Re: [SIG-ARM] Has somebody got interest in Raspberry Pi?

[Michael Tremer <michael.tremer@ipfire.org>]

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Hello,

thank you for joining the discussion.

Yes, it is true that there is only one NIC. But I was rather thinking
about using the board as a gateway for 3G connections and not for cable
or DSL (--> toy).

I think the new box from Iomega looks pretty interesting, but it is
based on the kinda old Kirkwood architecture by Marvel. I considered
using them in the build cluster but it would be much better to save up
some money and go with proper powerful hardware like the Pandaboard.
Supposedly, we will need about 4 or 5 of them.

Back on the Raspberry Pi: I can't really say yes or no. It depends on
the amount of work we need to do. If it would be just to compile the
kernel, I would say yes. It seems we cannot get the hardware, so no.

I was expecting some newcomers this year because Windows 8 is coming up
for ARM in 2013 (as is currently believed). It would create more demand
for ARM-based desktop hardware and actually there is nothing. Not a
single bit.
I am planning to attend CeBIT on Friday together with Arne and we'll see
if we can get some statements from a couple of vendors. I did not find a
lot of them on the exhibitors list and that's why I do not expect a lot
of new information either. But feel free to send me names of companies
which could possibly be interested. If you like to search for yourself
head over here for that:

http://www.cebit.de/en/about-the-trade-show/programme/exhibitors-products/search-exhibitors-products

Michael

On Mon, 2012-03-05 at 07:52 +0000, Arne Fitzenreiter wrote:
> Hi Rod,
> 
> you are correct that the Raspberry Pi has only one interface.
> You need an additional USB Dongle or has to use VLAN's. (Not
> implemented in the
> WebIF but the needed tools are present.)
> 
> The onboard nic on the PI is also an USB-Nic (same SMC-Chip as on the
> Panda Board)
> 
> I'm testing an Iomega iConnect box (1Ghz Kirkwood, 256MB RAM)
> that have also only one onboard lan-nic so i use a usb-lan for red.
> This box is cheap to get in Germany at the moment (45€)
> 
> Arne
> 
> 
> On Sun, 04 Mar 2012 19:53:17 -0600, "R. W. Rodolico"
> <rodo(a)dailydata.net> wrote:
> > Michael,
> > 
> > The only Rasberry Pi's I've seen only have one NIC in them. Is there a
> > version with at least two? If it only has one NIC, that means we'd have
> > to create an alias (eth0:0) and run the firewall off one physical
> > device, or use some kind of USB ethernet dongle.
> > 
> > I looked at the Pi and thought, as you mention, it is too low end for
> > much, though I do think it might make a good home router if it had two
> > NIC's in it.
> > 
> > Tell me I'm wrong about the single NIC. I'd love that. But, my vote is
> > no if it only has one NIC.
> > 
> > Rod
> > 
> > On 03/04/2012 08:03 AM, Michael Tremer wrote:
> >> Hello,
> >>
> >> it has been a little bit quite on this list, so I am going to start a
> >> new conversation about Raspberry Pi, a cheap board with an ARM SoC.
> >>
> >> Originally, there has been a request on the forums whether IPFire will
> >> support this hardware. I would like to pass this question on to the SIG.
> >>
> >> On the pro side of the equation:
> >>
> >> The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a charity and is trying to bring small
> >> PCs to poor countries and people who can not afford any. I'd like to
> >> support that.
> >>
> >> Usable software is still missing, but I guess the major distributions
> >> will come up with such very soon. However, among them, there is a
> >> router/firewall distribution missing, and as IPFire is the only Open
> >> Source firewall which has support for ARM, we should consider to enhance
> >> this support for the Raspberry Pis as well. We could bring firewalls to
> >> poorer countries which is quite nice with IPFire: ISPs are planning to
> >> provide LTE (which works with IPFire) and providing a connection to the
> >> internet to small networks like in schools. I suppose that is what the
> >> R-Pi-Foundation is aiming to do.
> >>
> >> On the technical side: The hardware should be powerful enough for
> >> connections to a couple of MBits/s but too weak for powerful services
> >> like the filtering proxy and the intrusion detection system won't work
> >> well.
> >>
> >> The userland of the ARM port should run without any major modification.
> >> Maybe we need to make some amendments on tools like the bootloader
> >> (U-Boot) or others, but we should not expect any trouble there. The left
> >> thing that is to do is to build a new kernel for that device. It uses a
> >> Broadcom chipset which is supported by the Linux kernel and does not
> >> need any patches unless we want to use the GPU.
> >>
> >> The contra side:
> >>
> >> The Raspberry Pi Foundation apparently messed up the launch. It is not
> >> possible to get one and a lot of blokes are going to buy the few that
> >> were already built to create home servers and stuff like that. That's
> >> bad for us, because we cannot test any created code without the
> >> hardware.
> >>
> >> The hardware is weak. As mentioned earlier, it will work for a lot of
> >> things, but not all of the features IPFire provides. I consider the
> >> project rather a toy than a serious piece of computing hardware, so
> >> supposedly the amount of interest will decrease soon when people realize
> >> that they cannot really do what they intended to do with the boards in
> >> the first place.
> >>
> >> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> The question now is, if it should take the effort and build a new kernel
> >> for the Broadcom SoC and support the Raspberry Pi boards. Is somebody
> >> willing to do this? Has someone already tried something out? Did you try
> >> to order a board?
> >>
> >> Please mail me your thoughts.
> >>
> >> Michael
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> SIG-ARM mailing list
> >> SIG-ARM(a)lists.ipfire.org
> >> http://lists.ipfire.org/mailman/listinfo/sig-arm
> 
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