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

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Daniel Gimpelevich (daniel at gimpelevich.san-francisco.ca.us):

> 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.

OK, I'll have to compare.  I really didn't remember off the top of my
head what the Avotons (the server-grade Atoms) and related motherboards
cost, but I remember it was high enough to put it in a different market
category where home servers are concerned.

Part of the background of this is a reappraisal.  I've been used to
dealing with primarily rackmount server gear.  When I moved from San
Francisco to 2033 Sharon Road, Menlo Park around 2000, I assumed without
fully thinking the ramifications through that I'd have similar gear as
the foundation of my computing at home.  Since I was a VA Linux Systems
employee and had (and still have) easy access to slightly aging
rackmount gear, I took advantage of that to have (at first) a slightly
aging VA Research model 500 (PII) in my living room.  Which I slowly
realised over a period of years was so gpddamned noisy that I was
avoiding that area of my own living room.  Upon moving a few blocks to
my bevolved old 1960s family home at 1105 Altschul Ave., Menlo Park, I
partially corrected this error by moving the server to utility space,
and eventually upgraded it slightly to the still ridiculousy obsolete VA
Linux Systems model 2230 (PIII).  Which is at least quieter, as I
replaced the annoyingly crappy case fans, and had the advantage of being
pre-P4.

Because a funny thing happened in the 2000s.  Both Intel and AMD
temporarily lost perspective on power draw, and most server (and,
frankly, most other) gear from the P4 until just recently drew way too
damned much AC power for far too little advantage, especially when seen
from the perspective of those of us in the almost completely
unrecognised home server market.  The immediate consequence of this is
that I deliberately sat out the market, waiting for a _better_ 
successor to the PIII that was not a power sponge while providing
significant advantage for a site that is bottlenecked on network
bandwidth.

That advantage is RAM -- and, secondarily, total power draw and ability
to support modern components _well_.  I couldn't possibly give a damn 
about CPU oomph, as a PIII frankly does all I really need on a non-VM
platform for my main server, given network bottlenecking at the aDSL 
link stage.  OTOH, 16GB RAM ceiling instead of 2GB is a big enough
advantage to create a difference of type rather than just of degree, and
doing that with new, modern, not-aged units that draw _less_ power than
my PIII, are much smaller, and are totally silent, is a real attraction
-- for a change.

> 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.

Well, chicken or egg?  I'm not sure.  The OEMs cannot possibly have
failed to notice that Breen/Mullins hits a sweet spot, regardless of
what AMD pushes on its Web site, but they mostly have not been shipping.
I'm really not sure what's going on, but I'm reluctant to rush to assign
blame.

> 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. 

Yeah, I hear that from people.

One of my own principles for living is the 'Don't do business with
crooks' one, and you'll find two Comcast links in the 'Dept. of
Web-Search Juice' on the front page of linuxmafia.com that are all the
reason I feel I ever need to never, ever do business with that company.
Your Mileage May Differ.[tm]