[conspire] Quiet, Freedom-compatible NAT/firewall/misc box?

[Daniel Gimpelevich]

On 04/27/2015 03:39 PM, Rick Moen wrote:
> That is interesting in that it's the first Atom-based board to evade the
> pervasive 8GB RAM ceiling other than the server-grade units Dana pointed
> out as an (expensive) edge case.  This board isn't in that extravagant
> price league, but I notice it's about 3x what a good bundle of a
> mini-ITX board and a Kabini SoC costs at Newegg.

Dana mentioned the name Avoton explicitly when he pointed that out. 
Avoton boards are in the same price range since they're almost the same 
chip, as I mentioned in my other message addressing the original raison 
d'etre of this thread.

> What I hear is that OEms over the last couple of cycles have been
> maddeningly slow to actually ship product for AMD low-power SoCs, e.g.,
> that fitlet unit that sold out instantly because it furnished the
> highest-end 'Mullins' SoC, the A10-Micro 6700T, had been awaited by
> enthusiasts for a long time, who kept wondering why nobody was offering
> motherboards for it.

Part of the blame lies directly with AMD, IMHO. If you go to AMD's 
website and click on the "G-series SoC" product line, all the processors 
listed are Kabini or Temash, with no mention of anything newer.

> At the time that we cut the cable cord, we yanked the CableCards out of
> the TiVo, and hooke it up to WiFi.  More recently, I put that on wired
> ethernet instead.

I did not know that to be the case, but I strongly suspected it. What 
made me think about that was Leo explaining at CABAL that he had 
Internet-only service from Comcast, over which he sent all traffic 
through OpenVPN service from Private Internet Access, noticing actually 
faster transfer speeds than without the tunnel. Indeed, the number of 
people who pay Comcast for only Internet and not TV is exploding, 
especially since there are many locations where there is no real 
alternative. There are many streaming services which serve TV's, e.g. 
Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime, but curiously, the only source of 3D 
programming for 3D TV's that I have found outside of 3D BluRay discs is 
Comcast's Video on Demand TV service. Sonic has been testing IPTV to 
prepare for their gigabit FTTH offering, but in the tests, it carries 
only the same channels that are available with an antenna. Cable in the 
Bay Area actually allowed selecting channels "a la carte" for the 
longest time, abolished by Comcast just a few years ago. I have no 
information on what Astound's policies on the matter may be. It will be 
interesting to see what Sonic will do with its IPTV service in that regard.