One thing I have to comment on. Why are you picking on Soekris? There are many other SBC makers out there (I own about half a dozen different brands of Geode based hardware) and not a single one has any sort of helpful info on their site software-wise. Heck, some don't even have hardware specifics beyond a two page brochure! Soekris is also one of the few (only?) that has a mailing list where people can help each other out (and even Soren chimes in from time to time!)...
These products are a niche market (at this time), and as such targeted at a very small and specific industrial/commercial audience that have customized applications in mind. There's aren't your common broadband router type product where you power them on and you instantly get a nice web interface with step-by-step instructions, and I don't think they ever will be. There are a lot of guides on how to install an OS, and even a few pre-built images for router setups, but these products are far from plug & play status (and instantly use in whatever crazy application someone might brew up). Being that most people will use them with a CF card, a certain level of technical knowledge has to exist. You can't simple double-click an icon to install a program like in windows. You have to realize you are dealing with a read-only medium and finite resources, and as such you need to customize all your programs to work around that. Everyone has to start from somewhere, nobody is an instant guru, I realize that. But before diving into the SBC area (and not knowing what a null-modem cable is), you should really know all the in's & out's of whatever OS you plan on installing on the SBC. Before I got my first SBC, I have been using FreeBSD for ages, so building NanoBSD was pretty simple. It still took me a few tries before I got the build how I wanted it because of the minimal documentation for NanoBSD, but it comes with the territory. _______________________________________________ Soekris-tech mailing list [email protected] http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
