I don't mind, if RAM is soldered to the board, as long as it is the maximum amount the chip supports :-) Choice usually makes a product more expensive to the end user.

bhtooefr: the freescale site ( http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/sit ... de=i.MX515 ) does not seem to mention a second ethernet port, so that would need an additional chip on board. But you can also use an USB Ethernet adapter. I used that for a while with my EFIKA, it is more than enough to drive an ADSL line at full speed. Also, it only mentions ATA, but unless you go after 1TB HDDs, it should not be a problem.

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CzP
http://czanik.blogs.balabit.com/

There's also a possibility to add embedded chips such as these;

http://www.davicom.com.tw/page1.aspx?no=143762

(the Toshiba board uses one for it's ethernet)
Or buy a SATA->ATA adapter and don't mind only running it at ATA66 speeds.

I really don't think an ARM server is going to catch on though.. most of the modern ARM chips are directly focused on media decoding/encoding and playback (i.e. display).

It would make an absolutely awesome media center if it meets the grade for 720p HD video playback (and it can encode at DVD resolution). The problem is restricting it's input to 720p video streams.. and possibly scaling down 720p video to DVD resolution to encode it in the first place could be something that impacts simultaneous playback (i.e. watch while you record).

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Matt Sealey

Depends on the retail pricing, I could see it being used for home or small office server or firewall. The main selling point is how easy the software that is pre-installed will interface with the end user. Make things drop easy to do, I think you can sell some units.

Dammy

I'm going to be hooking up a pair of Hitachi TravelStar 5K500.Bs to the thing. They only come in SATA. And that's the case for all the 2.5" 500 GB drives.

ATA66 is enough speed, though... (The biggest reason for SATA->USB converters being a no-go is CPU utilization of USB.) Does the i.MX515 have two PATA channels? If not, can it support two PATA devices on the same channel?

Right.
It's part of the standard so I assume so. The only reason you can't on the Efika is we made the connector weird so you can't - based on the reasoning that long cables are a very, very bad idea based on the way it's implemented on the MPC5200B.

I still don't know the specs of the board entirely so I can't really comment on what it can and can't do. We (that is to say, anyone in this part of Genesi) won't have hardware for a little while since we're waiting for a new revision (any day now though! :)

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Matt Sealey

Problem; why would a firewall need a video encoder? Or the ability to output a >720p display?

There are better chips for this. The i.MX515 is capable but it's the wrong target market. I already explained this..

There's also the issue of naively marketing servers. Sure, a server that is really easy to configure with preinstalled this and that, is a great idea, but how do you choose what is preinstalled? You can get to quite a hefty set of applications and servers and clients if you try and meet every demand the system is CAPABLE of doing, or even reasonably sure your customers WILL do. You will not see, however, all of them doing all of them at once.

The current market for these things is split between the various different things; you might get a router that has a hard disk it shares out with Samba, but it's not a server.. just file storage. You might get a media player with a hard disk but it is not a router. You might get a router that has a hard disk and think, it can be my web server too (see above, what do you install on it? Just the server? Or PHP and MySQL and Python and Perl and a hundred Perl modules and Ruby and all the Rails?) but then you realize you just bought a router home which exposes a potential security risk to your network (it's best not to run webservers on your network borders..)

Bundling it all in the same box makes each individual use more expensive, and therefore prices itself out of the reach of normal people who see cheaper prices on the shelf next to it, which fulfills their needs perfectly.

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Matt Sealey

These points are true, but those might not be the main markets. You might see how much demand for something like that would be, at a rough pricepoint.

And, you wouldn't even have to market it as a server - with single ethernet and one PATA channel (or two SATA ports on that one PATA channel - SATA drives are becoming the rule rather than the exception,) you could market it as a light desktop board, which is what I'm understanding the current EFIKA is marketed as. But, it would be suitable for other uses.

What is it with people who wants to build "routers"
out of every motherboard they can find?

Why would you do that? There are already boards
designed for that specific purpose if you want
something advanced, such as multiple individual
Gbit ports.

If you don't need something advanced, why not
purchase that ZyXEL NBG460n router with 700
Mbit WAN->LAN throughput for peanut money..

Besides, putting any kind of file-storage at the
edge of your network is just plain stupid.

Hear, hear!

Well, I built one from the EFIKA, but would not do the same from my 8610 board :-)
This is a key sentence :) I still have to find a router/nas solution, which fully covers my needs.
I'd argue a bit here. You are right, when talking about consumer products, where they release a software once, and no security updates ever thereafter. But having a combined router/NAS also has some advantages:

* one less device to upgrade and feed with electricity
* much better performance on P2P networks, when not behind a NAT (SuSE, Ubuntu, FreeBSD, etc. install CDs and DVDs).

And now back to the i.MX515: if you download multimedia content with your iMX515 router/NAS/media player, you could easily preview it without an additional device :-)

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CzP
http://czanik.blogs.balabit.com/

I value the security of having them separated
with NAT and firewall protection much higher
than saving a few hundred SEK per year.

10 SEK = 1 EUR
8 SEK = 1 USD

So saving 20-30 EUR per year and taking a
huge risk of making my content accessible
to the world? No thanks.

Besides, I did say that the routing functionality of this server wasn't necessary. :)

Well, the last time when one of my UNIX systems was compromised was in 1995 (sniffed ftp password combined local root in cron) and had my last Windows (actually DOS) virus in 1991 (a boot sector virus). So I trust myself, that I can keep the boxes secure, even a combined router/NAS :-)

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CzP
http://czanik.blogs.balabit.com/

czp:
Sure, but you are just one man.

I expect Genesi are aiming for large sales, and
not just another developer board like the Efika.

Neko says that this board is perfect as a low-
resolution media player, or netbook. If that is
what the CPU is made for, then go for it. A complete
package with a direct focus is what Genesi needs.

Regular people couldn't care less what CPU their
appliance use, as long as they can do what's
expected from it.

I work with PowerQUICC's every day with all new
ZyXEL USG firewalls that I implement. The older
ZyWALLs use ARM. But even I couldn't care less
about this, despite being an old Power-user..

i have been looking for a router board. i would like to get one that is open with linux and non x86. i just did a quick google for zyxel and found nothing about the cpu and only a hint that linux might work on it.