[plug] Mini-ITX Systems...

[Brad Campbell]

Trevor Phillips wrote:
> 
> Has anyone else been inspired to build a system based on the new Mini-ITX
> motherboards? They seem ideal for small PCs, be they routers, servers, or
> media appliances:
>    http://www.mini-itx.com/

Ooohh nice link that one..
I have been looking at these for a while for some custom hardware we are
developing.

>   - Low-noise ATX PSUs (100->200W) - either internal or external.

Looking at that also..

>   - IDE Laptop HDDs

Have not had a lot of luck with available 2.5->3.5 HD adaptors having
reliable sockets for the laptop drives.. Seem to be an intermittent source
of errors..

>   - IDE/Flash drives/adapters

Just finished building my third prototype, with hot-swap.
Prototype 2 has been working on site for over 5 months now.
Slow to write to and read from these, but I uncompress the
filesystem from them on the fly into ram and run the entire
system out of ram. Works a treat. The config section of the
drive is FAT32 so the field boys can pop it into their laptops
and configure it on site.

Currently have a basic system including networking, X 4.2, Wine
and application software all compressed into separate .tgz's
fitting into less than 14MB on CF card.

Card uses two-kernel-monte to bootstrap and then load the real
kernel from a .tgz so I can upgrade the entire system over the
network and just do a reboot remotely.

Entire boot, from power button to fully functioning application
under X is 38 Seconds.
Most of that is reading the compressed data off the flash and
expanding it.
Currently this system is running an entire building (Lights/Power/
Doors and other misc IO) in a WA correctional facility.

-- 
Brad....
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