Post 9nt10JYAJs0bKtfzXc by Roxxor@fosstodon.org
(DIR) More posts by Roxxor@fosstodon.org
(DIR) Post #9nt10CmRUOGmL9InK4 by dadegroot@mastodon.social
2019-10-13T09:07:25Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
@kemonine In all your extensive testing of small computers, what do you recommend for something that has a sata connector (or two), 1-2Gb ram, and linux friendly ? Thinking of migrating my home mail server from a VM to a dedicated machine.
(DIR) Post #9nt10JYAJs0bKtfzXc by Roxxor@fosstodon.org
2019-10-13T09:14:34Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@dadegroot @kemonine Odroid HC1 or HC2.
(DIR) Post #9nt1UFJ6eulWreuAkK by kemonine@social.holdmybeer.solutions
2019-10-13T15:11:13.114862Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@Roxxor @dadegroot I personally prefer the FriedlyArm M4. It's wayyyyy more powerful and has a marvell based sata carrier board. It also has the cpu/ram necessary to run zfs with it 😉 https://www.friendlyarm.com/for the curous: m4 notes: https://git.lollipopcloud.solutions/lollipop-cloud/docs/src/branch/master/hardware/nano_pi_m4.txtzfs on arm generic notes (m4 does NOT need arc tuning): https://git.lollipopcloud.solutions/lollipop-cloud/docs/src/branch/master/advanced/zfs.mdalso, the o-droids with sata are 32bit and the world of 32bit arm is dying IMHO.I do a LOT (see https://docker.lollipopcloud.solutions/) of builds of software for ARM and... the 32bit support has gotten a lot more difficult the last ~12 months.Every 8 weeks I get a report from Jenkins about yet another 32bit thing not compiling or being a problem. Rarely is it something that can't be fixed but I notice arm32 is no longer a first class platform.
(DIR) Post #9nt1Uw3fiAy9SF0x9s by dadegroot@mastodon.social
2019-10-13T11:04:57Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@Roxxor @kemonine They look quite intriguing. The main thing I need is good concurrent disk I/O, since IMAP with multiple users can be hard on a system sometimes (Courier less so than Dovecot).
(DIR) Post #9nt1fbtd0uHg6nPHPc by kemonine@social.holdmybeer.solutions
2019-10-13T15:13:16.546302Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@dadegroot @Roxxor See my previous post.If you go with arm you'll definitely want 64bit boardsANDwatch out for how the sata is implemented. I've only seen one or two consumer boards that are proper sata.99% of the boards are going to be a usb<>sata chip instead of anything pci expressthat also holds for some of the boards that are showing up with on-board m.2 slots.if IO is a real concern and a primary one, you're likely better off with a NUC or similar hardware honestly.outside of server boards arm is way behind on disk io IMHO
(DIR) Post #9nt1g0ynkoHDu51GRk by dadegroot@mastodon.social
2019-10-13T11:06:25Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@Roxxor @kemonine and ideally, an OS without systemd (I f*$&#ng hate systemd, although my current mailserver has it, but I still hate it, and the horse it rode in on).
(DIR) Post #9nt1gACxRXwqWaiCGG by Roxxor@fosstodon.org
2019-10-13T13:31:58Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@dadegroot @kemonine Maybe you can somehow build your own version of armbian with devuan as basis? I really like systemd. For me it just works.
(DIR) Post #9nt1xsWPwFvUsuGF28 by kemonine@social.holdmybeer.solutions
2019-10-13T15:16:34.444998Z
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@Roxxor @dadegroot You could probably adapt the armbian builds to use devuan as a base.If ou look at their build engine there's a spot where it's just running a chroot style setup of debiarn or ubuntu.i've run modified builds of armbian in the past and it's not that bad.That said: does devuan support the same arch's? Does it handle some of the hardware early boot init in a reasonable way?Do you wanna swim upstream and away from systemd on a platform (arm) that's known to be a HUGE PITA when it comes to early boot, hardware init and kernel support?I personally wouldn't deviate from the "common" boot and inti methods on arm. There is a reason dtb's exist and we hvae things like modified u-boots per board and more. it's not pretty, not even a little. arm in consumer land doesn't really have any coreleary to uefi or openboot or coreboot or anything nice
(DIR) Post #9nu17IqhWDRYLZdeGe by dadegroot@mastodon.social
2019-10-14T02:40:57Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@kemonine @Roxxor I’ve had bad experiences with NUCs and quality control. Admittedly a few years ago now.
(DIR) Post #9nu1DM0agVAlsq9LFI by kemonine@social.holdmybeer.solutions
2019-10-14T02:42:52.947909Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@dadegroot Fair enough.What about a mini-itx box?You'll have the added benefit of being able to get a standard case as well (most arm boards that aren't a raspberry pi have very limited case options, even counting 3d printing models(I can make a case both directions here... based on your comments I'm leaning towards non-arm boards. Feel free to tell me to stop 😉 )@Roxxor
(DIR) Post #9nu1Sm389BF6zYgrvk by dadegroot@mastodon.social
2019-10-14T02:45:08Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@kemonine @Roxxor I notice the FriendlyARM NanoPC-T4 has onboard nvme, but still costs more than the M4 with nvme add on.
(DIR) Post #9nu1Y3ZMR6K0mDHj4C by kemonine@social.holdmybeer.solutions
2019-10-14T02:46:38.045211Z
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@dadegroot Could be the m4 has only the one expansion slot or it's not using the PCIE for the nvme. Double check the pintouts / wiring setups on their wiki.Some of their boards 'expansion' is usb, not pciE.I know the sata hat for the m4 is pci express and i only found confirmation on the wiki based on which pins were wired up@Roxxor
(DIR) Post #9nu1bhdPvjqruEv9lY by kemonine@social.holdmybeer.solutions
2019-10-14T02:47:17.472107Z
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@dadegroot Also: doesn't hte T4 have more overall hardware on it than the m4 by default?@Roxxor
(DIR) Post #9nu5DhP5XOOe3X1oZM by dadegroot@mastodon.social
2019-10-14T02:54:13Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@kemonine @Roxxor yeah
(DIR) Post #9nuxHhsb6ZNwDPBtlg by dadegroot@mastodon.social
2019-10-14T10:01:40Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@kemonine @Roxxor Aha, the main difference between the T4 and M4 as far as I'm concerned is the T4 has an PCIe 2.1x4 NVMe interface, while the M4's NVMe hat is PCIex2. It's quite hard to find x2 NVMe cards anymore (most are x4). I don't know enough about NVMe to know if x4 cards are backwards compatible and will just run slower, or whether they actually require an x4 bus. However the T4 is quite a bit more expensive given I have to add an NVMe card, and do the AUD-USD conversion.
(DIR) Post #9nvo6MpMKc4dJA9ci8 by dadegroot@mastodon.social
2019-10-14T23:24:36Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@kemonine I'm going to try my luck, and I've gone with a low end Celeron NUC. It's a known architecture and isn't overpowered for what I need, and was only $160 (plus another $43 for 256Gb SSD), I have ram for it already.
(DIR) Post #9nvo8Fzgi0r4h4t1YO by kemonine@social.holdmybeer.solutions
2019-10-14T23:25:43.406491Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@dadegroot 👍 I think you'll find it's a much better contender for disk IO than similarly priced arm hardware.That and it gets zfs for "free" 😉