[gentoo-amd64] Machine recommendations?

[gentoo-amd64] Machine recommendations?

[Duncan]

Dear interlist...
=:^)

I'm currently considering two upgrades and am looking for gentoo amd64 
friendly recommendations.

1) Netbook/chromebook or possibly amd64-based tablet (presumably shipped 
with android, I'm not interested in anything MS-based, even if I plan to 
immediately wipe it and install gentoo).

Requirements:

Relatively cheap and small, easy to install gentoo on, amd64, not too 
flimsy, hopefully upgradeable SATA drive, HD-standard 1366x720 or better 
yet full-hd 1920x1080 strongly preferred, minimum 1024x600 (upgrading 
from).  While I used ethernet connectivity nearly exclusively on the old 
netbook, I expect I'll use wifi more on the upgrade, but strongly prefer 
wired ethernet for home use as well.

Need not be a performance powerhouse as I'll be building on my main 
bulldozer-1 (fx6100) based workstation and transferring it over, and 8-12 
inch display is good, larger would cut down on portability too much.

I currently have a generation 1.5 Acer Aspire One netbook (aoa150l, IIRC), 
32-bit-only x86 (32-bit atom n270), that I've actually been quite pleased 
with in general including performance, portability and durability.  Given 
that it's a single-core with hyperthreading, clocked at 1.6 GHz IIRC, and 
I've been happy with its performance, performance really /isn't/ a big 
issue.  This was one of the first netbooks to actually have a standard 
SATA connector and thus be drive-upgradeable.

My biggest issue with it has been that it's 32-bit only, and while I 
installed a 32-bit chroot on my main machine and do the building there, 
the fact that it's 32-bit only means I have to build stuff twice if I'm 
upgrading it, with the practical result being that gets put off and it 
often goes a year or more between upgrades[1], meaning they tend to be 
really hairy when I actually do them.  A newer amd64-based system (Intel 
or AMD) would eliminate this issue.

The second issue is its relatively small 9" 1024x600 resolution, and of 
course its now dated db-15 analog vga external graphics connector.  While 
I want to keep a reasonably small footprint and am not too concerned 
about display size, the bezel was big enough I expect I'll get a larger 
display on an upgrade, even with the same overall size, so that's not a 
big issue.  The bigger issue is that I would like at least HD-standard 
1366x720 resolution.

The third and now more urgent issue is that... someone recently 
"borrowed" it, and I don't expect to get it back... tho actually I'm not 
put out too much about it as I really wanted an excuse to upgrade it 
anyway, and this is it. =:^)  Tho it's still not a /huge/ issue... I can 
do without just fine, it was just nice to have.

Since the chromebooks are all supposed to have developer mode and support 
installing something else, an amd64-based (well, 64-bit atom-based, 
probably) chromebook would seem a reasonably cost-effective upgrade.

But:  I don't know the various complications of the various models, 
whether they all have native Linux drivers or if some are still blobs, 
etc, and the gentoo wiki writeup on the higher-end chromebook pixel, the 
only chromebook writeup I found on the gentoo wiki, made me decide I 
definitely needed more info (tho I'd have been unlikely to go with a high-
end one like that anyway, as I don't need it), and preferably 
recommendations from others who are happy with their gentoo installations 
on amd64-based chromebooks or similar.

Then of course there's the amd64-based tablets out now.  I'm guessing 
these to be rather more problematic than chromebooks in terms of swtiching 
out to gentoo, blob-drivers, existing Linux app compatibility, etc.  
Plus, upgradable sata-standard storage, etc, less likely.  A tablet would 
be very nice and I could use a bluetooth or USB-based external keyboard 
if I didn't want to deal with a touchscreen based soft-keyboard, but I'm 
uninterested if I can't put gentoo on it without issue or if it requires 
blob-drivers, and hardware upgradeability is likely to be a problem as 
well, so I'm still skeptical on how practical it'd be.

So amd64/atom based chromebook with good gentoo install potential looks 
to be my best bet, ATM.  Just... which one?


2) For similar amd64-build-once-use-everywhere reasons, amd64-based 
router upgrade.

Requirements:  amd64-based (or what's the point?), minimum 4-port 
Ethernet required, 5-6 preferred, wifi nice but optional.  SATA internal 
near-required (could be USB I guess), sata/usb3 for external storage nice.

Probably barebones or mobo+ base to build on, altho cheap used meeting 
other requirements is an option.  Target of 5 independent Gigabit 
Ethernet ports.  Quad-port Gigabit Ethernet PCIE expansion cards are 
available, so a free PCIE slot plus 1-2 ports builtin is the likely 
solution there.  I'm figuring a cheap mobo/cpu combo, downclocked for 
passive or slow/silent-fan cooling, with a silent/passive power supply is 
an option, tho not necessarily the cheapest one especially if I can find 
something used.

Current router is an old Linksys wrt54gl, running openwrt.  It's doing 
fine, but needs a firmware update and both the 100 Mbit fast-ethernet WAN 
port and a/b/g-only wifi (which I actually have configured off in openwrt) 
are dated.

What I really appreciate about the wrt54g with openwrt is that the 
ethernet ports and wifi are all separately configurable/firewallable, tho 
I've not made as much use of that as I'd like to, because so much of the 
configuration is openwrt specific and the knowledge doesn't transfer as 
seamlessly between it and my gentoo machines as I'd like it to, so I've 
not bothered to learn as much about it and customize it as much as I 
would have were it gentoo.

The biggest issue here is again the fact that it's not amd64-based making 
updates inconvenient and thus less frequent than I'd prefer.  OpenWRT is 
great firmware, but native gentoo would be /so/ much easier to work with, 
and native amd64 gentoo would be ideal, since packages could be easily 
built on my main machine and at least some of them built only once for 
all three machines, workstation/netbook/router.

Cost-wise, the quad-port gigabit ethernet card alone starts at about (US) 
$80 on pricewatch.com, a wireless ac/n USB from $30 and PCIE (includes 
bluetooth) from $56, if I decide to add wireless, and the base computer 
seems to run $200-300 in various configurations, so we're looking at 
$300-400, tilting toward $400 unless I get a good deal.

That's certainly steep compared to off-the-shelf routers, but it's amd64 
and much more flexible than off-the-shelf routers.  Further component 
upgrades should be much cheaper, as well.

But I strongly suspect I can bring that down to $300-ish if I find a good 
$200 or under used computer as a base.  The biggest problem is finding a 
good one that is known to have the required open PCIE slot for the quad-
port gigabit Ethernet...

And $300 is in the range of the top end off-the-shelf routers, which this 
would compare to in general, probably with slower wifi but much more 
flexible in general...

FWIW, I've seen noises of an off-the-shelf amd64-based router in the 
works.  Target market would be Linux/tech enthusiasts.  And I see 
existing embedded options, but the price is sky high, in the 
thousands...  But I don't see existing anything, for anything even 
/close/ to reasonable, say a nice and round $500 or under.  At $500 I'd 
likely not actually get it, but at least it'd be in the "OK, I can at 
least dream about it" range.

But someone else here may know about something I've missed.  Asking can't 
hurt! =:^)

---
[1] Year between upgrades: Security was specifically not a big issue as I 
deliberately kept in mind that I might lose it and kept the personal 
stuff off it.  Also, a bit ironically given the netbook moniker, I didn't 
actually use the wifi on it much, mostly using it unconnected on the road 
and wired ethernet connected behind my router at home.  Without security 
being an issue, keeping current on updates wasn't a big issue either, as 
long as it continued to work.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Machine recommendations?

[Benny Pedersen]

Duncan skrev den 2015-03-11 23:44:

> But someone else here may know about something I've missed.  Asking 
> can't
> hurt! =:^)

raspberry-pi 2 ?

got one here, i plan to make a microsd that boots it with gentoo, sadly 
the firmware loader is not opensource, imho will be more sense it was in 
kernel.org then precompiled problem to boot that beast, if anything 
fails with that small computer one can just install windows 10 on a 
microsd, cheap and lots of fun with it, here i just currently use 
openelec (pi 2 optimized)

it streams all content from danish tv in full hd with out anyproblem in 
the kloned xbmc

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Duncan]

Benny Pedersen posted on Thu, 12 Mar 2015 00:03:34 +0100 as excerpted:

> Duncan skrev den 2015-03-11 23:44:
> 
>> But someone else here may know about something I've missed.  Asking
>> can't hurt! =:^)
> 
> raspberry-pi 2 ?

That fails the amd64-based-so-I-can-build-once-deploy-several 
requirement. =:^(  Which was pretty much the whole point of the thread 
for me, since I already know from experience, that even 32-bit x86-only 
doesn't get kept updated here, because it's too much hassle to 90% 
duplicate the same builds for it as for the main amd64 machine.

IOW, I already tried that solution and it won't work, for me. =:^(


But, thanks for the reply anyway.  It's very possible it'll help someone 
else with a somewhat different problem, think outside the x86/amd64 box 
far enough to have a cheap and hopefully effective for his problem, fix. 
=:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Machine recommendations?

[Thanasis]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130759

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113364

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Duncan]

Thanasis posted on Fri, 13 Mar 2015 22:30:20 +0200 as excerpted:

> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130759
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113364

Thank you very /very/ much!  That's very close to perfect for the 
router... and googling I see others already using it for such. =:^)

I haven't worked with mini-ITX before and thus didn't realize how close 
it is to what I was looking for.  And with what's included...  Embedded 
graphics, not really necessary on the router but it'll make working with 
it far easier, and embedded audio, should let me play media on the router 
and shut the main machine off.  And there's the single 16x PCIE slot @ 4x 
speed, perfect for the quad-port Ethernet card.

The quad-core, 2+ GHz CPU @ 25W power dissipation should be plenty of 
power, even for playing media (one review said 80% usage of all four 
cores for 1080p, however, which it'll handle, but realistically not 4k, 
when I eventually even have a display that'll do 4k), and it should de-
clock and power-down for routing-only.  And that dissipation, quite fans 
shouldn't be a big issue.

And the suggested bundles, while not exactly what I want, hint that 
$200-300 for the system, plus the $80 ethernet card, is a very reasonable 
budget.

I'm looking at cases and power-supplies now, since I have some idea what 
I'm going to install with them.  And now that the idea is beginning to 
come together, I can take a closer look at the available Ethernet cards, 
too, including checking drivers...

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Rich Freeman]

On Sat, Mar 14, 2015 at 7:43 AM, Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:
>
> The quad-core, 2+ GHz CPU @ 25W power dissipation should be plenty of
> power, even for playing media (one review said 80% usage of all four
> cores for 1080p, however, which it'll handle, but realistically not 4k,
> when I eventually even have a display that'll do 4k), and it should de-
> clock and power-down for routing-only.  And that dissipation, quite fans
> shouldn't be a big issue.
>

If you want to play HD video on an mini-ITX MB you're better off using
one designed for this.  I have an aging NVidia ION board that plays
1080p without a hitch as my mythtv frontend.  However, you are limited
to codecs that are supported by hardware decoding - I doubt I'd get
full HD on software decoding.

This is a router, right?

When you want a cheap tiny board that consumes 10s of watts with an
external power supply and doesn't need a fan, you are going to have to
decide in advance what your priorities are.  It isn't like a $250
CPU+MB+RAM system with a 500W power supply that is a general purpose
computing device.

-- 
Rich

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Duncan]

Rich Freeman posted on Sat, 14 Mar 2015 08:10:07 -0400 as excerpted:

> On Sat, Mar 14, 2015 at 7:43 AM, Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:
>>
>> The quad-core, 2+ GHz CPU @ 25W power dissipation should be plenty of
>> power, even for playing media (one review said 80% usage of all four
>> cores for 1080p, however, which it'll handle, but realistically not 4k,
>> when I eventually even have a display that'll do 4k), and it should de-
>> clock and power-down for routing-only.  And that dissipation, quite
>> fans shouldn't be a big issue.
>>
>>
> If you want to play HD video on an mini-ITX MB you're better off using
> one designed for this.  I have an aging NVidia ION board that plays
> 1080p without a hitch as my mythtv frontend.  However, you are limited
> to codecs that are supported by hardware decoding - I doubt I'd get full
> HD on software decoding.
> 
> This is a router, right?
> 
> When you want a cheap tiny board that consumes 10s of watts with an
> external power supply and doesn't need a fan, you are going to have to
> decide in advance what your priorities are.  It isn't like a $250
> CPU+MB+RAM system with a 500W power supply that is a general purpose
> computing device.


You are certainly correct for full-hd.

But one of the big threads I read about the am1 chipset and cpus was on a 
media-player-machine forum.  It seems unaccelerated full-hd is just 
beyond what it can do, such that it's viewable, but with obvious dropped-
frames, etc.  But accelerated using the built-in Radeon hd8xxx (whatever 
it was) graphics... it can actually do quite well.  

I was actually rather pleasantly surprised, as I hadn't even considered 
that use-case. =:^)

They did mention that full-hd youtube with the html5 player did have 
substantial dropouts, etc.  Switching it back to flash, which made better 
use of acceleration, apparently, was far better.

But of course I don't do flash as it's proprietary, tho I've definitely 
been enjoying the new default-html5 youtube in firefox on my main machine 
recently. =:^)

Anyway, now that the possibility has been opened to me, what I actually 
had in mind was for the demanding stuff when I'm actually watching it, 
continue to play that on the main machine.  But, for when I pull up those 
"12 hours of rain" things on minitube that are often (but not always) 
lower resolution or possibly periodically changing freeze-framed anyway, 
there's a very good chance I'll be able to play /those/ directly on the 
router, at least, shutting off the main machine for them.

And by the same token, I could put mpd on the router and control it via 
mpd-client of choice run either on the router directly or the main 
machine.  That's pure audio, no video, so it should play just fine on the 
router.  =:^)

Meanwhile, if it turns out none of that works after all, and certainly if 
I do the aggressive routing/firewalling/shaping management I want to be 
/able/ to[1], I don't expect to be playing anything on it at the same 
time as well.  But I don't expect to be doing that intense level of 
routing/shaping/firewalling /all/ the time, or even in the "immediate" 
future, so...

---
[1] Cox, my local cableco, is advertising "gigablast" speeds in the area, 
symmetric 1 gigabit both up and down, for those willing to pay the 
upwards of $100/mo they're asking and lucky enough to be in the early 
rollout area.  I may or may not be, but even the 150 mbit speeds 
available in most of the rest of the valley needs a gigabit-ethernet wan 
port, which my legacy setup doesn't have, and I want to at least be ready 
whether I get it or not, thus this whole project... which after all I've 
not actually spent anything but time on yet, tho it's looking very likely 
I will within days or weeks, now.
-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Thanasis]

On 03/14/2015 01:43 PM, Duncan wrote:
> Thanasis posted on Fri, 13 Mar 2015 22:30:20 +0200 as excerpted:
>
>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130759
>>
>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113364
>
> Thank you very /very/ much!  That's very close to perfect for the
> router... and googling I see others already using it for such. =:^)

Actually overkill for just a router's use.
You can even expect decent compilation times on it.

>
> I haven't worked with mini-ITX before and thus didn't realize how close
> it is to what I was looking for.  And with what's included...  Embedded
> graphics, not really necessary on the router but it'll make working with
> it far easier, and embedded audio, should let me play media on the router
> and shut the main machine off.

Yep, if you locate it next to your desk, then it makes a decent desktop too.

> And there's the single 16x PCIE slot @ 4x
> speed, perfect for the quad-port Ethernet card.
>
> The quad-core, 2+ GHz CPU @ 25W power dissipation should be plenty of
> power, even for playing media (one review said 80% usage of all four
> cores for 1080p, however, which it'll handle, but realistically not 4k,
> when I eventually even have a display that'll do 4k), and it should de-
> clock and power-down for routing-only.

I think you should ask others using it as router about what its 
practical mean power consumption is, when only doing a routing job.

> And that dissipation, quite fans
> shouldn't be a big issue.
>
> And the suggested bundles, while not exactly what I want, hint that
> $200-300 for the system, plus the $80 ethernet card, is a very reasonable
> budget.
>
> I'm looking at cases and power-supplies now,

If you don't care about the case's aesthetics and size, you could use a 
used medium sized standard ATX case, and an efficient power supply like:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151113

> since I have some idea what
> I'm going to install with them.  And now that the idea is beginning to
> come together, I can take a closer look at the available Ethernet cards,
> too, including checking drivers...
>

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Duncan]

Thanasis posted on Sat, 14 Mar 2015 14:35:47 +0200 as excerpted:

> I think you should ask others using it as router about what its
> practical mean power consumption is, when only doing a routing job.

Some of the guys in the media-player-machine thread I mentioned in my 
reply to rich0, have killawatt meters or the like.  Many were actually 
running on a 90W supply, with measured wattage topping out at about 50.

I rather suspect the quad-port NIC will double that, but certainly that 
250W that newegg was bundle-offering should cover it, and a 120W or so 
/might/, tho I'll definitely do more research on quad-port-NIC power-draw 
before I go much below 250.

I do like the size of that small case on newegg, and the card profile 
(another thing I was worried about that I checked, tho just with the one 
card so far) would fit, but it does have less ventilation than I'd like.  
It should certainly be "enough"... with fans... but it might be noisy.  
Passive would be nice, but that'll likely mean bigger/heavier/costlier.  
But a somewhat larger (relative to mITX anyway) case should be easy 
enough to stick a few larger/slower/near-silent fans in...

This is, however, one reason I tend to do my case shopping at frys.  For 
something like that, I like to be a bit more touchy/fealy before buying 
than inet purchases allow.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Thanasis]

On 03/15/2015 08:14 AM, Duncan wrote:
> I rather suspect the quad-port NIC will double that, but certainly that
> 250W that newegg was bundle-offering should cover it, and a 120W or so
> /might/, tho I'll definitely do more research on quad-port-NIC power-draw
> before I go much below 250.
>
I don't know which PSU you're talking about, but make sure it has good 
efficiency and is reliable.
IMHO it doesn't matter much if it's rated 120W or 450W, as long as it's 
efficient, ie 80 PLUS Gold Certified, or even better like Platinum (92+).

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Leonid Eremin]

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> I don't know which PSU you're talking about, but make sure it has good
> efficiency and is reliable.
> IMHO it doesn't matter much if it's rated 120W or 450W, as long as it's
> efficient, ie 80 PLUS Gold Certified, or even better like Platinum (92+).
>
> But here's 2 major cons:
1. high power PSUs are less effective at low power usage.
2. more expensive, after all.
I would not recommend PSU rated at significantly higher wattage.

For motherboard: I've got Tyan S3115GM2N-B with 2x gigabit NIC and atom
onboard, which serves as
home file server & internet gateway (1 port WAN, 1 for LAN & gigabit switch
after it).
It has low power consumption and managed through IPMI - I can power on/off
remotely and have remote
console, even can reinstall/recover OS remotely.
Why don't you look for something similar? Of course, if you don't have some
sophisticated routing rules
which requires >=4 NICs.

-- 
Leonid.

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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Thanasis]

On 03/15/2015 09:08 PM, Leonid Eremin wrote:

> On 03/14/2015 03:09 PM, Thanasis wrote:
>     I don't know which PSU you're talking about, but make sure it has
>     good efficiency and is reliable.
>     IMHO it doesn't matter much if it's rated 120W or 450W, as long as
>     it's efficient, ie 80 PLUS Gold Certified, or even better like
>     Platinum (92+).
>
> But here's 2 major cons:
> 1. high power PSUs are less effective at low power usage.

Maybe if consumption is less than 10% of the PSU's rating, ie less than 
30W for a 300W PSU.

> 2. more expensive, after all.

Not necessarily. Is $45 expensive for a 300W PSU like
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151113

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Duncan]

Thanasis posted on Sun, 15 Mar 2015 21:44:54 +0200 as excerpted:

> On 03/15/2015 09:08 PM, Leonid Eremin wrote:
>>
>> But here's 2 major cons [of high-power power-supplies]:
>> 1. high power PSUs are less effective at low power usage.
> 
> Maybe if consumption is less than 10% of the PSU's rating, ie less than
> 30W for a 300W PSU.

My ideal would be a reasonably low-power, passively cooled (no fans) 
power supply.  Low power because high power passive-cooling gets 
massively heavy and expensive.  Passively cooled as it's for a router to 
which among other things my VoIP phone adapter connects, which means it's 
going to be on all the time, and thus needs to be silent or nearly so, at 
least at low usage.

On my main machine both the CPU and PSU fans are heat controlled, the PSU 
fan automatically on its own, the CPU fan configured that way in the 
BIOS.  However, while the main CPU fan can actually stop if the temp is 
low enough (in the winter when I first turn on the machine, I get the 
warning buzz for a minute or so as the fan isn't on yet, until it warms 
up, and I have a minimum speed set below which I get a buzz as under 
normal operations it won't be going that slow), the PSU fans don't turn 
down low enough and can bother me if I leave the machine on, say playing 
rain sounds, when I'm trying to sleep.

Which is why I jumped at the idea of having the router play at least 
music-only and still-frame youtube, etc, in an earlier reply, once I saw 
it discussed on that media-player-machine forum.

At some point, I'll probably buy a new PSU for the main machine too, as 
the current one is massively overpowered for the job, but it's what I 
had. (This PSU originally powered my old dual-socket original-3-digit-
opteron machine, which I was at one point running with four spinning-rust 
disks in raid, etc, so it's 850 watt IIRC, while my kil-a-watt says the 
entire system including LED-based TV/monitors rarely tops 400 watt, 
meaning the computer itself should do fine with a 250-300 watt power 
supply, tho I've been going to kil-a-watt check it one of these days to 
see what it actually takes, and haven't yet.)  But meanwhile, if I'm just 
playing stuff like 12-hours-of-rain while I sleep, with the new amd64 
router, I might as well simply use it and turn off the main machine.

But since the router /is/ going to be on all the time, connecting the 
phone adapter if nothing else, I'll definitely want quiet, if not
/entirely/ passive, CPU /and/ PSU heat sink/fans.

For the side of the main machine, I did buy at frys some time ago a big 
8"/200mm fan, 750 RPM, IIRC 110 CFPM, that's close to silent.  Ideally I 
could put something like that in the side of the router to ensure 
reasonable circulation, and go entirely passive on the CPU cooler at 
least.  I know at 250 watt and so they have passively-cooled PSUs as 
well, but I've not looked into it /too/ deeply yet.  I want the thing up 
and running first, and plan on tweaking things like the PSU, if 
necessary, afterward.

But if I can find something reasonably cheap and near enough to silent, I 
might as well get it from the beginning.  Which (besides simply running 
out of time) is the reason I more or less just picked a reasonable case/
psu number and ran with it for that baseline cost estimate.

>> 2. more expensive, after all.
> 
> Not necessarily. Is $45 expensive for a 300W PSU like
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151113

Well, considering the one case with 250W PSU newegg was offering on 
bundle was $50, $45 for the PSU alone, at a decidedly run-of-the-mill 
300W, is indeed "expensive".

But two things to note about that particular PSU.

1) It's not standard ATX.  It's TFX12V, which since I'm looking at SFF 
(small form factor) cases, may be useful, depending on the case I get, 
but it's definitely NOT the standard power supply most people will be 
most familiar with.  (FWIW, I just looked it up and wikipedia's power 
supply unit (computer) page has a short mention/description of TFX12V 
under "Other form factors", while to the extent it's different, most of 
the page covers ATX.  TFX12V is described as common for small and low-
profile systems like mATX and FlexATX, and some of the smaller mITX 
cases, mITX being the board and cases I'm looking at, may standardize on 
it too.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_supply_unit_%28computer%
29#Other_form_factors

So it's /not/ a standard ATX power supply, likely accounting for at least 
part of the reason it's $45 for only a relatively low-power 300 watt, 
since TFX12V won't get the same manufacturing volume and thus discounts.

Non-ATX power-supply-cases is part of the additional research I'm doing, 
so when I saw the PSU photo, I immediately picked up on the non-ATX size 
and checked what it was, then looked that up, as I've not memorized the 
various abbreviations yet.

2) This PSU /does/ say "super low fan noise" in the specs, and the 
reviews seem to agree, tho the noise level in dB isn't actually 
quantified for comparison purposes.

I'd be a bit skeptical of the feature claim on its own without an actual 
comparable dB quantification, but the reviews do alleviate my skepticism 
somewhat.  That may be an additional reason for the price.

And of course it's gold-plus certified efficiency, with an 87% efficiency 
number claim.  Again, justifies a bit higher cost.

So all in all, while I've yet to do PSU comparisons and may not need to 
if I buy a case/psu combo, $45 doesn't sound unreasonable, given the 
three points above.  I'll have to keep this one in mind as I do my case/
psu shopping, as it may just fit the bill perfectly if I buy a case 
without bundled supply, that fits TFX12v, not ATX.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Thanasis]

On 03/16/2015 08:31 AM, Duncan wrote:
> Thanasis posted on Sun, 15 Mar 2015 21:44:54 +0200 as excerpted:
> 
>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151113
> 
> So it's /not/ a standard ATX power supply, 

If the case has enough space to accommodate it, then all you might have
to do is drill a hole or two for the fixing screws.

> 
> 2) This PSU /does/ say "super low fan noise" in the specs, and the 
> reviews seem to agree, tho the noise level in dB isn't actually 
> quantified for comparison purposes.
> 
> I'd be a bit skeptical of the feature claim on its own without an actual 
> comparable dB quantification, but the reviews do alleviate my skepticism 
> somewhat.  That may be an additional reason for the price.

Most probably this PSU is going to be totally silent for you. Why?
Take a closer look at the third one image, the small label near the
PSU's fan (rotate the image 180 degrees to read it):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151113

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Duncan]

Thanasis posted on Mon, 16 Mar 2015 22:37:50 +0200 as excerpted:

> On 03/16/2015 08:31 AM, Duncan wrote:
>> Thanasis posted on Sun, 15 Mar 2015 21:44:54 +0200 as excerpted:
>> 
>>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151113
>> 
>> So it's /not/ a standard ATX power supply,
> 
> If the case has enough space to accommodate it, then all you might have
> to do is drill a hole or two for the fixing screws.
> 
> 
>> 2) This PSU /does/ say "super low fan noise" in the specs, and the
>> reviews seem to agree, tho the noise level in dB isn't actually
>> quantified for comparison purposes.
>> 
>> I'd be a bit skeptical of the feature claim on its own without an
>> actual comparable dB quantification, but the reviews do alleviate my
>> skepticism somewhat.  That may be an additional reason for the price.
> 
> Most probably this PSU is going to be totally silent for you. Why? Take
> a closer look at the third one image, the small label near the PSU's fan
> (rotate the image 180 degrees to read it):
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151113

I see it now. Thanks, both of you.  =:^) (Someone else mailed me directly 
pointing that out as well.  Maybe they don't want their address posted 
publicly on the list and thus didn't post there, so I won't be specific.)


And someone else mailed, saying lucky me, they can still only get 1.5 
Mbit DSL.  FWIW, I'm actually on a much lower plan now, ~6 Mbit/768 Kbyte/
sec down, I think 1.5 Mbit up (I'm actually not sure on the upstream, but 
it's certainly slower).  I do use it for some higher quality youtube 
streams, and of course for larger sources tarball downloads, but not 
really for much else.  (Netflix, etc, the common modern high-bandwidth 
usage, is DRMed with, AFAIK, closed source decoding required, which makes 
it not an option, for me.)

But my theory has always been that in-home LANs really didn't really take 
off at 10 Mbit either -- it wasn't until 100 Mbit fast-ethernet that 
speeds were fast enough to really start doing more than limited stuff 
over the LAN instead of local storage or at least cache and sneakernet.  
I actually believe there's a breakover threshold somewhere between 10 Mbit 
and 100 Mbit, arguably near 50 Mbit or 64 Mbit (8 Mbyte), and that once 
access speeds exceed that, it becomes much less trouble to store things 
centrally (once in the home with 100 Mbit LANs, once on the net with 
50-100 Mbit plus WANs) and simply download on demand.

If that's the case, and I think it may well be so with me, usage will 
increase only somewhat as speeds go up between say half a megabit or even 
simply always-on 140 kbps ISDL, thru 30 Mbit and possibly up to near 64 
Mbit.  But somewhere around 64 Mbit, 8 Mbyte, I expect I'd reach a 
usability threshold and my usage would take a huge jump, much as it did 
when I left dialup and switched to always-on.

So I really haven't seen the need for more bandwidth, at the still 
significantly under 64 or 100 Mbit speeds previously on offer.  Yes, I 
use more bandwidth than I used to with my 608 kbps connection, but not /
that/ much more.  But were I to go gigablast or even the so-called 
ultimate plan, IIRC 150 Mbps, I expect things would change and I'd both 
consider it worth it, and try my best to avoid dropping below that 
threshold ever again, must as when I first got always-on DSL, there 
really was no going back to dialup.

With this router I've been thinking about for awhile and now actually 
plan to start procuring parts later this week after I do some more 
research over my coming days off, my own network should be ready for it, 
making it an option I can practically look at and probably eventually 
get, even if "eventually" ends up being another year or two or five...  
To date, I've not really considered it that much as I've known with the 
current router I couldn't make use of the over-threshold speed if I /did/ 
upgrade to it, I'd get some upgrade, but still be in the below-threshold 
doldrums where I'd not find it particularly useful.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Mark Knecht]

On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 8:11 PM, Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:
<SNIP>
(Netflix, etc, the common modern high-bandwidth
> usage, is DRMed with, AFAIK, closed source decoding required, which makes
> it not an option, for me.)
>

NetFlix now plays fine in Chrome, at least the unstable version. I use
no special flags
and get it directly from portage. No overlays, no license files. From
my POV it's as
open source as most other stuff but I haven't investigated that in any
depth. Yes, the
content is DRM'ed but with (I think) HTML5 support in a browser I no
longer need to
run a VM to watch movies. Just log in.

mark@c2RAID6 ~ $ eix -Ic chrome
[I] www-client/google-chrome (41.0.2272.89_p1@03/13/15): The web
browser from Google
[I] www-client/google-chrome-beta (42.0.2311.39_p1@03/13/15): The web
browser from Google
[I] www-client/google-chrome-unstable (43.0.2327.5_p1@03/13/15): The
web browser from Google
Found 3 matches.
mark@c2RAID6 ~ $

HTH,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Randy Barlow]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 03/17/2015 08:21 AM, Mark Knecht wrote:
> NetFlix now plays fine in Chrome, at least the unstable version. I
> use no special flags and get it directly from portage. No overlays,
> no license files. From my POV it's as open source as most other
> stuff but I haven't investigated that in any depth. Yes, the 
> content is DRM'ed but with (I think) HTML5 support in a browser I
> no longer need to run a VM to watch movies. Just log in.

It's important to note that Chrome is not open source (though it is
"open core", depending on your definition of "open"). Note that when
you emerge Chrome, no building occurs in Gentoo. The open core part of
Chrome is Chromium, and Chromium does not have the decryption module
to play Netflix.

This page explains Netflix playback a bit:

http://www.dash-player.com/blog/2015/02/the-status-of-mpeg-dash-today-and-why-youtube-and-netflix-use-it-in-html5/

Supposedly Firefox will be able to do it sometime soon, but it will
depend on a closed source extension that reportedly will be written by
Adobe ☹

I wish it were possible to watch Netflix using only Free Software.

- -- 
Randy Barlow
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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Mark Knecht]

Thanks for the clarifications Randy.

- Mark

On Tue, Mar 17, 2015 at 2:09 PM, Randy Barlow
<randy@electronsweatshop.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On 03/17/2015 08:21 AM, Mark Knecht wrote:
>> NetFlix now plays fine in Chrome, at least the unstable version. I
>> use no special flags and get it directly from portage. No overlays,
>> no license files. From my POV it's as open source as most other
>> stuff but I haven't investigated that in any depth. Yes, the
>> content is DRM'ed but with (I think) HTML5 support in a browser I
>> no longer need to run a VM to watch movies. Just log in.
>
> It's important to note that Chrome is not open source (though it is
> "open core", depending on your definition of "open"). Note that when
> you emerge Chrome, no building occurs in Gentoo. The open core part of
> Chrome is Chromium, and Chromium does not have the decryption module
> to play Netflix.
>
> This page explains Netflix playback a bit:
>
> http://www.dash-player.com/blog/2015/02/the-status-of-mpeg-dash-today-and-why-youtube-and-netflix-use-it-in-html5/
>
> Supposedly Firefox will be able to do it sometime soon, but it will
> depend on a closed source extension that reportedly will be written by
> Adobe ☹
>
> I wish it were possible to watch Netflix using only Free Software.
>
> - --
> Randy Barlow
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> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Duncan]

Randy Barlow posted on Tue, 17 Mar 2015 17:09:43 -0400 as excerpted:

> On 03/17/2015 08:21 AM, Mark Knecht wrote:

>> NetFlix now plays fine in Chrome
> 
> It's important to note that Chrome is not open source[.]  The open core
> part of Chrome is Chromium, and Chromium does not have the decryption
> module to play Netflix.

> I wish it were possible to watch Netflix using only Free Software.

Well stated.  My reply would have been very similar.

FWIW, chromium is available in gentoo, and it's an option I'm glad to 
have (as unlike the closed source Chrome I could actually build/install/
run it), but for now at least, I'm a firefox guy.

(It would help if both chromium and firefox upstreams didn't want to 
bundle all sorts of stuff that should be external libs, only some of 
which gentoo maintainers can properly unbundle, so building them takes 
far longer than it should, a situation dissuading me from simply merging 
both so I have alternatives even if I primarily use just one, due to the 
unnecessarily long build time for something I'd not use that much that I 
avoid by having just the one I regularly use merged.)

And as long as FLOSS firefox remains the target product, while the OSS 
(without the FL) chromium remains only a sideline focus while the 
partially closed-source chrome is the real target, I have a big incentive 
to favor firefox, that it'd take a big disincentive elsewhere to 
counteract, before I could favor chromium.

(As for chrome, even if I could run closed source I'd not trust it.  
Google is after all an ad/tracking company at core, which after all does 
own the doubleclick I've NEVER trusted and have blocked about a half-
dozen different ways, and if they're insisting that something stay closed-
source, I'm inclined to believe there's a /reason/ it's closed source, 
that I'd not like were it available to examine, and that I STILL don't 
like, hidden in code I /can't/ examine.  So even if I were to run closed 
source in general, I'd be about as likely to run chrome as I would to run 
closed source from, say, Sony, "The rootkit people!(TM)".)

(As for google in general, I use their search and I spend quite a bit of 
time in minitube and firefox (with youtube's new html5 support) on 
youtube.  And some of my feeds are via feedburner, which I think is 
google's too, but I don't have a google account of any kind, third-party 
cookies are blocked and others are session-only (and unlike some I don't 
have a 50-tab firefox going constantly, so session-only generally means 
only a few hours at most), and I'm pretty strict with disconnect/request-
policy/noscript policies, such that google generally gets no notification 
when I'm browsing other sites, so while I'm not kidding myself that they 
don't have a profile on me, it's much more limited than their profile on 
most users, for sure!)

That google profile mention reminds me, tho...  I really need to set a 
new randomized MAC in my router, so my DHCP-assigned IP address changes 
and those IP-tracked profiles get reset...  Which of course is yet 
another reason to get the new gentoo-based router up and running, so I 
can properly automate MAC randomization without having to fight the not-
entirely-familiar OpenWRT configuration to figure out how to do it.  Then 
my IP will automatically change whenever I reboot the router, or whenever 
I or the cableco's maintenance drops/restarts the connection, which won't 
be daily, but it'll be considerably more often than the years the ISP's 
so-called dynamic IP assignment can remain the same, based on a stable 
MAC address requesting that IP.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Randy Barlow]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 03/17/2015 10:55 PM, Duncan wrote:
> (As for chrome, even if I could run closed source I'd not trust it.
>  Google is after all an ad/tracking company at core, which after
> all does own the doubleclick I've NEVER trusted and have blocked
> about a half- dozen different ways, and if they're insisting that
> something stay closed- source, I'm inclined to believe there's a
> /reason/ it's closed source, that I'd not like were it available to
> examine, and that I STILL don't like, hidden in code I /can't/
> examine.  So even if I were to run closed source in general, I'd be
> about as likely to run chrome as I would to run closed source from,
> say, Sony, "The rootkit people!(TM)".)

Hahah, I enjoyed that so much of this e-mail was in parentheses.

I agree with these thoughts. I think people come to open source
software for many different reasons. For some, it's the collaboration.
For some, it's because it's free as in beer. For some, it's the fact
that you can modify it to solve your particular needs. For others,
including me, it's primarily for trust reasons. I think it's important
to be able to trust the software we are giving private information to.
That's what draws me in. I also like the collaboration, and I like
that I can have it for $0 (though I do work professionally on writing
open source software, so in a way it pays me ☺). I also enjoy the many
other benefits. The "freedom" aspect of Free Software is really what
draws me. The freedom to modify is great too!

> (As for google in general, I use their search and I spend quite a
> bit of time in minitube and firefox (with youtube's new html5
> support) on youtube.  And some of my feeds are via feedburner,
> which I think is google's too, but I don't have a google account of
> any kind, third-party cookies are blocked and others are
> session-only (and unlike some I don't have a 50-tab firefox going
> constantly, so session-only generally means only a few hours at
> most), and I'm pretty strict with disconnect/request- 
> policy/noscript policies, such that google generally gets no
> notification when I'm browsing other sites, so while I'm not
> kidding myself that they don't have a profile on me, it's much more
> limited than their profile on most users, for sure!)

I also find their tracking practices to be troubling. I avoid their
links, and I do what I can to educate the people around me about how
nothing they do is "free".

- -- 
Randy Barlow
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Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Frank Peters]

On Wed, 18 Mar 2015 00:29:02 -0400
Randy Barlow <randy@electronsweatshop.com> wrote:
> 
> On 03/17/2015 10:55 PM, Duncan wrote:
> > (As for chrome, even if I could run closed source I'd not trust it.
> >  Google is after all an ad/tracking company at core, which after
> > all does own the doubleclick 
> 
> I also find their tracking practices to be troubling. I avoid their
> links, and I do what I can to educate the people around me about how
> nothing they do is "free".
> 

You may want to have a look at Iron Browser which is based on 
the chromium source but is specially designed for privacy:

 http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php


FP

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Duncan]

Randy Barlow posted on Wed, 18 Mar 2015 00:29:02 -0400 as excerpted:

> On 03/17/2015 10:55 PM, Duncan wrote:

>> (As for google in general, I use their search and I spend quite a bit
>> of time in minitube and firefox (with youtube's new html5 support) on
>> youtube.  And some of my feeds are via feedburner, which I think is
>> google's too, but I don't have a google account of any kind,
>> third-party cookies are blocked and others are session-only (and unlike
>> some I don't have a 50-tab firefox going constantly, so session-only
>> generally means only a few hours at most), and I'm pretty strict with
>> disconnect/request- policy/noscript policies, such that google
>> generally gets no notification when I'm browsing other sites, so while
>> I'm not kidding myself that they don't have a profile on me, it's much
>> more limited than their profile on most users, for sure!)
> 
> I also find their tracking practices to be troubling. I avoid their
> links, and I do what I can to educate the people around me about how
> nothing they do is "free".

...  And continuing my thought, to cover the biggest gaping hole of 
omission, I don't have a cell phone either.  There's a number of reasons, 
but one of them is that there's not a sufficiently open option to justify 
paying the money I'd pay, either up-front for an unlocked and as open as 
possible phone, or more significantly, monthly, for the "privilege" of 
carrying a GPS movement tracker every where I go, and for a monthly 
unthrottled net allowance under my daily average.

So no google (or apple, for that matter) tracking via cell, either. =:^)

The closest I'm likely to get in the near term would be that netbook/
chromebook or tablet, wifi/ethernet-only, amd64 based and reimaged to 
gentoo, on the requested-recommend post at the top of the thread.

There's enough public wifi (and my cableco ISP provides many too, tho 
I've not looked closely at access details as I've not had the need... but 
I suspect they're making use of otherwise idle bandwidth on ISP-managed 
customer-premises routers, and likely partnering with cablecos in other 
cities doing the same thing, for wider coverage) hotspots now that such a 
thing is quite reasonable, unlike cell network internet per-gig costs 
from what I've seen.  

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Duncan]

Leonid Eremin posted on Sun, 15 Mar 2015 22:08:16 +0300 as excerpted:

> Why don't you look for something [like the 2-port mobo I have, LAN/WAN
> with a gigabit switch on the LAN side]? Of course, if you don't have
> some sophisticated routing rules which requires >=4 NICs.

I explained this in the original post, but it was long and admittedly 
people might have skimmed, so here it is again.

A big part of the whole /point/ of going amd64-based router, despite the 
expense and hassle over an old generic off-the-shelf, is that:

(a) I want to put gentoo on it, in part so I can easily play with per-
port firewalling/routing/traffic-shaping rules.  My current old Linksys 
WRT54GL running OpenWRT actually has the ability to configure each of the 
five ethernet ports (plus the wifi) separately, but I've not played with 
it much, in part because it's sufficiently different from my gentoo 
comfort zone that working with its config is like reading and writing a 
different language I don't really know, such that I'm constantly having 
to lookup stuff.

Which I'd be willing to do were I doing a bunch of openwrt, but for just 
the one router, it seems like a waste, and I have to look stuff up again 
every time I want to make a change because I never actually bothered 
learning it properly.

(b) From experience with the netbook, I know that even if it's gentoo, I 
won't keep up with it if I'm building everything separately for it.  
Thus, amd64 gentoo, so for many packages I can build once and binpkg 
install three times, to the new router, the main machine, and my new 
netbook, if/when I get one (that side of the thread hasn't gotten any 
hits, yet).


So, while I don't have specific rules for all the ports /yet/, for me at 
least, a good part of the whole point of bothering with an amd64 router 
instead of just doing off-the-shelf, is that I /can/ do specific rules 
for each port, and I want at least five ports (six would be better, two 
builtin and the quad-port, but five should do for now), plus a USB-
connected wifi expansion option should I choose to exercise it.

Things I already have in mind:

* I'd very much like to specifically route only VoIP stuff to the VoIP 
phone adapter, and keep it from accessing the rest of the LAN.  It's 
actually a proprietary adapter, tho I suspect it's running standard SIP-
based VoIP, setup such that it keeps an open connection to the VoIP 
server and thus can be contacted across the NAPT-based router/firewall, 
and I'd also very much like to log to what it's actually connecting, and 
eventually block pretty much everything but the main VoIP server it's 
connecting to.  (Sometimes it rings once but doesn't complete an inbound 
call.  I strongly suspect that's unfriendly VoIP probes from 
telemarketers, etc, that can't complete the call since they can't bridge 
the NAPT.  Getting more information and potentially blocking those would 
be nice.)

Of course as I said, my current router can do it, but working with its 
configuration is like trying to read/write a foreign language, so I've 
not bothered.

* The current firewalling is pretty simple NAPT based, with a bit of 
stateful for stuff like FTP.  That means pretty much all outgoing is 
allowed, only incoming really controlled in any way.  I want to be much 
stricter with outgoing.

* I'd like to be able to run simple outside-accessible servers, probably 
on the router itself since it's about the only thing on all the time, 
listening on some high port.  Nothing fancy, just enough to host 
individual files I can link to, etc.  Limiting access to particular IP 
ranges, on high-range ports I specify, etc, is planned.  That's why I 
said outside accessible, NOT publicly accessible.

* I have/had my current netbook setup such that I could run an ssh server 
on it when I wanted, allowing connections only from the main machine (via 
local-routed-only IP-address), on the LAN.  Since I deliberately didn't 
have anything particularly private on the netbook, I figured running the 
server on it was least-risk.  Of course it was private key authorization 
only, no password, as well, and not listening on the usual ssh port.  But 
I didn't have any specific rules on the router.  With the new router and 
new chromebook reimaged to gentoo, I plan on allowing only specific port 
to port ssh connections and blocking any others.  Accepting/routing only 
ssh connections to the main machine port from the netbook port, as well 
as by netbook LAN IP only, should give me enough additional security to 
feel comfortable running an ssh server on the main machine as well, so I 
can connect to it from the netbook.  Obviously I'd still only start it 
manually, when I expected to be using it, in ordered to avoid having it 
running all the time, for efficiency and security reasons both.

* That's four ports (wan, main, netbook, VoIP).  The fifth is guest, 
which I'll probably leave more open to the net, while strictly 
controlling what it can access on the LAN.  After all, I can add new 
permissions for port-to-port access to my main machine or netbook 
dynamically, if needed.

* The router itself should be reasonably capable of serving as a LAN 
print or storage server, should I decide to set it up as such, as long as 
I don't expect it to do everything at once.  And being constantly on will 
make it convenient for that.  Thus the chances of needing more ports for 
that goes down dramatically.

* Of course that's not including the possible USB-connected wifi, which 
could of course have its own separate rules enforced, potentially even 
with multiple virtual wifi networks.  But I'm old enough to appreciate 
the security and constancy of physically wired connections, so while I 
want to keep the wifi option open (which is easy to do with usb-connected 
wifi, even if I don't have an open PCIE slot), it's not one I plan to 
exercise immediately.  But if/when I do, I imagine I'll be pretty strict 
with the wired-lan connection rules for it, since I don't particularly 
trust wireless as I don't have the physical control of it that I do of 
wired connections.  I might setup a publicly accessible no-login, 
bandwidth-limited and possibly censorware limited internet connection, 
however, just because...

* Should I expand beyond that, or should I find real life changing such 
that I have a family's connections to secure and route as well, this 
experience will guide me as I expand.  Chances are they'll be way less 
concerned about security, and will be happy with general wifi internet 
access.  If I need more ethernet ports, I'll have to evaluate at that 
point whether I need a bigger router, or can simply hang a switch off one 
of the existing ports and shift roles and rules around to accomodate.  
What I'll be learning with this more limited setup will help.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Thanasis]

On 03/14/2015 01:43 PM, Duncan wrote:
> ...  And there's the single 16x PCIE slot @ 4x
> speed, perfect for the quad-port Ethernet card.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-634025-001-629133-001-Ethernet-1-GB-4-PORT-331FLR-Adapter-HSTNS-BN71-Card-/371258575339

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Duncan]

Thanasis posted on Sat, 14 Mar 2015 15:09:28 +0200 as excerpted:

> On 03/14/2015 01:43 PM, Duncan wrote:
>> ...  And there's the single 16x PCIE slot @ 4x speed, perfect for the
>> quad-port Ethernet card.
> 
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-634025-001-629133-001-Ethernet-1-GB-4-
PORT-331FLR-Adapter-HSTNS-BN71-Card-/371258575339

Yeah.  While I'm having trouble with that link ATM... (Firefox keeps 
consuming memory on it until it's killed, lynx stalls, links seems to get 
it tho of course I see text only and due to that/cookies/scripts 
permissions I'm not sure which, I get basically all the bid outcomes, 
etc, all shown at once.)

There's several models of HP quad-port gig-ethernet and at least one Sun 
model, on pricewatch.com, showing up as $80-100.  I spent way too much 
time on this last nite so I'll probably wait a day or two before doing 
much besides replying here, but most of them seem to be posted by the 
same company, allhdd, and at least for the one I looked at, they had 
three prices available, new-in-retail-box ($110 or so IIRC), new-in-bulk-
unit-box (the price quoted on pricewatch, since I had new-only set), and 
used/clean-tested, $50.

Based on that I'm guessing they have the same three categories for the 
other models as well, and I'll have to do some further research before 
deciding which to get, but I'll likely get a used/clean-tested one, 
whatever model I ultimately pick.

And, googling the model I did check on, the kernel has mature drivers, 
and HP certifies the model in its servers running RHEL, OpenSuSE, etc.  
Which is more or less what I expected, since ethernet cards tend to have 
about the best Linux support of any hardware out there, because it's so 
heavily used on net-connected servers and the like.

One thing I /did/ come across, not for that NIC, but actually from 
someone running the am1 as a router with a /different/ NIC, was that he 
had made the mistake of buying a bypass-supporting card.  The idea is 
that if the machine is off (but I'd guess with power still available), 
these cards flip to bypass mode and act like simple Ethernet hubs (or 
possibly switches, I'm not sure).  While that doesn't interest me, he 
thought it was a neat idea, and bought one.

The problem is that these cards apparently require special proprietary 
drivers to switch out of bypass mode, and he couldn't get that driver to 
work, so the card was stuck in bypass mode. =:^(

Naturally after reading that, I wanted to ensure that whatever model I 
ended up with didn't have similar issues, and on at least the model I 
checked, there was no hint of such a thing in either the HP stuff I read 
or in the kernel driver option help, so I expect it'd be fine.

The one thing I did see is that at one point they had a bad firmware, 
that was triggering machine lockups after some amount of uptime.  Tho it 
was fixed by later firmware, it's possible that's why this vendor has all 
those used cards to get rid of...

So obviously, I want to do a bit more checking on the other models as 
well, to see what's up before I decide.  Between the bad firmware 
possibility and being a bit confused about the difference between models 
at this point, I've some further research to do.

But that research will likely have to wait a few days to a day off... or 
at least until I catch up some after last nite...


What I *DID* finally come up with last nite, is a general cost breakdown 
and reasonable/ballpark final total.  The local Fry's Electronics has 
pretty much everything in stock but the quad-port NIC (the site lists one 
model of those too, but at $300, IIRC... pretty much blows the project 
out of the water at that price), at a couple dollars difference from the 
net price both on pricewatch and at newegg.  So I'll probably get most of 
it there, and just order the NIC.  Anyway, here's what I got, based on 
those frys prices.

$$	item
85	quad-eth (obviously if I do the used, this will drop to ~$50)
60	am1 apu (frys about $5 high, here)
30	msi am1 mobo (right on price)
40	4-gig ddr3 (seems to be running a bit under ~$10/gig pretty much 
all over, and fry's doesn't seem to do under 4 gig sticks, now, so call 
it $40, 4 gig)

----
215	subtotal

Less sure on these items, but picked a number based on what I was seeing, 
to have one...

70	case/power (that newegg $50 incl 250W PS would bring this down...)
40	60 gig ssd

---
110	subtotal

325	total


Obviously I could drop this a bit.  $35 on the NIC, $5 on the APU, say 
$20 on the RAM as I could order online and should do just fine with 2 
gig, $20 on the case/power, might actually go burned dvd for permanent 
storage just so I'm sure no crackers are going to store anything on it 
even if they get in, and players are $30 or under last I looked, so 
another $10 there.  Or I could simply use a spare USB stick...

So I could drop it $100 or so... more if I downgraded the APU, but at 
$55-60 I don't see the need, particularly as it'd still be a 25W part, 
just less powerful.  So if I had to, I could do it @ 200 or so, but 325's 
already toward the lower end of the $300-400 I was thinking it'd cost 
earlier... plus tax/shipping/whatever, of course.

And $325 is comparable to some of the higher end wifi routers out there, 
$300 or so, that this sort of matches against, altho they're higher end 
in entirely different areas.

If I decide to throw in a wifi card/antenna (USB since the PCIE will be 
taken by the wired net), which I reasonably could at some point, perhaps 
after getting the netbook/chromebook I asked about in the original post 
as well such that , it'll still come in under $400, which is what I was 
definitely hoping to do.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Thanasis]

On 03/15/2015 07:43 AM, Duncan wrote:
> Thanasis posted on Sat, 14 Mar 2015 15:09:28 +0200 as excerpted:
>
>> On 03/14/2015 01:43 PM, Duncan wrote:
>>> ...  And there's the single 16x PCIE slot @ 4x speed, perfect for the
>>> quad-port Ethernet card.
>>
>> http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-634025-001-629133-001-Ethernet-1-GB-4-
> PORT-331FLR-Adapter-HSTNS-BN71-Card-/371258575339
>
> Yeah.  While I'm having trouble with that link ATM...

simpler link:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/371258575339

HP Ethernet 1Gb 4-port 331FLR Adapter support:

http://h20565.www2.hp.com/hpsc/swd/public/readIndex?sp4ts.oid=5194837&swLangOid=8&swEnvOid=4103

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Duncan]

Thanasis posted on Sun, 15 Mar 2015 13:31:47 +0200 as excerpted:

> On 03/15/2015 07:43 AM, Duncan wrote:
>>
>> Yeah.  While I'm having trouble with that link ATM...
> 
> simpler link:
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/371258575339
> 
> HP Ethernet 1Gb 4-port 331FLR Adapter support:
> 
> http://h20565.www2.hp.com/hpsc/swd/public/readIndex?
sp4ts.oid=5194837&swLangOid=8&swEnvOid=4103

Thanks.  Both those links actually work. =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Thanasis]

On 03/15/2015 07:43 AM, Duncan wrote:

> If I decide to throw in a wifi card/antenna (USB since the PCIE will be
> taken by the wired net),

or use the 1 x Mini-PCIe slot.

http://www.msi.com/product/mb/AM1I.html#hero-specification

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Duncan]

Thanasis posted on Sun, 15 Mar 2015 22:04:06 +0200 as excerpted:

> On 03/15/2015 07:43 AM, Duncan wrote:
> 
>> If I decide to throw in a wifi card/antenna (USB since the PCIE will be
>> taken by the wired net),
> 
> or use the 1 x Mini-PCIe slot.
> 
> http://www.msi.com/product/mb/AM1I.html#hero-specification

Indeed.

But in my research I actually saw USB-based wifi on both frys.com and 
pricewatch.com, as well as full PCIE, but mPCIE, not so common, at least 
at the low-end price-points I was looking at (pricewatch normally ranks 
by price, optionally including shipping, and frys can be set to do so, 
and I saw USB-based and PCIE near the low end, mPCIE might have been 
available, but further up the list than I looked, or perhaps I just 
missed it).

So I'm simply going by what I know to be out there, actually available.

...  Now you'll probably link a newegg mPCIE-based wifi antenna.  Not 
that I'll complain! =:^)  Thanks, BTW.  You're being immensely helpful, 
helping me work out all this stuff far faster than I would have been able 
to on my own.

Meanwhile, when I get it all up and running, I expect to return the 
favor, probably putting it up on the gentoo wiki.  When I did my original 
Acer Aspire One netbook setup with gentoo, I was able to follow wikis 
both gentoo and others (arch, some guy had an entire dedicated AA1 site 
with intense Linux coverage...), and it made things *MUCH* easier.  But I 
didn't really see anything like that for amd64-based routers.  So this 
will allow me to return the favor and make it MUCH easier for others. =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Benny Pedersen]

On March 16, 2015 7:47:24 AM Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:

> So I'm simply going by what I know to be out there, actually available.

http://www.soekris.eu/ if you want it ? :)

there is more then one model, and its possible to build as needed, here i 
have a now end of life net4801 with 7 ethernet ports, will build something 
with it atleast for me to learn how to build a 10Gbe with gentoo, it just 
still a dream, but if one follow ones dreams it might come true one day

[gentoo-amd64] Re: Machine recommendations?

[Duncan]

Benny Pedersen posted on Tue, 17 Mar 2015 10:44:57 +0100 as excerpted:

> On March 16, 2015 7:47:24 AM Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote:
> 
>> So I'm simply going by what I know to be out there, actually available.
> 
> http://www.soekris.eu/ if you want it ? :)
> 
> there is more then one model, and its possible to build as needed, here
> i have a now end of life net4801 with 7 ethernet ports, will build
> something with it atleast for me to learn how to build a 10Gbe with
> gentoo, it just still a dream, but if one follow ones dreams it might
> come true one day

Interestingly enough, I had the soekris.com site (US) bookmarked.  A 
dream from some years ago...  Very nice indeed!  But also pricey!  The 
base board (with CPU and RAM) w/ 4x-gigabit Ethernet is over $400, near 
$600 in the 19" 1U case w/ power supply and room for two 4x-gigE PCIE 
cards ($134 each, separate).  That's with the maxed out 1.6 GHz Atom and 
2 gig RAM (soldered on).  Storage is separate.

So 1 less gigabit port than the 1+4 solution I'm looking at, and the 
populated board alone is over $400, or near $600 including case and 
power, while Thanasis' solution looks to be $325-ish for everything.

But if I had money, the Soekris solution looks very nice indeed, and the 
12-port model (4-port plus two 4x port addons) in particular would be way 
more compact than trying to do it with an mATX or the like, for sure!


(Didn't get much of the research I wanted to do done yesterday, and 
they're calling me in for a few hours on what would have been a second 
day off today.  But oh, well... delay and extra work means it's easier to 
pay off. =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman