On Mon, 2010-10-11 at 10:30 +0200, Erez D wrote: > hey, > > > my NSLU2 just died ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSLU2 ) > I can replace it with a new one, however i was thinking - it has been > long time since nslu2 showed up, and there must be a more powerful > device available for a similiar price... > > I am actually looking for a cheap linux box, with usb2 and lan, which > I can install a general purpose linux distribution on (e.g. debian and > such. not openwrt which is good for routers, but not for other things > like hosting a mail server etc ...) > > anyone knows of such a linux box ? > > Thanks > erez. >
If you're willing to trade "small" for "cheap", in my view a (very) low-end PC is a far better option. (At the expense of bigger foot-print and higher power usage). Of the top of my head, two options: 1. A dual core ATOM combo box can be found at under 800nis. Add a case, PSU and you can stay under 1100nis. 2. Low end dual core AMD machine: CPU: ~250-300nis, board (Low-end nVidia based board): ~300nis, case+PSU: 300nis, memory: ~200nis. Total: ~1100nis. Needless to say, such a machine is far more capable (and far more serviceable) compared to custom made ARM or PPC machine. For my use, I chose the AMD route. This low end machine (beefed up with 4GB of RAM a and a software RAID5 based on cheap SATA drives) is currently used to house 3 different CentOS VM's using Fedora 13's qemu/KVM, and according to the UPS monitor, this machine rarely tops 60-70w. Keep in mind, that with some effort you could further reduce the power usage by using 35w or even a 25w 2x0u-series CPUs (instead of the usual 55w). -- Gilboa Davara http://www.wirex-systems.com _______________________________________________ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
