MrSinatra;218527 Wrote: > > if a fat device gave you a better, more functional exp, without costing > more or taking away any benefit you enjoy now, why be against it?Ok, so you > want more for equal amount of money ?
I'm afraid I can't see how this equation could be solved. Someone obviously has to pay for the development costs, faster CPU, more memory... I'm pretty sure Logitech won't give it away, after all they are into this to earn money. They could of course choose to save money on other parts to keep the price, for example poor quality audio circuit, a smaller display... MrSinatra;218525 Wrote: > i would just say keep the box as small as possible, and keep the music > storage separate, whether it be ext drive, or card reader, or whatever.I > can't see why the music storage needs to be separated, that just means that I need another box. Why not include a 200GB drive in the box, which should be enough for most people, and allow extra drives using USB drives or NAS boxes. If we are going to make it fat, why not make it really fat ? MrSinatra;218525 Wrote: > if SD went to a category 2 solution ONLY, and things cost about the same > then as they do now, i don't see what category one people would have > lost, as long as they can still tinker with the code as they do now. > why would you be against this is my question?Because people usually doesn't > like to pay for things they don't use. There are a lot of people that have several SB devices in their home. A thin SB can obviously be made cheaper than a fat device with equal sound quality. So those that like to have 3 SB devices in different rooms, would have to pay for the server part of the fat device 3 times, but they would only need one instance of that part. Another reason is that, if they are in the same box it will be harder to let a third party vendor do the SlimServer hardware while Logitech focus on the SB hardware. It will be possible of course, the PC architecture with its PCI cards is a good example of this, but it will probably be easier if it were separate boxes. Separate boxes would also allow other companies to make their own SlimServer hardware box, creating a bit of competition which might lower the price. But more SB's needs to be sold before this can be the case. MrSinatra;218525 Wrote: > SS already has a linux flavor. just make the fat device run enough of > linux to run SS as it now exists. is that such a hard thing to do? > and SS will have local SB access, it won't need to TCP/IP to the SB. > > that seems to simplify things doesn't it? > > in any case, i don't see why you think everything would need redone, > since SS could work as is on top of a linux OS customized for a fat > box? > Nothing has to be redone if the fat device consisted of: - Part 1: A SqueezeBox with current processor, memory and other chips - Part 2: A SlimServer hardware card with its own processor, memory and other chips. So if we basically are talking about taking a SB and a NAS and put them in the same box but let them have totally separated components, no new development is needed. If we on the other hand want to let the SB use the NAS processor or vice versa, new development is needed. Because the SB processor currently doesn't have enough power to run Linux and I'm betting that the SB firmware doesn't run on any other processor than the ones that exist in SB and Transporter. However, the reason stuff has to be redone if we make a fat device is that the current architecture is optimised for the situation where there is a network between the SB and SlimServer. If this isn't the case it just gets more complicated than needed. It would work, but it would take a lot of time to maintain the extra code that isn't actually needed. MrSinatra;218525 Wrote: > as i alluded to above, couldn't a fat device operate in legacy mode?Sure it > can, but again if you like this fat device for the same price as the current solution, who is going to pay for that extra option ? MrSinatra;218525 Wrote: > 7.0 is going to have a new plugin system right? why not just leave that > in such a fat device?The new plugin system in 7.0 doesn't have anything to do > with fat/thin device. One could obviously allow third party developers to develop plugins for a proprietary hardware, but if you look around in the current solutions available this options isn't offered in most cases. There are plugin solutions for stuff running on a PC, like Firefox, Winamp, SlimServer. I'm not saying that it can't be done, because it can, but vendors usually choose not to do it on proprietary hardware. MrSinatra;218525 Wrote: > lots of routers and NAS boxes are (eg.) linux based, but work with any > OS or environment. and further, many can be reprogrammed with opn > source linux code.I wouldn't say a lot of them can be reprogrammed. I would > say a lot of them can be hacked, but the vendor usually tries to make this as hard as possible. Now, again, I'm not saying it can't be done, because it can. There are a few examples where the hardware vendor officially allows people to install their own stuff on their proprietary hardware, but these examples are quite few. If I'm not incorrect, most of the NAS solutions that currently exist for SlimServer depends on that you first hack the device to be able to install third party software. MrSinatra;218525 Wrote: > the device would still be totally cross platform, it would simply not > itself be cross platform. > > but would that kill development for it? i don't see why, it would > still be SS in perl, just running on a special custom linux job. i > would think that would be transparent to most users. > The open source development going on on proprietary hardware devices today is often related to trying to run already existing open source software on the device. There isn't much open source development going on that develop software that only runs on a specific hardware. If you are purposing that Logitech should provide a single fat device but keep the SlimServer part platform idependent, I really don't see the benefit for Logitech. Developing something platform independent costs money, so why bother if 99% of your customers are running SlimServer on the same platform (the fat device). === Fat and thin devices are really different philosophies, so if Logitech should change to the fat device track there needs to be a really good reason. The current solution provides two advantages over the competitors: - The display of the SB/Transporter is better than most(all?) other similar devices out there - The audio quality of the SB/Transporter is better than most(all?) other similar devices out there If choosing the fat device route, this can't be done if it would result in poorer display or poorer audio quality. The reason is just that Logitech would then loose the advantage over the competition they have today. If I have understand it correctly, the most expensive part of the SB today is the display, so it will probably be hard to make a fat device that keeps the same display but doesn't also raise the cost of the product. One reason for the audio quality in the SB today is that there aren't a lot of other electronics around the audio components. One reason many audio cards in a computer doesn't sound as good as the SB is that there is just too much electrical disturbance inside a computer case. I fear that the electrical disturbance inside a fat client would be a bigger problem than it is in the current thin client, the obvious reason is that the fat client contains more components. ====== To sum it up. As I said in my previous post, I think the category 2 people needs to be satisfied in one way or another. So there is a need for some sort of small, silent hardware solution where SlimServer can run. I don't think a NAS is the correct solution, because it doesn't have enough memory/processor to run SlimServer. So I think the best solution would be some sort of VIA EPIA or Mac Mini based device. I really can't see the benefit of putting SB and SlimServer hardware in the same box. If there are two boxes that can be nicely docked, what is the disadvantage ? The only disadvantage I can is is that the size might be a little bit bigger. But most people are going to keep their SB in the living room and they for sure have other equipment that is a lot bigger, for example the amplifier, speakers, DVD-player, TV.... But there is an advantage of having the solution in two parts, users can then choose to put the SlimServer part away somewhere where they don't see it, for example in a completely different room. The visual equipment would then only be the SB part which could be really slim. I guess what I'm saying is that I really can't see any real benefit with a fat device or a box which contained both SB and SlimServer. -- erland Erland Isaksson 'My homepage' (http://erland.homeip.net) 'My download page' (http://erland.homeip.net/download) (Developer of 'TrackStat, SQLPlayList, DynamicPlayList, Custom Browse, Custom Scan, Custom Skip, Multi Library and RandomPlayList plugins' (http://wiki.erland.homeip.net/index.php/Category:SlimServer)) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=37279 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
