Re: OpenWRT

[Harmon Seaver <hseaver@gmail.com>]

Jerome Warnier wrote:

> Given that Multias have limited expansion, eat much power, have a rather
> noisy hard-disk and only have one integrated NIC, I fail to see where it
> could be really interesting.
> 
> As a Multia owner, it doesn't seem so appealing to me. But hey, you're
> free!


   What? Have you looked at your multia lately? You have two beautiful
pcmcia slots right? So that's 2 wifi cards there. Which is what I've
done with mine. Then you have the built-in nic, and then you have
another PCI slot for another nic, either wifi or ethernet.
   They make a great router/firewall/access-point. Noisy hardrive --
mine isn't, maybe you need a new one? My fan is noisy, but who cares,
the thing sits in the attic anyway.
   I guess you didn't really read my post, or else just missed the whole
point. Multia's, being so low-powered and slow, really aren't usable for
much of anything these days --- except as a cheap
router/firewall/access-point. And even at that, unless you already had
one, I'm sure you could buy a new/used linksys or d-link
router/accesspoint on ebay much cheaper than finding and paying for
shipping on a multia. Right?
   So having a little embedded OS like OpenWRT that ran on the multia
would be a great thing. Not that I expect it ever to happen.
   In fact, since I got my multia going (running debian sarge with a
2.4.34.1 kernel as I outlined before), I've found some really cheap
older laptops on ebay that I'm picking up for $10-15 which have 2 pcmcia
 slots and a usb port *AND* a docking station/port replicator with 4
pcmcia slots -- which work a lot better than the multias. And can use a
CF card/IDE instead of a hardrive. And have no fan and run on 12v.
   So, since I've now got these new toys, I'll probably be selling my
multias. Anybody want to buy one with the 74F623 chip replaced with a
later upgrade TI chip that won't burn out from the "heat-death" problem?
Make me an offer.

8^)



-- 
Harmon Seaver