<html> <head> <meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"> It works and I'm happy with the setup. The main plus point is that Debian's asterisk works without trouble after some tuning. I can now switch off the PC without worrying about the desk phone. Next to pbx and normal router functions it has a USB backup drive attached to receive remote backups. It takes about 5W, so that goal is more than met. Also it's cheap. I used this to purchase a 2nd one for experimentation. Total price was $20 for the router, $12 for the 16GB mini USB flash drive and about $100 for the external USB backup disk. Prices where amazon/newegg deals so might be a bit higher now. Currently it starts standard OpenWRT config that serves as a backup configuration. From there it detects if the USB flash drive is present, and will proceed booting into Debian, killing the OpenWRT deamons and start the Debian ones. I do keep the OpenWRT dropbear daemon running to be able to log into the real root. Debian ssh daemon logs into the Debian chroot. The downsides: - Needs A LOT of work to tune for memory use and make robust. My approach just starts a couple of daemons from the Debian chroot to keep the memory usage low, so the rest of the Debian boot is done manually, i.e. I'm not running the main Debian init script. - I'd advice to install a hardware serial console from the start. The board already has the 4-prong header soldered on it. I broke it once after I switched it to be my main router, cutting myself out due to some network configuration error and a non-working (non-tested) failsafe. Of course this is just me not being careful. - Device is not supported in standard OpenWRT (yet). I'm not sure if this is just an organizational problem or if there are licencing issues. Compiling it is a pita. - The main disappointment is that ssh/rsync is very slow. I don't get over 2MB/sec and the limit here seems to be CPU, but for my purpose this is OK (receiving rate-limited incremental backups over the internet). - It seems to need swap to run some of the more resource-intensive Debian apps. Especially during "apt-get install" things can get out of hand. I have this swap on a USB flash drive which is not ideal. It was a nice learning experience, but I did not expect it to take so long to get going. In retrospect, what I have running as daemons can probably be done in pure OpenWRT, but it sure is handy to have the convenience of a Debian system even if somewhat slow and memory-constrained. OpenWRT is great for its intended purpose, but has its limitations. On 07/05/2012 05:42 PM, Bryan Laur wrote: <blockquote cite="mid:CAN=5Uv6AeX56sJzEQMgzjshjmbQ4t7E=XYvaO4zuLaehNvrWyA@mail.gmail.com" type="cite">So, how is this working out? Did this end up being a viable solution? <div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 1:57 PM, Tom Schouten <<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:tom@zwizwa.be" target="_blank">tom@zwizwa.be</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">To run debian I had to recompile the image on this page <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://manojpi.blogspot.com/2012/05/openwrt-on-belkin-share-max-n300.html" target="_blank">http://manojpi.blogspot.com/2012/05/openwrt-on-belkin-share-max-n300.html</a> and enable FPU emulation. Compilation didn't go without problems so if anyone is interested in the .trx or the *.ipk, drop me an email (strip the [GLLUG] tag in the subject line). <div class="HOEnZb"> <div class="h5"> On 06/21/2012 07:02 PM, Tom Schouten wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> I bought the N300. Let's see if I can scale down requirements a bit.. Next is "debootstrap --foreign --arch mipsel squeeze squeeze" on a USB 2.5" Looking for more info I ran into this page: <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianWRT" target="_blank">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianWRT</a> I used OpenWRT + chrooted Debian system a couple of years ago on an old SimpleTech SimpleShare NAS. Worked well only for very basic stuff since the disk was very slow and the machine was a bit low on memory (32M). The Belkin has 64M so should be a little better, but still seems quite tight. I'm curious if it will run asterisk. On 06/19/2012 12:38 AM, Charles Ulrich wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> Not a bad price for a hackable router, even if the stock firmware is a bit crap. I might grab one to be a wifi bridge. Also, what OpenWRT class? :) Charles On 06/18/2012 11:56 PM, Tom Schouten wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> Thanks a bunch for all the answers. In the OpenWRT class I ran into this one today, currently $19.97 on amazon Belkin Share Max N300 <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-Share-N300-Wireless-Router/dp/B004B1Z6EE" target="_blank">http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-Share-N300-Wireless-Router/dp/B004B1Z6EE</a> There are patches for OpenWRT <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://manojpi.blogspot.com/2012/05/openwrt-on-belkin-share-max-n300.html" target="_blank">http://manojpi.blogspot.com/2012/05/openwrt-on-belkin-share-max-n300.html</a> Cheers Tom On 06/18/2012 08:23 AM, Tom Schouten wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> Hi List, Recently I've been doing some math and found out that running a 100W machine 24/7 at my parent's back home cost me about 150 Euros/year (Belgian electricity is quite expensive, about 20 Eurocents/kWh more than double of what it is here). The 100W was measured with power meter over period of 24h so is probably quite accurate. Includes PC, GB ethernet switch + wireless router. Anyone have an idea of how to replace this with something more power-efficient? I recently ran into [1] which seems like a nice solution. Not sure about the power though. It probably can go lower still. This[2] might be nice too. The main purpose for the server is backup, VPN, asterisk, email with spamassassin+clamav, apache and to serve as print server and gateway for the home network, maybe also PLEX but that can also run on a "real" PC if necessary. [1] <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://mocko.org.uk/b/2012/06/17/how-i-store-my-1s-and-0s-zfs-bargain-hp-microserver-joy/" target="_blank">http://mocko.org.uk/b/2012/06/17/how-i-store-my-1s-and-0s-zfs-bargain-hp-microserver-joy/</a> [2] <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.androidauthority.com/via-android-pc-arm-49-dollars-88209/" target="_blank">http://www.androidauthority.com/via-android-pc-arm-49-dollars-88209/</a> _______________________________________________ linux-user mailing list <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:linux-user@egr.msu.edu" target="_blank">linux-user@egr.msu.edu</a> <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user" target="_blank">http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user</a> </blockquote> _______________________________________________ linux-user mailing list <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:linux-user@egr.msu.edu" target="_blank">linux-user@egr.msu.edu</a> <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user" target="_blank">http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user</a> </blockquote> _______________________________________________ linux-user mailing list <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:linux-user@egr.msu.edu" target="_blank">linux-user@egr.msu.edu</a> <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user" target="_blank">http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user</a> </blockquote> _______________________________________________ linux-user mailing list <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:linux-user@egr.msu.edu" target="_blank">linux-user@egr.msu.edu</a> <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user" target="_blank">http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user</a> </blockquote> _______________________________________________ linux-user mailing list <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:linux-user@egr.msu.edu" target="_blank">linux-user@egr.msu.edu</a> <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user" target="_blank">http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user</a> </div> </div> </blockquote> </div> </blockquote> </body> </html>