[Freedombox-discuss] Opinions on the Excito B3

[Francesco Poli]

On Mon, 01 Nov 2010 21:10:35 +0100 e.waelde wrote:

> Hi Francesco,

Hi e.waelde (sorry for my late reply)!

> 
> On 10/31/2010 03:29 PM, Francesco Poli wrote:
> 
> > I would like to know what you think about the Excito B3 product as a
> > possible hardware platform for my project and/or for the freedombox
> > project:
> >
> > http://www.excito.com/bubba/products/technical-specifications.html
> > http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=excito_b3&num=1
> 
> I poked a bit on the excito web page, but the technical specs I found
> did not answer the question: does it have a serial console (buried
> somewhere inside???).

I don't know...

> There should be something inside (voids your warranty,
> of course, when you open it :-)

I would prefer avoiding tampering with the hardware: if it's just
something like opening and plugging an additional card or cable
connector, fine, but please no soldering or risky stuff (I am always
afraid to cause damage to a newly bought toy and I am not used to this
kind of manual interventions!).

> If it doesn't, frankly, I would not
> consider it.

Maybe we will have to get in touch with Excito in order to ask them if
the B3 has a serial console.

Anyway, how do I take advantage of a serial console (taking into
account that I don't have a hardware serial terminal)?
Do I have to use a serial cable, a serial-USB converter to plug it into
a Debian desktop/workstation box and then use minicom to talk to the
serial console?

> 
> 
> There are boards from soekris.com (e.g. net4801) and pcengines.ch (Alix),
> which would do a "dns, dhcp, ntp, WLAN/router, firewall, apt-proxy" thing.
> I do run a net4801 for 6 years with no hickups (debian stable). They have
> a serial interface used as console, so no big deal with the installation or
> talking to the bootloader.

I already knew about Soekris, but thanks anyway for pointing it out!

I've been considering (as other possible solutions):

Soekris net5501-60
<http://soekris.eu/shop/net5501/net5501_60_board_only_en.html>

Quad Square One
<http://www.quadmicroworks.com/squareone/index.html>
<http://www.quadmicroworks.com/squareone/specs.html>

Fit-PC 2i
<http://www.fit-pc.com/web/fit-pc2/>
<http://www.fit-pc.com/web/fit-pc2/fit-pc2i-specifications/>

Now, thanks to your hint, I may also add

Alix2d3
<http://www.pcengines.ch/alix2d3.htm>


Does anyone have any comments on my candidates?
Perhaps something like "Dear Francesco, you are mixing up very different
products, since you fail to understand that... "!    ;-)

> 
> 
> However, iff you want to use it as a backup system, media stream server
> or other heavy IO stuff, then I'm uncertain, whether my suggestions are
> any good.

I don't think I will use the box for "heavy I/O stuff" like the one you
mentioned...

Thanks a lot for your reply, e.waelde!
And thanks to anyone who has good suggestions.


-- 
 http://www.inventati.org/frx/progs/scripts/pdebuild-hooks.html
 Need some pdebuild hook scripts?
..................................................... Francesco Poli .
 GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12  31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/attachments/20101107/424013bb/attachment.pgp>