NSLU2 Now More Useful

NSLUG writes "The WRT54G's not the only hackable kid on the block. Linksys has a new device out. The NSLU2 is a tiny network storage device running Linux and it's been hacked to add SSH, NFS, an iTunes server, etc. Tom's Hardware is running a series of articles on how to hack the NSLU2. The first article is here and the second is here. Check out this page for details on getting into the box."

Comments

antivirus anyone?

[241comp]

How about someone installing ClamAV on this puppy? Have it auto-scan the HD every so often and keep your NAS nice and virus-clean!

STABILITY

[interiot]

There are several important differences between a little system like this and an old computer:

• low power... makes the box silent, and the power-supply is simpler/cooler and likely to have a longer life
• simpler software... unlike an old box that potentially has a ton of different things running on it, this has a smaller set of very stable software that's likely to continue working forever
• easy backup/restore... the ROM image is 16MB, so it's something you can put a copy on all of your computers, and is trivial to restore. Whereas if your random machine lost its installation, how long would it take to do a re-install?
• it's small and cheap... yes, spare computers are cheaper, but whereas it's feasible to maintain and store 25 NSLU2's in my computer room, the same is not true of spare boxes... it'd be too noisy and much less stable.

Where we're going with this is having separate hardware to do each little network task. Since they're all running on separate CPU's, if one of them does die, the other ones will be fine, and will likely continue running for a long time.

• audio output/video playback (one per room)
• firewall/NAT/WiFi
• DMZ services
  • apache
  • sendmail
• network attached storage
• backup/restore
• X10 network interface
• ...

These are things you simply want to always work, and don't want to screw around too much.

It will happen a lot sooner than that

[britneys 9th husband]

Some Slashdot history (thanks to $$$$$exyGal for the informative journal entry...

Post #1,000,000 on Jun 15, ???? http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=6038&cid=10000 00
Post #2,000,000 on Mar 1, ???? http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=16359&cid=2000 000
Post #3,000,000 on Feb 13, ???? http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=27908&cid=3000 000
Post #4,000,000 on Aug 2, 2001 http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=37241&cid= 4000000
Post #5,000,000 on Jan 2, 2002 http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=49501&cid=5000 000
Post #6,000,000 on May 20, 2003 http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=64871&cid=6000 000
Post #7,000,000 on Sep 18, 2003 http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=79101&cid=7000 000
Post #8,000,000 on Jan 16, 2004 http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=930 44&cid=8000000
Post #9,000,000 on Apr 28, 2004 http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=105698 &cid=9000000
Post #10,000,000 on Aug 18, 2004 http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=118 344&cid=10000000

Unfortunately, I couldn't tell what year the first three were posted, but from 4 million to 10 million, you can see the number of days it takes to post 1,000,000 comments:

4 million to 5 million: 153 days
5 million to 6 million: 138 days
6 million to 7 million: 121 days
7 million to 8 million: 120 days
8 million to 9 million: 102 days
9 million to 10 million: 112 days

First observation: Comment posting is slowing down on Slashdot!!! Slashdot is dying!!! Netcraft confirms it!!! OMGWTFBBQ!!!

(end troll mode)

Second observation: At the current rate of posting, it will take us 3 years to post 10 million more comments, or about 27 years to get to 100 million. So you can reschedule the celebration from 2525 to 2031, if not sooner.