Small board with good Ethernet and GPS/PPS

[Hal Murray]

I'm looking for something like a Raspberry Pi with a GPS HAT to run ntp.  The 
Raspberry Pi has its Ethernet connected via USB which adds a significant 
layer of jitter.  So I'm looking for something similar but with a good 
Ethernet connection.

[Yes, most people wouldn't notice the Ethernet jitter from USB.  I'm retired 
so I have time for things like this.]

The recent (ongoing?) discussion of a board with 2 LAN connections suggested 
Banana Pi and Orange Pi.  The good news is that they have the same 40 pin I/O 
connector as the Raspberry Pi so Pi HATs will probably work without a lot of 
effort.


I poked around via Google but didn't find anything that looked wonderful.  
For example, the Orange Pi claims to be open source but the schematics are 
hard to find.  It may be as simple as I'm not looking in the right place.


Does anybody have a favorite small board with both a good Ethernet connection 
and a way to connect GPS with PPS?



-- 
These are my opinions.  I hate spam.

Re: simple freebsd router for home use _&_ Re: A single-board computer for NetBSD

[Julian H. Stacey]

Martin Cermak 's  question is virtualy the same
on at least FreeBSD & NetBSD lists (wonder if other lists were used too ?)
Inefficient to leave respondents ignorant of other discussion[s] of same
hardware requirement so:

https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hardware/2016-November/007795.html
Subject: simple freebsd router for home use
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2016 22:45:59 +0100
To: freebsd-hardw...@freebsd.org

http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-users/2016/11/19/msg019050.html
Subject: A single-board computer for NetBSD
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2016 04:14:32 +0100
To: netbsd-users@NetBSD.org

Cheers,
Julian
--
Julian Stacey, BSD Linux Unix Sys Eng Consultant Munich
 Reply below, Prefix '> '. Plain text, No .doc, base64, HTML, quoted-printable.
 http://berklix.eu/brexit/#stolen_votes

Re: A single-board computer for NetBSD

[Riccardo Mottola]

Hi,


On 19/11/2016 21:01, co...@sdf.org wrote:

It is port-arm/51453: mutex_vector_enter: locking against myself on RPi
It's a dwc2 bug.

Without using USB, it has been rock solid - I've compiled for days on
it. With - it would occasionally hang but is still usable.


I can confirm the stability. I have a RPI and installed NetBSD by 
writing the memory from a PC.

I used USB only for keyboard, wired ethernet.
I compiled for about one week all dependencies necessary for GNUstep, 
then build from source GNUstep itself and most applications and tested them.
The small box proved stable, compiled without issues, no hangups, no 
network problems.


My first impression is that it is slower than the twin box running 
Raspbian and the same application, I haven't analyzed what makes it 
slower. I think that X11 is a little bit slower, it boots a bit slower. 
Maybe disk access? I am not sure, the impression is that Raspbian is a 
little better optimized and results being a little more responsive.


Riccardo

Re: A single-board computer for NetBSD

[Michael van Elst]

a.k...@gmx.de (Andreas Krey) writes:

>On Sat, 19 Nov 2016 21:35:20 +, Niels Dettenbach (Syndicat.com) wrote:
>...
>> Sound???s nice that RPIs are used with NetBSD from someones.

>The process istn't quite as painless as with Raspbian.

It's less effort than most other NetBSD installations. Copy
image to SD card, boot from it and wait until the image
has been grown to the SD card size. Of course now you have
to collect and install the packages you need.


>I had my VLAN-based router setup previously on a raspberry, 
>and the effect was that there would be interrupt warnings
>for the internal interface (which is also USB-based) that
>I don't remember in detail, and sooner or later (every few
>days) the interface would lock up, and I set up a cronjob
>that would reboot the box where 8.8.8.8 wasn't pingable for
>a while. Once or twice the reboot didn't work then either.

I'm using an RPI as a desktop system with a USB system disk
(the SD card is only used to boot the kernel). And while
that may be less demanding on USB than a router, it is stable.

-- 
-- 
Michael van Elst
Internet: mlel...@serpens.de
"A potential Snark may lurk in every tree."

Re: A single-board computer for NetBSD

[Andreas Krey]

On Sat, 19 Nov 2016 21:35:20 +, Niels Dettenbach (Syndicat.com) wrote:
...
> Sound???s nice that RPIs are used with NetBSD from someones.

The process istn't quite as painless as with Raspbian.

...
> And what do you mean with ???occasionally??? and ???hang??? (auto reboot 
> possible by sysrq / watchdog or similiar?)

I had my VLAN-based router setup previously on a raspberry, 
and the effect was that there would be interrupt warnings
for the internal interface (which is also USB-based) that
I don't remember in detail, and sooner or later (every few
days) the interface would lock up, and I set up a cronjob
that would reboot the box where 8.8.8.8 wasn't pingable for
a while. Once or twice the reboot didn't work then either.

Andreas

-- 
"Totally trivial. Famous last words."
From: Linus Torvalds 
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 07:29:21 -0800

Re: A single-board computer for NetBSD

[Niels Dettenbach (Syndicat.com)]

> Am 19.11.2016 um 21:01 schrieb co...@sdf.org:
> 
> Without using USB, it has been rock solid - I've compiled for days on
> it. With - it would occasionally hang but is still usable.

Sound’s nice that RPIs are used with NetBSD from someones.

Do you know / could you explain what the (current?) problem with USB is?

And what do you mean with „occasionally“ and „hang“ (auto reboot possible by 
sysrq / watchdog or similiar?)


many thanks for your hints,


Niels.

—
Niels Dettenbach
Syndicat IT & Internet
http://www.syndicat.com