Notices by James Just James (purpleidea@mastodon.social)

@mntmn My biggest worry is that I haven't seen ix ethernet show up in many products. So what I really want is to see it everywhere, that way everyone would sell the cables cheaply. And more importantly, when you go somewhere, they "just have" the cable you need.

Like all my friends have a USB-C charger, so I can use theirs if needed to plug in.

Do you see ix ethernet taking off?

@fsfe This is amazing! I can't seem to find a list of config settings for each modem and ISP combo. Is that available anywhere? Of course this should really be about "modem freedom" more than routers.

@mntmn I finished Enterprise, it wasn't my favourite, but enjoyable in many ways. It's Discovery that I didn't finish.

@mntmn The biggest factor is overall hardware specs. If it can replace my normal work machine that's what makes it an easy win.

@mntmn Very neat. But shouldn't it enforce you push them in some order since when you pressed T it might have also sent Y and you never would have known?

@mntmn Do you have some experience you could share about what values of % or Wh are good/bad/etc?

For example, on my Lenovo T14 laptop, overnight I'm losing 10-40% of my 50Wh battery and I have no idea why or how to reduce it.

I never remember this being so bad with my X220.

@mntmn Okay, so kind of feels like how a RPI does things AIUI. Good to know, thanks! Are there docs on this I can read somewhere?

@mntmn Config settings and provisioning.

IOW, suppose you take a laptop out of a box, plug it into something (usually over ethernet) and then automatically power it on, set any bios/uefi/whatever settings, and then pxe boot and install an operating system.

The missing step in hardware today is configuring bios settings. You often have to manually press <del> and then scroll through settings and so on...

I'm working on https://github.com/purpleidea/mgmt/ and would love to be able to add code for that.

@mntmn Neat! Are there some docs about how someone would manage the bios/uefi firmware on such a device?

My use case is I'm looking into automation of such settings, and it has been near impossible on standard proprietary devices.

Cheers!

@mntmn @gnome Try a signal flatpak video call and see if you can browse Firefox at the same time :)

@mntmn Aha! Feed-through, interesting, thanks for explaining!

pci-express is a good option for more ethernet, but that means that for the very common case of using two active ethernet ports, this blocks you from also using a non-ethernet pcie card.

I think this makes your product less competitive in the market compared to what's already readily available. Still excited for the open HW aspects though!

@mntmn Thankfully it looks like there will be a second GbE port, right? But in the diagram it's not going to stick out the back?? Cheers!

@mntmn Oh well! Would be pretty awesome if the lane count increased! This is starting to fell reminiscent of a mix between two machines I've bought:

Supermicro
"SuperServer 5018D-FN8T" and
"SuperChassis 510T-203B".

Notable features: the 2x2.5" hot swappable SSD's, the 8x PCI, the abundance of ethernet ports, and slim depth 1U chassis.

Having 2-3 of those features in a new 1U rack is a major win. Keep up the great work!

@mntmn Do you think it can fit something like this? Will it have PCI express x4 or x8? (four lanes or eight?)

I've actually not ever seen a six port card IRL, but turns out they exist, and that would be awesome for this project.

2.5G four port cards exist too which would be excellent. Bonus if there are two onboard ports as stock unrelated to PCI.

https://www.silicom-usa.com/pr/server-adapters/networking-adapters/gigabit-ethernet-networking-server-adapters/pe2g6i35-server-adapter/

@mntmn If you'd prefer to do a video chat, just let me know when. Otherwise feel free to send your questions my way and I can explain how I use them, set them up, etc... HTH

@mntmn Whichever method works best for your hardware designs! There's a large demand for two port routers running Linux. (I buy and install many!) But there are not a lot of good options in the market for 6-8 port routers running Linux. Here is one example:

Happy to test out your new server and blog at purpleidea.com if interested!

@mntmn Put 4-8 gigabit ethernet ports (2.5G would be ideal) and you've got a world class router platform running linux+shorewall!

I'd blog about that for you if you'd like!

@mntmn I don't know about gc7000, but IIRC in the raspi-config utility you can set some overclock settings (for CPU or GPU I forget which) and GPU memory size. HTH

@mntmn Did you look at Fedora? Since F37 they support 64-bit RPI.
It's got issues compared to Raspberry Pi OS, but might be just what you need to be as upstream as possible.

@mntmn If you could add information on import customs to Canada (if any) it would be appreciated to help judge the final sticker price. Thanks!