On Sun, 2011-07-24 at 12:26 +1000, Brendan Simon (eTRIX) wrote: > Hello, > > I have a data logging application and I need some hardware can support > the following requirements. > * 1 USB port to collect data from a USB device. > * 1 network interface (Ethernet and/or WLAN). > * https service to retrieve the data over the Internet, and/or > push data to a server on the Internet. > * Low Power > Ideally the hardware platform would be a commodity item that is > readily available and cost under US$100 (under US$50 preferable). > > I came across OpenWrt and it seems suitable for what I need, but most > of the supported hardware are routers with multiple LAN ports, > 802.11n, and USB, which is probably overkill for my application. > > I was wondering if OpenWrt will work on some of the smaller print > server type devices, with one USB port, one LAN and/or WAN interface. > Here some examples (from an Australian electronics search engine). > > http://staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/search.cgi?q=wireless+print > +server&spos=1 > > 1a) Does anyone know if these devices have the resources to run a > Linux OS ?? > > 1b) Would OpenWrt be a suitable Linux distribution, or would some > other distro be more suited for my needs (given I don't actually need > routing functionality). > > 2) If resources are two low, I guess some other non-linux OS such as > FreeRTOS or RTEMS might be suitable ?? >
We recently built&launched one such thing ( for the Swedish market ) which does exactly that. At the beginning we were looking at various Plug computer based things ( wiki.openwrt.org/toh/seagate/dockstar is a great little device ) pogoplug/sheevaplug and similar all sport just the things you want. Though, getting a case or similar made for a board of this kind turned out to be prohibitly expensive for a small scale production run, so in the end we settled with a cheapish x86 based machine that's meant to be used as a thin terminal ( $60ish in larger quantities ) Personally, I found the Dockstar _really_ nice to work with, quiet and easy and quick, the various plugs are quite similar, and give you a lot of leeway with memory. If you're on the cheap, there's a lot of both VorteX86 and Via cpu based thin clients around. OpenWRT is quite nice to work with for this sort of thing, though if you want to go into _really_ constrained places ( think 4Meg flash and so on) you'll end up needing different things. And then there is : http://sites.google.com/site/bifferboard/ which is also an x86-based thing, sweet and tiny, though not always the cheapest solution. //Spider _______________________________________________ openwrt-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openwrt.org/mailman/listinfo/openwrt-users
