Re: Embedded != Low Power

[Gabriel Paubert <paubert@iram.es>]

On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 09:31:00AM +1100, Brendan Simon wrote:
> Neil Williams wrote:
>> On Tue, 2008-10-28 at 23:26 +0800, GNUbie wrote:
>>   OK, that might be a little bit tight for a GUI based on Lenny, even 
>> with
>> XFCE. However, I read below that you don't need a GUI so 512Mb is plenty
>> of space. I'm still not sure what you want the device to do though
>> because amd64 is a powerful architecture and I can't imagine that you'd
>> get it to run without a fan or have much of a battery life if the device
>> is meant to be portable, which makes it hard to see the appeal of solid
>> state storage.
>>   
> Portable does not necessarily mean PDA size or smaller.  The target may  
> be a moving device, like a robot, the size of shoe box or very small  
> child, etc.  (eg. 30cm x 30cm x 30cm).  Solid State storage would be  
> required as it is more robust for environments with moving vehicles  
> where there can be sudden acceleration (or deceleration - eg. crash into  
> an object).
>
> Embedded != Low Power
>
> It is true that a lot of embedded devices have limited storage,  
> computing power and need to be low power, but not all.
>
> eg. Communications equipment (think managed routers/switches, vpns,  
> firewalls, etc) that sit in communication cabinets.
>
> I've worked on this class of equipment and I would consider them to be  
> embedded products.  They have mid-range embedded processors targeted for  
> communications (eg. PowerPC PowerQUICC) with now keyboard or video.   
> They generally have a serial console port and network ports for  
> management.  This type of equipment can have 100W-500W power-supplies  
> with lots of fans.
>
> I do agree that Emdebian should cater for low power, low capacity, low  
> speed devices, however it should also cater for higher end embedded  
> devices too.
>
> From memory, Emdebian Grip would be a good candidate for this, right ???
>
> I have developed for PowerPC architecture, using Apple PowerPC PowerMacs  
> as the development hosts, however now that Apple have gone Intel, it  
> makes it harder to find powerful PowerPC platforms to build powerpc  
> binaries.

Well, there is the PowerStation from http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com,
not really cheap, but not inordinately expensive either. It is essentially 
the same as the last high end PowerMac (Quad G5), and more OSS friendly.
 
The biggest defect is that it really takes quite a lot of juice (nice 
for winter, my house has electric heaters, so the electric bill will 
be similar whether I dissipate the heat in the computer or in the 
heaters). The other defect is that it uses SAS disks, which are expensive
and hard to find.

	Regards,
	Gabriel