
Just so nobody gets the wrong idea here, the German word for box is "Kasten," and the plural is "Kästen," with an umlaut.
For firewall use, I would like to see dual NICs.
They would make great IDS nodes.
$300 bucks is a pretty good deal for a computer that small with that amount of proc power.
-M
It would be *very* cool if these things could be clustered together to make a scalable server. Need a database server? Then get 32 of these, each with a HD for ~$10K and cluster them together. Each comes with one HD, so you've got your RAID array. Need more power next year? Add 8 more.
With the coming onslaught of DRM on faster processors, the obvious solution is to find better ways to scale existing hardware products.
openbrick.org seems to be getting hit pretty hard, but Linux Max has a pretty detailed article on the Open Brick.. And it's not slashdotted.. yet... http://www.linuxmax.net/news/00816.html
If you look at this page, you'll see that for some of the features you need a non-free XFree 3.3.6 driver. Another fun detail on that page : description says : 300 to 400 EUR while it is sold for 590 EUR. But it definately is cool. Once they sell it for less than that 590 (which would buy you a nice PC WITH storage), and that non-free Xfree 3.3.6 driver thing is solved... it is a really nice box.
This "boxen" issue has come up before on ./ and I'm surprised the argument continues. ;-)
1) Since the oh-so-consistent English language uses the term "oxen" as the plural of "ox", it sounds reasonable (and amusing) to use "boxen" for "box".
2) Any hacker or geek with some sense of computing history knows that clusters of the late, great VAX systems from Digital Equipment Corp. (pre-Compaq) were known as VAXen.
3) The English language has no ultimate authority comparable to the Royal Academy of the Language in Spain, or its equivalent in France. So making up words in English is quite easy, and legitimacy comes to them with wide usage. No need for the latest official dictionary to be published.
If Flash memory gets just a little cheaper, you could have a serious desktop computer with no moving parts at all.
That'd be hard. A sector of a flash chip will wear out and turn into a "bad sector" after about 100,000 writes. The flash controller will have to have some sort of logic to treat repeated writes specially. Apparently, most modern CompactFlash cartridges' integrated controllers can do this; can anybody explain how such logic works?
And even though the blurb mentions that the CPU doesn't need a fan, wouldn't the power supply still need a fan? I can't get to the server that is hosting the article, and when I try to use the Google cache, it takes several minutes for Mozilla to realize that the real server won't respond to requests for the page's stylesheet.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I guess you could as long as you don't need to write things to the memory system after the first time...
You think hard drives wear out fast? Flash wears out faster. The numbers I've heard are between 1000 and 1,000,000,000 writes (depending on the make/model/brand). Of course, one possible solution is to use mostly flash, as well as some of the more long-lasting (in the presence of many, many writes) memory systems.
I just found this one for example.
As far as no moving parts...water coolers have moving parts and fans have moving parts...so unless you live in a very, very cold place, you're going to need moving parts. But I suppose you could do without a floppy, and it seems technically feasable to have a CD-ROM drive that has a laser which is difracted to reflect the entire surface all at once, and have millions of photoreceptors to read the entire disk image at once. Has anybody made one of those?
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
I've been eye-balling a similar system over at Soekris. Same idea, but with 2 or 3 NICs integrated.
300 to 400 euros is WAY too much money for what you get, when you compare with things like the Via Epia motherboard (available for $130 at outpost. The Via Epia has an 800 Mhz x86 processor, SDRAM slots, is 18 cm on a side, and has practically everything you need but memory, storage and an ATX power supply. They even have a completely fanless 500 MHz version (althouh you can't get that version from Fry's).
Test your net with Netalyzr
One thing about all the compact flash stuff. Typical flashable memory can only be "erased" on the order of 100,000 times. Now, many of you are saying "sure, this isn't a problem" -- but i dont think most /.'ers realize how many temp files Linux (and Operating Systems in general) create. Unfortunately, using Fat32 or NTFS(if you were "Gasp" running nt/2k), you would be repeatledy using the same flash sectors, quickly burning them out.
This means the only really useful filesystem is LFS (see the SPRITE project -- http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/projects/sprite/sprite
So no, you can't have a box that has no hard drive, as of yet, unless you have very specialized uses for which lfs work well. (sequential writes/reads, etc)
Wee! Final exam questions with applications in the real world!
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
specs and pics
Boss: Why is the server down? Sysadmin Guy: Well sir, I think I lost it. Boss: Lost it?? Sysadmin Guy: Well, i had it in my pocket, it must've fallen out when...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
http://www.oed.com/public/readers/research.htm
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
What would make this any better than the cool looking mini computers from shuttle? This thing is $489 and I just saw that Fry's has the Shuttle P4 computer for about $300. The OpenBrick machine has a PCMCIA and CF slot but unless you are a laptop user you most likely aren't wanting PCMCIA anyway and CF card readers that plug into USB are fairly cheap.
Sounds ideal as an Xterm running Linux. How much are they? The site's not there.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Could you imagine a beowulf cluster of these?
...but noone else had said it and it was KILLING me (like when Cartman has to finish Come Sail Away everytime someone starts singing it)
I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...
my bad.
J
Beer, now there's a temporary solution -- Homer Jay S.
There are several other small boards that would make excellent Linux network servers. But, most of the ones I have seen are not sold in small quantities.
Such as this board: Nexcom EBC563
It uses the low power / low heat VIA C3. The C3 is MUCH faster than the Geode used in the "OpenBrick". It has 3 NIC's, making it a great firewall.
Now, only if I could buy it, in a small case..
I like the fact that it can use a compact flash card as a hard drive--this means less moving parts to be damaged if it's mounted in a car. The small size would be put to good use in a car unit as well.
"I may be quite wrong." - Socrates
Lex Systems
Its tiny, powerfull, and has tripple ethernet... what more could you ask for?
well maybe a fanless cpu.
-Nick
now if i can only find somewhere that sells it....
Do you need that much processing power for a firewall? I run mine with a P166, and I don't see any issues. I doubt the CPU gets utilized much at all. It is quiet, doesn't take much power, and isn't too large. And it cost a lot less than $300. :-)
I am not ragging on your post, just that I wouldn't consider this a good firewall, it seems like more power than is necessary. There are off-the-shelf firewalls smaller and less powerful.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Nah, I just bought the antec full tower sx1240. This behemoth has 6 drive bays and is 3ft tall. IMHO bigger is better!!
Except that RAM only works when the machine is turned on. You need something more reliable for long-term storage.
At the moment I'm waiting for Shuttle's SN40 - the Athlon/nForce 2-based equivalent of their SS51. The main attraction for me? It's quiet. I'm an amateur musician, and I use MIDI a fair amount. I can say that having a standard PC sitteng next to me, fans screaming like a banshee and radiating all the industrial design glamour of a multi-storey car park, is not condusive to writing music. The quiet Shuttle boxes would seem much better suited to that role.
Cheers,
Ian
(Oh - why not use a Mac for my MIDI? Because the machine also has to be general purpose, and there's still no UK version of Quicken for the Mac)
I recently put together a web and mail server based on a mini-ITX motherboard with a Via C3 processor on it. It cost less than $300 altogether and installing Linux was a breeze.
My Theory(tm) is that the cost of a computing device should be proportional to its targetted end-use. For example: I can buy a full-fledged PC from some mega-vendor for about $500. Now, why would I pay $300 for some super-slim version, which can be used as either a firewall or an Xterminal or something? If the functionality (or typical use) of the device is limited thusly, so should the price! For this kind of device, I'd pay at most $100, tops. You can't sell these devices en masse based just on the novelty factor, ignoring the cost.
http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=boxen
Third entry down
The special logic involves checking to see if the flash bit contains the value (1/0) you want before writing to it.
Not exactly. Flash memory is written to by first erasing the sector to all 1's and then clearing the bits you want cleared.
With a 50% hit-rate 100k writes becomes 200k.
200,000 writes is still too few for a directory track.
data of a particular type (eg html or mpeg) tend to bias towards 1s or 0s.
HTML might bias slightly, but MPEG doesn't. If it did, you would be able to compress MPEG files further with the Huffman coding used in gzip. (You can't.)
Will I retire or break 10K?
Found a link from a link of a small shop in Lille selling chassis for these bricks. Maybe one of these would be a good place to start building a beowulf cluster.
/., or they'll kick you out of the shop :-)
However, on their webpage they state:
OpenChassis are sold to computer experts only.
So don't mention you saw it on
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Dont troll people for no reason.. rtfc.. he didnt say anything about wanting to cache the site.. just made a joke about it possibly getting slashdotted.
7 OpenBricks in a 1U enclosure:
http://www.storever.com/news/pr3
not running the bloat? You can do that with Linux if you want. Chose your bloat tolerance level and install that, right down to a functional OS with CLI shell on a single floppy if that's what rows your boat, and it's not "obsoleteware" either.
Ain't user controlled full modularity grand?
KFG
I did a lot of looking myself in the hopes of building a silent computer.
Caseoutlet.com seems to be by far the best.
There comes a time in every man's life when he must say, "No mother! I do not want any more Jell-O!"
It could probably be sold in higher volumes and hence cheaper if it did.
There are a number of micro boxes arround, most run windows. What is different about this one is that it does not require a hard drive or a fan. Windows would not be a good choice to run on a compact flash only system since the system tends to write to many places in the system disk. With Linux you can pretty much shut off all the logging and run from hard disk alone does not mean that is a great idea of course.
The features that somewhat disappoint me are the lack of a high seed firewire or USB2.0 port to attach a large capacity drive to. Also to run diskless I would want to have quite a bit more memory. Also the video looks pretty crappy.
The large pc box is comming to the end of its run. There was a time when I would worry about running out of pCI slots, these days pretty much every board has integrated ethernet and you can easily get firewire. The only pci slots I use are for WiFi and graphics - and even the graphics is no longer so critical.
If someone came out with a nice thin box for a home HiFi stack I would buy it, perhaps with just a couple of exansion slots, one pci, one agp. Unfortunately this form factor is currently considered a 'server' i.e. business, i.e. charge three times extra form factor.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Names are pretty similar, but these are definitely better for use as a firewall - dual Ethernet for a start, and they run a lot cooler. A 200MHz PPC405 is enough for most network applications, and you can install a 2.5" HDD if you need one.
(1) We do not have tech support.
(2) If you have a problem, see (1).
I'm looking for a complete unit, with all hardware, ready to accept my software. But what I am looking for is one that is PC compatible, with space for a CDROM drive or a hard drive, plus 2 NICs, but without being the size of a PC. So far I have not seen anyone accomplish this.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
That web site looks much better than the one I found with a little googling.
The original design seems to come from Lucky Star in taiwan, but they went out of business earlier this year. Their PDFs show a lot more details of the boards and connectors.
Nagasaki looks like they have picked up the product line and are continuing with it. It would sure be nice to get a few of these for cheaper than the 470 Euros the OpenBrick guys are reselling them for. I can't google up any other distis here in Europe this late at night. Maybe I'll try again during the working week.
I've learned the chinese/taiwanese shops in the big cities are quite willing to get in exotic parts like these boxen. Every one of them seems to have an uncle or a brother as a contact in taiwan who knows someone, etc. It just takes a little social engineering to get them to dig for you, on the hope you'll buy lots of those components.
I've got a project coming up to make small, cheap, customisable firewalls supporting DSL or cable clients, no fans or noise or hard disks. Has to be half the price of a cisco pix 501, which are on ebay for around 500 euros. This MS2100/OpenBrick box would almost do it, except I don't want to be powering a sound card, parallel port, NTSC video, or all that other useless cruft.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/computing/5a98.shtm l
or for the lazy...Click Here
This is news? I'm sure this system fits the bill...or so to speak.
Clearing to 1s then blanking 0s would be more writes than just basic overwriting.
Flash memory is divided into sectors. When you erase a sector of flash memory, the whole sector becomes all 1's. The 100K writes figure refers to 100K successful erases of a given sector. "Just basic overwriting" would AND the written data into the existing data. I'm guessing that flash file systems take advantage of this somehow.
And Huffman encoding is about repeating patterns, not frequency of 1s and 0s without order taken into account. You take a long but frequent pattern and replace it with a shorter one, but then have to remap the shorter one etc.
Huffman maps fixed-length sequences of bits (usually 4, 8, or 16 at a time) to variable-length sequences of bits. If you have lots more 1's than 0's, then you'll get a lot of 1111, 1110, 1101, 1011, and 0111 nibbles, which can be reduced to shorter words. However, JPEG, MP3, and MPEG already have compression (including Huffman coding) in the bitstream, so re-compressing the data isn't going to help.
Will I retire or break 10K?
A Briq with OSX makes a nice addition to anyone's drab beige PC:) With the dual-NIC option, you can have your firewall right above your DVD drive. It's a bit more than 400 Euros though.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
To current and next generation of mini-itx?
The site's currently slashdotted so I can't see the specs,
But the mini-itx platform is really something worth a look at.
And the next generation will even have the C3 1ghz via cpu and mpg2 hardware acelleration!!!
The perfect media/desktop box...
I'd rather be sailing...
and dump the RAM storage and active memory to flash at power down.
So you're advocating some extremely aggressive caching. Flash memory isn't fast enough to take a full gigabyte write in an extremely short period of time when a machine suddenly loses power.
After a bit of Google searching, I found this: JFFS2, a journaling filesystem for flash memory and other non-volatile random-access memory devices with limited rewrites per sector. It has some "wear leveling" features.
Will I retire or break 10K?
1. You may think DRM is an american idea, but when you look at the companies behind it, most are multinationals. Sony, Microsoft, Intel, AMD etc etc. 2. The rest of the world uses the same pc hardware and will have DRM built in. 3. How much do you want to bet that foreign media companies won't follow suit? after all Americans don't like DRM either. No consumer does.
Liberty.
This one looks interesting. A couple of the pages on Toms' site were mangled (bad HTML and picky NS 4) but I got the gist of it. I went to the Shuttle site to see more, but they showed only less. Now to figure out where to get one.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
If I took the screen and keyboard off my laptop, removed the battery and the built in speakers it would be barely larger than a cell phone. The form factor of the harddrive and the bay for the cdrom are what would make the remainder boxy.
All I'm saying is that a core pc could be made as something little larger than a dongle on the powercord that connects to it.
Offtopic=1, Troll=2, Insightful=5, Informative=1, Overrated=3, Total=12.
So you're saying that unlike French or Spanish, which have a restrictive license, English is an open source language, which anyone can extend.
The source code is available in various forms (online, book form etc.) In fact, the design of the language makes it hard to hide the source code, although the postmodernists have had some success with their obfuscation project.