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Qube2 Release
Harris
Vaegan-Lloyd writes "Cobalt networks have just
released the Qube2, with a whole lot of new features to
make everyone's lives easier, so why would you want a
netwinder now huh? New features are modem control, scheduled
backup to remote servers, DHCP server, better email alias
handling & better mailing lists and too much to type here..
Hardware is now 2 ethernet ports, a serial card and a new
250Mhz mips chip (Qunatum Effects Dynamic.). And a new
power connector to replace the old one that kept falling
out! Yay! ;). " An anonymous reader also sent us a link
to a review
of this new toy.
here it is
r eviews/990118qube2.htm
http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayTC.pl?/
*I* would want a netwinder because I can actually hook up a monitor and keyboard and use it.
I think Rob is having problems typing question marks. Today /. staff) has typed "'" instead of "?"
he (I think him, not another
twice. Either that or it's some sort of software problem - the cgi maybe?
Besides that, the Netwinder is tiny, wich means you can make it portable (a few people have made wearables from netwinders) or just use the extra desk space for something else. It also has builtin NTSC video in/out which would make it good for multimedia (maybe a real video server?)
they serve two diferent purposes... the netwinder is more of a desktop network comupter-type dealie, while the qube is a true-blue (pardon the pun) server... wht would be cool is a bunch of netwinder clients served by a qube...
j deadbird (at work)
How about a qube workstation? Being so little, It'll fit about anywhere in my cube.
8) -- Gee, A real Dilbert.
Have the Cobalt engineers released their extensions/modifications to Linux kernel and utilities, per the GPL? Can I download the software to turn my machine into a Qube?
It's too bad that Cobalt charges so much for one of these beasts -- A comparable Celeron 300A+ machine runs for about half the price with beefier performance/specs. That means you're paying a real premium for convenience of setup which no self respecting Linux guru is willing to do.
..? What it comes down to is the average joe is _not_ going to buy one of these things, and the average geek is _not_ going to buy one either. Who does that leave? Very small niche market.
Cobalt must be working with some pretty slim sales margins in order to move these units. It seems like they would have done much better by using more off the shelf components to drive the costs down. Re-inventing the wheel sure is fun sometimes, but the bottom line is, the cheaper you build this thing, the more sales you're going to have.
I have to hand it to Corel and Cobalt though for making nifty little machines. The problem is, we've watched a lot of cool hardware come and go over the years -- remember the NeXT, BeBox, Amiga, Atari ST, Go Book
Best of luck guys, I think it's a cool idea but you've got a long, uphill battle.
So this is about $1000, what about their Cobalt RaQ and the NetWinder. And speaking of price could you make a cheapo computer/server fo less (Of course you wouldn't have a fancy blue case or cube)
The Cube may be nice if you are satisfied with
the hardware inside. But if you want to
use the PCI slot you will loose warranty. no
joke. applause to the people of cobalt, who
add an pci slot to there machines, but make
it unable to use by voiding my waranty if
i use it.
And then: The cube uses a highly propietary
patches 2.0.34 kernel, which does not support
any uptodate hardware - like PCI isdn adapters.
I can not see any effort by cobalt to put
back the patches into the normal kernel
tree. Not even in the lastest developer kernels
is any support for the cobalt cube.
We had one cube here for examination, and gave
it back to the dealer because of the above
reasons. and because of this, i would never
buy a cube again. sorry cobalt, but this way
you loose.
Posted by warp-nine:
Do they sell separate casings?
I don't need the stuff inside,
but that Cube case is so cool...
I don't find it that bad. You can stick an entire recovery filesystem in flash and run completely from flash while you fix your problem. Or, as I do here, simply NFS-mount your root file system from somewhere else. You can of course also load your kernel remotely via tftp. And, a third option is to use a Syquest or Iomega parallel port drive. I use a Syquest EZ-Flyer 230 here and it works nicely. I find all of these solutions more powerful and flexible than your traditional floppy solution. On a traditional x86 box you don't have built-in support for tftp and dhcp and such right in the firmware. You have to construct a floppy with the right magic to revive a system. With a Netwinder you can plug it into a ethernet, turn it on and you are set even if your HD has been completely blown away.
-Rasmus
What kind of MIPS machine do you have?
...the CMYB or RBGA color for cobalt blue? i just need to know :)
This was a thing to help Jon, but it screws up links. I've told Rob about it.
shouldnt the icon for this article be the "bolt" for hardware stories instead of tux, the linux penguin? just something tp chew on. :)
--
Well, on my keyboard ` is a good 9 inches away from ?. Even Harry Knowles couldn't splodge the keys that bad!
fish and pipes
> A comparable Celeron 300A machine runs for about half the price with beefier performance/specs.
..?
Let's split this into two parts.
Performance:
I have to assume you mean CPU specs. Having run very I/O intensive applications on both PC hardware (dual PII 450) and a RaQ, I'd pick the Qube or RaQ for such applications.
You see, a PC simply does NOT have the I/O throughput necessary for a lot of today's applications. A PC can't keep up in many respects. I set up BigBrother to watch all of the workstations at our site, and it drove a PII 266 to a load average of 27. CPU, disk, memory, and network performance were fine. The internal I/O was overloaded. I can set that same system up with TWO instances on a RaQ and drive the load up to a mere 1.7 - 2.0.
Apples to apples:
Are you putting that Celeron into a rack mounted case? The cheapest I can find for a TWO rack unit high box is $550 for just the case. A Cobalt RaQ fits in ONE rack unit. How about into a 7.25" cube? That's darn small. Real estate is at a premium in most offices, that's one reason many folks work in cubes.
The Cobalt systems do not require a monitor, kb, etc, to be configured, maintained, etc. PCs do. BIG plus both in the modern datacenter and on the workgroup table.
> That means you're paying a real premium for convenience of setup which no self respecting
> Linux guru is willing to do.
1, You're not paying very much at all for what you get.
2. They're not aimed at linux gurus.
3. I'm a professional UNIX sysadmin, and I LOVE the convenience of setup. I'm sorry, but I don't have a lot of free time at work, and anything that makes my life easier is cool by me.
> remember the NeXT, BeBox, Amiga, Atari ST, Go Book
All too well. I'm a former NeXT admin. However, these systems ran proprietary operating systems. The Cobalt systems run Linux. Do you want a copy of the kernel source for a Cobalt system? Snag it from their FTP site.
All in all, I understand your points, but I have to disagree.
Reagen Ward
with these things simply running linux is there a way to get the software only so that any server running linux could be managed as a qube?
- MbM
- MbM
Can I get these things to talk to Oracle via PHP or mod_perl? I'd love to have that kind of nice setup. Has someone make opensource Oracle db libs? Or am I going down the wrong road here?
the Qube is NOT for self-respecting Linux gurus, it's for offices that want a hassle-free server! there are a lot more of the latter than of the former
I also had a raq and qube to test them.
It works just fine if you can rely on the
generic conf. But on some special demands
it looses.
But hey! Consider the price!
Is this product being sold to "self respecting Linux gurus" or is it being sold to small businesses that can't afford computer nerds?
I would guess there's a huge market for the latter -- in alot of companies the "system admin" is also the receptionist just cuz they use MS Word the most. They don't care that it runs linux, they want Internet.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
So does anyone know easy/hard it is to turn one of these things into a firewall?
I would love to beable to easily configure a Qube or a Netwinder as firewall solution.