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New $149 NetBSD Single Board Computer Port
An Anonymous NetBSD User writes "NetBSD now supports a new ARM board, the Technologic Systems TS-7200. The TS-7200 is a low cost ($149!) mass produced embedded single board computer that runs on less than 2 watts of power."
Makes me want to build a new firewall/ssh server. Now what interesting thing to mount it in...
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
Is Here
Keep It Real, Lameness Filter(TM)
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be the Amazing Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save *BSD at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
TS-7200 Single Board Computer 200 MHz ARM processor for Linux ARM9 processor with MMU 32 MB SDRAM 8 MB flash drive (16 MB optional) 10/100 Ethernet Compact Flash 2 USB host ports 2 COM ports 20 DIO PC/104 expansion bus Optional A/D and RS-485 Optional 802.11b WiFi
I've recently been looking at small / quiet form factor boards from places like Mini-ITX - I'm embedding an X terminal into my glass topped dining room table.
I've had it with desktops; time for the X table top.
The computer itself seems like a steal for the specs they're claiming but their prices on CF flash are more than a little silly. You can get Sandisk Ultra II 512MB for $60 from any online meta-retailer and these guys are offering an unknown 512MB CF card for $145.
I've seen this kind of thing from several of these kinds of suppliers and I don't quite get it. They don't seem to realize that things like flash are fully commoditized and are still thinking they can get away with a 100% markup...
Oh well, if they can actually sell CF at those prices, then they deserve the money. Kudos for such a sweet, low power, inexpensive computer either way.
Regards,
Ross
it does give us more choice, but not too significant.
... facts are facts. ;)
FreeBSD:
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (Jun 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (Jun 2004)
"[FreeBSD] has secured a strong foothold with the hosting community and continues to grow, gaining over a million hostnames and half a million active sites since July 2003."
What's New in the FreeBSD Network Stack (Sep 2004)
"FreeBSD can now route 1Mpps on a 2.8GHz Xeon whilst Linux can't do much more than 100kpps."
NetBSD:
NetBSD sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (May 2004)
NetBSD again sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (30 Sep 2004)
OpenBSD:
OpenBSD Widens Its Scope (Nov 2004)
Review: OpenBSD 3.6 shows steady improvement (Nov 2004)
*BSD in general:
..and last but not least, we have the cutest mascot as well - undisputedly. ;)
Deep study: The world's safest computing environment (Nov 2004)
"The world's safest and most secure 24/7 online computing environment - operating system plus applications - is proving to be the Open Source platform of BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) and the Mac OS X based on Darwin."
--
Being able to read *other people's* source code is a nice thing, not a 'fundamental freedom'.
This looks like a nice SBC, but I am really happy with my little Soekris'. With case, the 4501 is cheaper than this ARM board (the board alone is more expensive) and has three ethernet interfaces.
Comparable to VIA's Eden-N at 2.5w at half the size.
I'm pretty sure NetBSD has already got an x86 port too...
An extra $50 can buy a lot more technology elsewhere.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
[ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]
When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.
Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.
FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.
It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.
So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.
Discussion
I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.
From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.
There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.
Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.
Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?
Shouts
To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.
To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. It
HOLY SHIT! This post BLOWS A FUCKING WHEEL off *BSD's rickety charnel wagon. I'm going to read it again, to see if it has the same impact the second time round...().. FUCKING HELL IT DOES. How can any BSD fork honestly continue after these earth shattering revelations? Stop all the clocks, and STOP THE DOG barking with its juicy bone. *BSD's shiny new Pointiac has just been shown to be a tottering house of cards...cards with dynamite attached, and Mike Smith has just pressed the detonator marked "Double Danger".
...()...YES... I read it. It's fantastical! Christ I love this post. POST IT MORE. kthnx.
This post is a brilliant swipe at those who think they're in the know, but aren't. It destroys them, dissects them like a master scientist dissecting some kids kidney against their parents wishes, rips apart their ego driven pursuit of superiority. I love the tone - it logically, coherently kicks ass in the most awesomely devastating way possible. How come there are no news stories about this post, it deserves a front page all to itself.
Is there some conspiracy to try and silence this lone voice of terrible reason? I think so, and it is clear what is to be done. Post this again and again, anonymous coward, so we can for a moment be transported back to the beautifully clear and precisely logical world of super-coherence that this post conjures up every time
is this quite similar to the hardware that runs in the Linksys WRT54G linux based router?
Would be nice to be able to run netbsd on it.
In yet another footnote to BSD's and the Bay State clan's tragic history, the eldest sister of the late President John F. Kennedy was lobotomized at age 23 when doctors advised her father that it would help his daughter and calm her hard to handle mood swings. Joseph Kennedy had feared her mental retardation would cloud his political dreams for his sons.
"Rosemary was a woman, and there was a dread fear of pregnancy, disease and disgrace," author Laurence Leamer wrote in an unauthorized Kennedy biography called The Kennedy Women: The Saga of an American Family. Mr. Leamer soon followed-up with his Pulitzer nominated Rose Kennedy's BSD Kernel Secrets.
In a statement released after her death, the Kennedy family said, "From her earliest years, her mental retardation was a continuing inspiration to each of us, and a powerful source of our family's commitment to do all we can to help all persons with disabilities live full and productive lives. Millions of people of all ages have greater hope today because of Rosemary. In no small part the BSD operating system is a direct result of her occupational therapy."
The third child of Rose and Joseph Kennedy was born in Boston Sept. 13, 1918. Despite brain damage, before her lobotomy she filled diaries with fanciful tales of tea parties, dress fittings, travels abroad and a White House visit. She started development of the BSD kernel during those early years. Even after her lobotomy she continued work on the BSD kernel, albeit at a more relaxed pace.
Because of Rosemary Kennedy's condition, her younger sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, became an activist in the field of mental retardation. Shriver later founded the Special Olympics for mentally disabled athletes. In 1984, she took over her sister's care after their mother had a stroke. Thanks to a generous endowment from the Kennedy fortunes, Rosemary was installed as head of Berkeley's CSRG where Rosemary continued to pursue her dream of a free BSD kernel.
While Rosemary Kennedy was kept out of the public eye for more than 40 years, her retardation became public in 1960 just after her big brother was elected president. Although a low point in her life, she tirelessly continued to labor after her vision of a free BSD operating system. Rosemary's efforts were subsequently rewarded with the release of 386BSD, the forerunner to FreeBSD.
Shortly thereafter, Rosemary would go on to head-up the FreeBSD project as its director and lead architect. To this day FreeBSD is often jokingly referred to by insiders as "Rosemary's Baby". Indeed from this inside joke emerged "Chucky" the cartoon devil which continues to serve as FreeBSD's mascot.
Rosemary lived most of her life in a Jefferson, Wis., institution, the St. Coletta School for Exceptional Children. In her memory, St. Coletta's has started an in-residence scholarship program for other FreeBSD developers.
I need to buy a toaster!
Here are some ARM based boards to compare:
Microcontrollershop.com
Here is a similar Atmel board but this is only 8 bit and $153. Atmel Ethernut Board
8MB or 16MB flash with 32MB ram on a 32 bit processor is a good deal in the world of small low powr computers. (but still expensive compared to x86 desktop)
Good story; this is what I like to see from Slashdot is links to interesting products.
"Lack of technical competence coupled with the arrogance of power, as usual, leads to no good end."
we have to realize one simple fundamental fact:
Come to terms with this fact, and you're home free.
Once you get past the fact that *BSD is fragmented between a myriad of incompatible kernels, there is the historical record of failure and of failed operating systems. *BSD experienced moderate success about 15 years ago in academic circles. Since then it has been in steady decline. We all know *BSD keeps losing market share but why? Is it the problematic personalities of many of the key players? Or is it larger than their troubled personae?
The record is clear on one thing: no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate *BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead. As the situation grows more desperate for the adherents of this doomed OS, the sorrow takes hold. An unremitting gloom hangs like a death shroud over a once hopeful *BSD community. The hope is gone; a mournful nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for *BSD.
If you want to go cheaper, got fo an NSLU from Linksys (http://nslu2-linuxorg). It's a 100 dollar ARM board w/ Ethernet, and two USB ports. It comes running Linux, but there has been some work with getting NetBSD running on it according to the mailing lists. It's a 233MHz ARM, 32MB RAM, 8MB Flash. It also has 1 1/2 serial port which you can solder on with little effort. The 1/2 serial port is only pinned out for an RX, no way to transmit with it, so it's kinda useless in that regard.
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I have to wonder what basis you have in assuming Technologic will "make damn sure that NetBSD works flawlessly".
I _hope_ they do a good job but my experience with TS-Linux tells me not to be surprised if they don't.
This SBC looks really great for a project I might be taking up, but there is one problem.
I need it to be able to withstand operating temperatures as low as -40C, since it will be outside in the winter (and later this week, it will be -38C here, so it really does need to handle -40C).
I suppose some sort of heater in the enclosure would be one way to deal with it, but I'd love to know if this board or a similar one could handle the temps without any extra effort.
I have to ask, how much traffic are you firewalling with the 266 chip?
;-)
and of course, given much thought into selling your own brand of firewalls?
It's getting to the point where we shouldn't hear about the architectures NetBSD supports, but rather, the ones it doesn't. ;)
ROMANES EUNT DOMUS
Looks like the Via motherboards use around 10 watts watts because of all the heavy video stuff on them (they are intended for media centers etc). On the other hand the ARM chip has no floating point processor. I've been looking for a small, low-powered board that can run an Ogg Vorbis encoder, which uses lots of floating point. Nothing looks attractive yet.
Once you get past the fact that *BSD is fragmented between a myriad of incompatible kernels, there is the historical record of failure and of failed operating systems. *BSD experienced moderate success about 15 years ago in academic circles. Since then it has been in steady decline. We all know *BSD keeps losing market share but why? Is it the problematic personalities of many of the key players? Or is it larger than their troubled personae?
The record is clear on one thing: no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate *BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead. As the situation grows more desperate for the adherents of this doomed OS, the sorrow takes hold. An unremitting gloom hangs like a death shroud over a once hopeful *BSD community. The hope is gone; a mournful nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for *BSD.
For $30 on their site it says you can get an "extended temp range" which is -40 to +85 C. That's -40 to +185 for you non-metric people.
Designing a good solar power system is not a trivial task. Obviously you need panels, but there are polycrystalline and mono, the mono being nicer but more expensive. There's the weatherproofing: you need a strong covering that is quite transparent over a wide colour range - even UV, and something that will not decay over time, nor allow water to bead. The support mechanism needs to be strong, and provide maintenance access. Photovoltaic cells are much more efficient when cold, so ventilation is important, but with ventilation comes weatherproofing woes.
Next problem is that the sun moves across the sky, and for maximum efficiency you want to track it, which can be done in one of several ways. Many people use a motor to tilt the panel, on at least one axis, though two is better. This of course requires some power, some mechanical and electrical systems which cost more and are subject to breakdown, and some controlling logic. Another method is to use pseudo-mirrors (I say pseudo because they only have to reflect the light energy, not the image, so there are different priorities in design of the mirrors) made of polished metal. These have the advantage of concentrating more light to the cells, but this advantage can be wasted if you reach the light saturation point of the photovoltaics, or heat them up too much. These mirrors require mechanical and electrical systems, but are also subject to interference or even damage from wind.
Then there's the charging system: photovoltaics rarely put out the voltage you want, and that voltage varies with the temperature and the amount of light hitting them. Pretty much every electricity consuming device has its own expectations in terms of voltage and current, so there needs to be some power electronics involved, along with controlling logic. And as soon as you get to some decent current, these become large and expensive pieces of silicon.
Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of photovoltaics, I am just trying to show that, if you want to do it the right way, there's a lot more involved than putting a PV cell on your roof and connecting it to the power leads of your embedded system. I learned all this when I was building rooftop server for a wifi mesh networking system using MIT's roofnet software. The problem is, not much funding was available.
If you are in the market for something like this, try a Gumstix (www.gumstix.com). They are 200/400 mhz xscale boards with 4 meg of flash and 64 meg of ram, running 2.6 linux kernel. They have 2 serial ports, usb client, bluetooth, MMC card, GPIO. I believe the new versions with ethernet and CF slots are getting close to competion. They are also TINY and consume around 100mw going full blast (at least that is my experience). They also provide a toolchain and everything needed to build your own kernel. Very cool.
Check them out!
Alright, what you need is a plastic case, like a millitary ammo case. You drill a few small holes for the cables (don't expose the ports!) and some silicone putty to seal it up. Before you deploy this, make sure it's air-tight by removing the board and heating it in the oven for a few minutes and seeing if the expansion of gas is contained (it will 'pop' when you open it; if it doesn't, try again. Put the board back in, toss a few big packs of silica gel in there (you can buy milspec silica packets that are the size of an iPod) an seal it up.
Don't use moving parts, and keep the thing from vibration and direct sunlight when it's out in the field.
Oh yeah, use a silicone lube on the rubber gasket that lines the opening, it will last a LONG time that way.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails