[OZAPRS] ARM SoC devices (was OZAPRS Digest, Vol 24, Issue 19)

[Steve]

Hello Damien,

Mine is using a Sandisk 4GB SHDC. No other distinguishing features other 
than it's blue!
The Dockstar's do have less RAM, but they have an integrated 12V-5V P/S, 
and an on-board 4 port USB hub that makes up for it for me. I use them 
in remote 12V systems. Let me know if you're interested off-list and 
I'll send a link to some info on the stuff I'm doing with them for fun 
(it's not APRS related and I bet people are sick of me waffling on about 
how much I love these ARM SoC computers!).

The Sheevaplug would be much better as a server due to the extra RAM.

Due to the excellent discovery work done by others (some on this list I 
believe),  I've now got soundmodem running for HF. Maybe I'll find a 
compatible USB soundcard and use my Sheevaplug for my I-Gate (and save a 
heap of greenhouse gas to boot!)

Good to see there's another fan of them out there Damien ;-)

Steve.




On 07/10/2011 02:04 PM, Damien Gardner Jnr wrote:
> Hmmmm, SD card.. Out of interest, what brand/size are you running? I popped down to kmart and bought a 4gb lexar SDHC, but the plug throws IO errors about half way through formatting it.. :(  From reading the faq's, it would seem that they're somewhat finicky over SD versions...
>
> Dockstar... hmmm, they look very neat!  though a bit tight on ram :)
>
> Cheers,
>
> DG
>
> On 10/07/2011, at 12:43 PM, Steve wrote:
>
>> G'day Damien,
>>
>> Your description on using Xastir below is exactly how I have mine set up and I love it. I have a visual "mheard" facility for my RX HF I-Gate ;-).
>>
>> I have a SheevaPlug running Debian. I used instructions found somewhere on the 'net and now it boots from an SD card (i.e. I didn't re-flash). This may not help you as I'm sure you already know that you can boot them from SD, but at least I can confirm that it works very well. I was driven to Debian as Ubuntu have dropped support for the ARM Marvel chip in the Sheevaplug.
>>
>> I really like hacked Dockstar's too ;-)
>>
>> Steve.
>>
>>
>> On 07/10/2011 12:29 PM, Damien Gardner Jnr wrote:
>>> Hah, yeah, the old vk1 igate (echelon.pinegap.net) started life as a debian 2 box in 1998, was migrated into vmware in 2001, and this week is being migrated (painfully) across into our new xenserver cluster (second.aprs.net.au went across last weekend, some folks might have noticed the hold-up in mailing list mails for a day or so - because the original install had been on a VERY small disk image, we'd added a second, and symlinked all sorts of things all over the place, so I did a partial new-install into a new disk image, then rsynced the original filesystem over the top - didn't work overly well, and we ended up with postgrey not being installed...)  - it's still running the same telnet BBS and aprsd that it was running in 1998, and hasn't skipped a beat :)
>>>
>>> As for xastir, for a server setup, I'd be running it in xvncserver, and then vnc'ing into it from the desktop on the machine, if i wanted to use *that* xastir instance for viewing maps etc..  that way your 'desktop' environment has NO bearing on xastir :)  Run blackbox or something similarly small as a WM in the xvncserver session, and it's all good :)  Though I've never run an xserver and desktop environment on a server - i can't really see the point :)
>>>
>>> BTW, speaking of servers and linux and ham radio.. anyone running a sheevaplug with anything other than the default ubuntu 9?  I've bricked mine twice now trying to install debian to a usb stick (won't install to the flash on board)  Oh, and if anyone HAS a sheevaplug (or guruplug!) that they're not using and would like to recoup some money, I'd love to buy it off you - they make fantastic little routers/monitoring boxes/etc in racks - just cable-tie them to the rear rails in a rack, and they don't take up any precious RU's! :)    And they can route an impressive amount of traffic!  Last weekend I hacked mine up to do the vlan routing for the six vlans we run at globalswitch, while I was migrating out of our half-rack in one suite, and into our new racks in the suite next door, so I could do a dist-upgrade and serious reconfigure of the little via 700mhz nemiah 1RU box that does all the routing/firewhaling/vpn stuff at our core...  After seeing the throughput it was happil
>   y
>> h
>>>   andling through its single gig interface, if I can get debian or openbsd onto the sheevaplug, i think I'll shove that in instead of the existing router! - it gets better throughput!  (it might be the vlan tagging in the new config (I used to run a quad-port nic in the via, now it's a single gig port on a trunk port on the switch to save on switch ports), pushing the CPU overhead up perhaps)  The 15W power usage is quite nice when you're limited to 10A for a 46RU rack too :)  (I assume GS intends to implement monitoring at the rack supply level at some point - every rack has two 10A circuits into it, but you're only supposed to draw a *total* of 10A from the two circuits..)
>>>
>>> Ok, that turned into an essay, time to go get some lunch, and then back to vmware->xenserver migrations :)
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> DG
>>>
>>>
>>> On 10/07/2011, at 11:20 AM, Carl Makin wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 10/07/2011, at 9:59 AM, Dave Horsfall wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I took great pleasure in installing FreeBSD over the top of it.
>>>> Of the three IGates in this area one runs JavAPRSsvr on Windows in an ESXi virtual machine, I think the other is Xastir on Linux and I run JavAPRSsvr on FreeBSD.
>>>>
>>>> It all seems to work.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Carl.
>>>> (vk1kcm)
>>>>
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