Re: Soekris engineering "routers"

From: David Kelly (dkelly_at_HiWAAY.net)
Date: 10/31/04

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    Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 20:24:06 -0500
To: FreeBSD_Questions FreeBSD_Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>

    On Oct 30, 2004, at 7:45 PM, LiQuiD wrote:

    > I've noticed a few people mention this company, http://www.soekris.com
    > in the list now. Their website claims they can be used with a compact
    > flash card. I'm curious regarding their usage with a flash card as a
    > hard drive. Has anyone successfully been able to install FreeBSD on
    > one
    > of those boxes using a compact flash card?

    You should download the Soekris email lists' archives and do a bit of
    research. Yes, FreeBSD can and does run well off a CF card. There are
    plenty of tricks one can perform using the FreeBSD source to optimize
    for that target such as linking (most) all executables to shared
    libraries rather than static. Might as well put / and /usr on the same
    filesystem (necessary for the shared library thing to work right all
    the time). Add "noatime" to your mount flags. And hack up most of the
    /etc/rc scripts so as to minimize writing to your limited-life CF
    media.

    Might be a good idea to make /var and /tmp as md filesystems.

    IIRC one set of scripts and utilities for creating a minimal FreeBSD
    for Soekris is called "MiniBSD."

    Also look into picoBSD. IIRC this is where one puts most all needed
    files and binaries into one file image. Is how FreeBSD creates bootable
    install floppies. Make one with nothing but your router image and you
    might chose to boot the Soekris diskless off another FreeBSD machine.

    Its been almost 2 years since I last did these sorts of tricks. Started
    with MiniBSD and expanded. For a former employer so I don't have it to
    share.

    The Soekris products are solid and very good values. I think we had a
    few CPU's get too hot. Also I don't like to hear the oils on my finger
    sizzle when I touch a chip. So we glued big aluminum heatsinks to the
    CPU with special heatsink epoxy. Those heatsinks barely got warm in an
    unvented box. Our heatsinks blocked use of the PCMCIA slot, which we
    didn't use. Caution with the PCI slot, its 3.3 volt only. Hard to find
    a sound card which works at 3.3.

    We bought one big heatsink surplus. Then cut about 1.75" squares out of
    it with a bandsaw for use on the Soekris. 

    --
David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly@HiWAAY.net
========================================================================
Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.
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