Re: A single-board computer for NetBSD

[Hal Murray <hmurray%megapathdsl.net@localhost>]

marticak%gmail.com@localhost said:
> I think of creating a simple router for home use with NetBSD. Just for fun.
> I imagine a single board printed circuit with passive cooling, with 2+ 100+
> Mbit/s ethernet ports and maybe a vga port too.  A Raspberry Pi sort of
> thing, but maybe not exactly that..  Hmm, some olimex board might be nice
> maybe..

> Can someone give me an advice wrt.  which HW to buy so that it will happily
> run some of the recent NetBSD releases? 

The low cost approach is to plug a USB Ethernet adapter into something like a 
Raspberry Pi.  That may not be good enough if you are after high throughput 
but it's probably good enough since you only asked for 100 megabit.

There are quite a few Mini-ITX boards with 2 LANs.  But then you have to get 
RAM, disk, and a case so the total price won't be cheap.  For more info, 
google for >Mini-ITX dual LAN<.  They are mostly "real" PCs with typical IO 
connectors.  The LANs will probably be gigabit.  They will be good for a lot 
more than just a home router.

They will run a lot cooler if you get a case that stands up on its side.  You 
can also add a tiny fan that makes almost no noise except during the first 
few seconds during boot.  SSDs will run cooler.

Another approach is to plug a PCI Ethernet card into a old PC if you have one 
that is quiet enough.



-- 
These are my opinions.  I hate spam.