[time-nuts] Modern HW replacement for ATOM based NTP server?

Attila Kinali attila at kinali.ch
Tue Apr 7 08:05:28 EDT 2015


On Mon, 6 Apr 2015 22:29:23 +0000 (UTC)
Frank Hughes via time-nuts <time-nuts at febo.com> wrote:

> Looking for a platform not needing a fan. While the ATOM and SSD seem to be 
> OK w/o direct airflow, the Mini ITX Power Supply fan is needed.

That depends highly on how much knowledge in linux and especially
embedded linux you have.

If you know how to build your own kernel, what initrd means and today
it's actually initramfs and not initrd and you do not fear to build
whole software systems by hand, then you can go for one of the many
embedded boards. The beaglebone black, the minnow max and SAMA5D come
to mind. The Minnow Max has the advantage of being an x86 based system
and thus behaves very much like it (not completely though). The BBB
has a huge supporting community and you can find a lot of information
online. The SAMA5D based systems are nice because Atmel seems to care
very much about proper support in the kernel.

If you don't feel confortable with the challenges of an embedded
system, i would recommend to stick with an ITX (or smaller) PC.
Eg The APU[1] from pc-engines, which is the successor of his successful
ALIX boards. Pascal Dornier is very helpfull if you have any issues
with his boards, and full documentation (including schematics) is online.


			Attila Kinali

[1] http://www.pcengines.ch/apu.htm

-- 
It is upon moral qualities that a society is ultimately founded. All 
the prosperity and technological sophistication in the world is of no 
use without that foundation.
                 -- Miss Matheson, The Diamond Age, Neil Stephenson


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