[gentoo-user] Small computing recommendations?

[gentoo-user] Small computing recommendations?

[Daniel Campbell]

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My birthday's coming up in 10 days and my SO and others are wanting to
know what to get me for my birthday. I'm slowly growing tired of trying
to keep my desktop Gentoo machine lightweight and "clean", so it'd be
fun to hack on a little computer that I could possibly DIY a case or
other arrangement for. Maybe a file/web server, or a "freetoo" machine
where I can experiment with being rigidly FSF-APPROVED or other fun
shenanigans.

I've looked around at the Raspberry Pi 3, the Pocket CHIP (I also have
PICO-8 and am hacking something for it), the Pi Zero, and have heard
about the Beaglebone and Arduino, though isn't the latter meant for more
interactive or robotic thing due to the large array of IO pins?

If I had the right tools or gadgets, creating my own UMPC would be
really fun.

At a minimum, I would prefer HDMI instead of composite or VGA, though it
could be headless and I just use SSH or an Adafruit LCD.

Any opinions or use cases and stories would be much appreciated. I would
prefer running Gentoo on it, but Debian, Mint, or Slackware would be
tolerable.
-- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
fpr: AE03 9064 AE00 053C 270C  1DE4 6F7A 9091 1EA0 55D6


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Re: [gentoo-user] Small computing recommendations?

[Alan McKinnon]

On 12/10/2016 13:56, Daniel Campbell wrote:
> My birthday's coming up in 10 days and my SO and others are wanting to
> know what to get me for my birthday. I'm slowly growing tired of trying
> to keep my desktop Gentoo machine lightweight and "clean", so it'd be
> fun to hack on a little computer that I could possibly DIY a case or
> other arrangement for. Maybe a file/web server, or a "freetoo" machine
> where I can experiment with being rigidly FSF-APPROVED or other fun
> shenanigans.
> 
> I've looked around at the Raspberry Pi 3, the Pocket CHIP (I also have
> PICO-8 and am hacking something for it), the Pi Zero, and have heard
> about the Beaglebone and Arduino, though isn't the latter meant for more
> interactive or robotic thing due to the large array of IO pins?
> 
> If I had the right tools or gadgets, creating my own UMPC would be
> really fun.
> 
> At a minimum, I would prefer HDMI instead of composite or VGA, though it
> could be headless and I just use SSH or an Adafruit LCD.
> 
> Any opinions or use cases and stories would be much appreciated. I would
> prefer running Gentoo on it, but Debian, Mint, or Slackware would be
> tolerable.
> 


Those devices are dirt cheap, ask for one of each :-)

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Small computing recommendations?

[Andy Mender]

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Dear Daniel,

You're correct, Arduino is for tech projects. Not much of an actual
"computer",
because both the processor and amount of RAM are too weak. However, there is
a new board that supposedly runs a full-blown FreeBSD 3.x version. Cannot
find
a link to the blog entry now, sorry :(.

I would recommend taking a look at the Beaglebone Black boards. In some
cases
they're more potent than a standard Raspberry Pi. Since you mentioned being
FSF
friendly, does Raspberry not use a Broadcom chip for graphics?

The default will almost always be some sort of Debian-based distro. There
is a Gentoo
ARM project, so you could have a look whether it complies with your
expectations :).

Best regards,
Andy Mender

On 12 October 2016 at 13:56, Daniel Campbell <zlg@gentoo.org> wrote:

> My birthday's coming up in 10 days and my SO and others are wanting to
> know what to get me for my birthday. I'm slowly growing tired of trying
> to keep my desktop Gentoo machine lightweight and "clean", so it'd be
> fun to hack on a little computer that I could possibly DIY a case or
> other arrangement for. Maybe a file/web server, or a "freetoo" machine
> where I can experiment with being rigidly FSF-APPROVED or other fun
> shenanigans.
>
> I've looked around at the Raspberry Pi 3, the Pocket CHIP (I also have
> PICO-8 and am hacking something for it), the Pi Zero, and have heard
> about the Beaglebone and Arduino, though isn't the latter meant for more
> interactive or robotic thing due to the large array of IO pins?
>
> If I had the right tools or gadgets, creating my own UMPC would be
> really fun.
>
> At a minimum, I would prefer HDMI instead of composite or VGA, though it
> could be headless and I just use SSH or an Adafruit LCD.
>
> Any opinions or use cases and stories would be much appreciated. I would
> prefer running Gentoo on it, but Debian, Mint, or Slackware would be
> tolerable.
> --
> Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
> OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
> fpr: AE03 9064 AE00 053C 270C  1DE4 6F7A 9091 1EA0 55D6
>
>

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Re: [gentoo-user] Small computing recommendations?

[Daniel Quinn]

A while back I looked into a similar setup and was frustrated with the 
hacker-esque nature of these tiny machines.  They typically don't come 
with a case, sometimes not even with power, and getting a working Gentoo 
setup was likely going to be an effort I didn't want to spend.

So I ended up buying an Intel NUC: basically a tiny main board with a 
CPU in a small simple square case + ram (you pick) + a hard drive (SSD 
or HDD, you pick).  It has HDMI or VGA out, sound, a few USB ports and 
on-board ethernet as well.  Getting Gentoo up & running on it was 
painless once I turned of UEFI (it makes my head hurt).  Details on how 
I did it all was here: http://danielquinn.org/blog/gentoo-on-the-intel-nuc/

It'll cost you more than a Pi or some of the others, but it's basically 
a tiny, quiet, whole computer, so the hassle is probably greatly diminished.

Re: [gentoo-user] Small computing recommendations?

[Andy Mender]

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Dear Daniel,

Wish it was possible to "like" someone's e-mail. Thank you for letting us
know about your endeavors and documenting your efforts :).

Best regards,
Andy Mender

On 12 October 2016 at 14:38, Daniel Quinn <gentoo@danielquinn.org> wrote:

> A while back I looked into a similar setup and was frustrated with the
> hacker-esque nature of these tiny machines.  They typically don't come with
> a case, sometimes not even with power, and getting a working Gentoo setup
> was likely going to be an effort I didn't want to spend.
>
> So I ended up buying an Intel NUC: basically a tiny main board with a CPU
> in a small simple square case + ram (you pick) + a hard drive (SSD or HDD,
> you pick).  It has HDMI or VGA out, sound, a few USB ports and on-board
> ethernet as well.  Getting Gentoo up & running on it was painless once I
> turned of UEFI (it makes my head hurt).  Details on how I did it all was
> here: http://danielquinn.org/blog/gentoo-on-the-intel-nuc/
>
> It'll cost you more than a Pi or some of the others, but it's basically a
> tiny, quiet, whole computer, so the hassle is probably greatly diminished.
>
>
>

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Re: [gentoo-user] Small computing recommendations?

[Daniel Frey]

On 10/12/2016 05:38 AM, Daniel Quinn wrote:
> A while back I looked into a similar setup and was frustrated with the
> hacker-esque nature of these tiny machines.  They typically don't come
> with a case, sometimes not even with power, and getting a working Gentoo
> setup was likely going to be an effort I didn't want to spend.
> 
> So I ended up buying an Intel NUC: basically a tiny main board with a
> CPU in a small simple square case + ram (you pick) + a hard drive (SSD
> or HDD, you pick).  It has HDMI or VGA out, sound, a few USB ports and
> on-board ethernet as well.  Getting Gentoo up & running on it was
> painless once I turned of UEFI (it makes my head hurt).  Details on how
> I did it all was here: http://danielquinn.org/blog/gentoo-on-the-intel-nuc/
> 
> It'll cost you more than a Pi or some of the others, but it's basically
> a tiny, quiet, whole computer, so the hassle is probably greatly
> diminished.
> 
> 

I have two Intel NUCs and was able to install gentoo with UEFI with no
issues, this was about two years ago.

They're great little machines, and mine both have IR built in (I use
them primarily as mythtv-frontends). Do be aware if you boot in non-UEFI
modes on these machines you lose hardware acceleration for video, which
is why I fiddled with it over a half day and got it working.

Dan

Re: [gentoo-user] Small computing recommendations?

[Peter Humphrey]

It's hard to follow your contributions to this list because you stick to 
top-posting, whereas everyone else keeps their replies and quotations in 
conversation order.

Please don't top-post here. Thanks.

On Wednesday 12 Oct 2016 14:24:15 Andy Mender wrote:
> Dear Daniel,
> 
> You're correct, Arduino is for tech projects. Not much of an actual
> "computer",
> because both the processor and amount of RAM are too weak. However, there
> is a new board that supposedly runs a full-blown FreeBSD 3.x version.
> Cannot find
> a link to the blog entry now, sorry :(.
> 
> I would recommend taking a look at the Beaglebone Black boards. In some
> cases
> they're more potent than a standard Raspberry Pi. Since you mentioned
> being FSF
> friendly, does Raspberry not use a Broadcom chip for graphics?
> 
> The default will almost always be some sort of Debian-based distro. There
> is a Gentoo
> ARM project, so you could have a look whether it complies with your
> expectations :).
> 
> Best regards,
> Andy Mender
> 
> On 12 October 2016 at 13:56, Daniel Campbell <zlg@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > My birthday's coming up in 10 days and my SO and others are wanting to
> > know what to get me for my birthday. I'm slowly growing tired of trying
> > to keep my desktop Gentoo machine lightweight and "clean", so it'd be
> > fun to hack on a little computer that I could possibly DIY a case or
> > other arrangement for. Maybe a file/web server, or a "freetoo" machine
> > where I can experiment with being rigidly FSF-APPROVED or other fun
> > shenanigans.
> > 
> > I've looked around at the Raspberry Pi 3, the Pocket CHIP (I also have
> > PICO-8 and am hacking something for it), the Pi Zero, and have heard
> > about the Beaglebone and Arduino, though isn't the latter meant for more
> > interactive or robotic thing due to the large array of IO pins?
> > 
> > If I had the right tools or gadgets, creating my own UMPC would be
> > really fun.
> > 
> > At a minimum, I would prefer HDMI instead of composite or VGA, though it
> > could be headless and I just use SSH or an Adafruit LCD.
> > 
> > Any opinions or use cases and stories would be much appreciated. I would
> > prefer running Gentoo on it, but Debian, Mint, or Slackware would be
> > tolerable.
> > --
> > Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
> > OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
> > fpr: AE03 9064 AE00 053C 270C  1DE4 6F7A 9091 1EA0 55D6

-- 
Rgds
Peter

Re: [gentoo-user] Small computing recommendations?

[Matthias Gerstner]

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Hello,

> I've looked around at the Raspberry Pi 3
>
> [...]
>
> I would prefer running Gentoo on it
>
> [...]
>
> Any opinions or use cases and stories would be much appreciated.

well I'm running Gentoo on a Raspberry Pi 2. Getting Gentoo basically
running on it wasn't too hard. There's some good information on the
wiki:

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi

I got the Raspberry primarily for multimedia type of applications and
experimentations. In the end I ended up with quite an array of extra
hardware:

- a good USB power supply that can provide at least 2.0 A which is
  recommended
- a 32 GB microSD card for holding the (mostly) read-only part of Gentoo
- a 16 GB USB drive for holding read/write partitions like /tmp which
  speeds things up a bit and improves the lifetime of the microSD card
- the official raspberry pi touch display
  https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-touch-display/
- a USB wifi WLAN/Bluetooth dongle for wireless connectivity
- a USB soundcard, because the onboard audio on the Raspberry has a
  terrible sound quality

These are my experiences:

- compiling your own Kernel for the Raspberry can be challenging until
  all devices are running as expected.
- compilation for the Raspberry for Gentoo is *very* slow even with
  using distcc to distribute the load on bigger machines.
- all kinds of file system writes tend to be slow due to the of memory
  devices used (microSD card, USB flash drive).
- the touchscreen works fine so far even with the touch and some basic
  gestures working. Some special drivers from Gentoo Portage overlays
  are required, however.
- booting is acceptably fast. I'm running an X server and fluxbox as
  window manager. It's finished booting after about a minute.
- I got hardware accelerated video decoding running but it was a real
  pain. The broadcom graphics chip is only supported by either a
  proprietary video player or by the gstreamer framework. I think I
  compiled gstreamer and OpenGL/Mesa stuff for days in different
  configurations until I got something out of it.
- Getting a fast and fully featured web browser for the Raspberry is
  something I've still not achieved. Currently I'm running firefox on it
  which is unbearably slow.

So in conclusion it's a fun embedded device to work with. It was not too
cheap (especially because of the touchscreen). I use it regularly for
listening to music or watching short videos. It's too slow, however, for
web browsing and much interactive/GUI use. Compiling software on it
requires patience. And getting all the drivers and devices working in
the first place can be a challenge.

Best regards

Matthias

-- 
Matthias Gerstner, Dipl.-Wirtsch.-Inf. (FH)
Entwicklung
 
NCP engineering GmbH
Dombühler Straße 2, D-90449, Nürnberg
Geschäftsführer Peter Söll, HRB-Nr: 77 86 Nürnberg
 
Telefon: +49 911 9968-153, Fax: +49 911 9968-229
E-Mail: Matthias.Gerstner@ncp-e.com
Internet: http://www.ncp-e.com

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Re: [gentoo-user] Small computing recommendations?

[Alecks Gates]

On Wed, 2016-10-12 at 14:24 +0200, Andy Mender wrote:
> Dear Daniel,
> 
> You're correct, Arduino is for tech projects. Not much of an actual
> "computer",
> because both the processor and amount of RAM are too weak. However,
> there is
> a new board that supposedly runs a full-blown FreeBSD 3.x version.
> Cannot find
> a link to the blog entry now, sorry :(.
> 
> I would recommend taking a look at the Beaglebone Black boards. In
> some cases
> they're more potent than a standard Raspberry Pi. Since you mentioned
> being FSF
> friendly, does Raspberry not use a Broadcom chip for graphics?

Mesa now supports the Broadcom VC4 chip.  Check out the github link
below for more info.

https://github.com/anholt/mesa/wiki/VC4

> 
> The default will almost always be some sort of Debian-based distro.
> There is a Gentoo
> ARM project, so you could have a look whether it complies with your
> expectations :).
> 
> Best regards,
> Andy Mender 
> 

Alecks

Re: [gentoo-user] Small computing recommendations?

[thegeezer]

On 2016-10-12 13:16, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On 12/10/2016 13:56, Daniel Campbell wrote:
>> My birthday's coming up in 10 days and my SO and others are wanting to
>> know what to get me for my birthday. I'm slowly growing tired of 
>> trying
>> to keep my desktop Gentoo machine lightweight and "clean", so it'd be
>> fun to hack on a little computer that I could possibly DIY a case or
>> other arrangement for. Maybe a file/web server, or a "freetoo" machine
>> where I can experiment with being rigidly FSF-APPROVED or other fun
>> shenanigans.
>> 
>> I've looked around at the Raspberry Pi 3, the Pocket CHIP (I also have
>> PICO-8 and am hacking something for it), the Pi Zero, and have heard
>> about the Beaglebone and Arduino, though isn't the latter meant for 
>> more
>> interactive or robotic thing due to the large array of IO pins?
>> 
>> If I had the right tools or gadgets, creating my own UMPC would be
>> really fun.
>> 
>> At a minimum, I would prefer HDMI instead of composite or VGA, though 
>> it
>> could be headless and I just use SSH or an Adafruit LCD.
>> 
>> Any opinions or use cases and stories would be much appreciated. I 
>> would
>> prefer running Gentoo on it, but Debian, Mint, or Slackware would be
>> tolerable.
>> 
> 
> 
> Those devices are dirt cheap, ask for one of each :-)

Seconded :)
here are my 2c on my two experiences

Raspberry Pi
great to play with Gentoo ARM, runs well until you do anything related 
to IO.  Really well in fact, so that when you do do anything to save a 
file or emerge (yes you can but i really wouldn't recommend it) it takes 
you by surprise how bad it is.  Also be aware of USB power draw and 
reboots if you can't supply power well enough for all devices!  is more 
of a "computer" in the traditional sense.

Arduino
I really like the Arduino from a programmatic automation point of view 
as the inputs and single threaded C program   make sense to me, and in 
my own simple way of viewing things, things like nest.com are more easy 
to do via Arduino than Pi.  is more of a microcontroller than a computer

Final thoughts
get them all, they are so cheap.   the addons are what make them though 
-- wifi shields or movement sensors etc, otherwise they are just a piece 
of compute.   you may find a Pi controller controlling  arduino leads 
you to a new form of robotics and the limits are your imagination

but if you are looking for a linux box to play with i would suggest 
Intel Atom based Jetway mini-atx with the daughterboards that let you 
have multi-nic or multi-sata
they are fast enough to keep up to date without needed distcc and 
feature rich enough that you can build your own SAN or build your own 
router etc