New Alix board for 2013

watercooled

The Jetway board itself is using more power than the ALIX is stated to though, which means extra heat to expel.

My reasoning is, the new board uses only a couple of Watts more than the existing one, at least when idle, so it seems unlikely the case would go from barely lukewarm to too hot to touch. Hence my theory of something being less-than-ideal with the thermal path from die to enclosure.

Has anyone with the new board observed the enclosure getting hot? Bear in mind that since the heat still needs to get through the enclosure to the air I'd expect similar enclosure temperatures whether the CPU was well bonded to the enclosure or not, but if there's a large temperature delta between the die and enclosure (e.g. CPU is 80+ but case is merely warm), then things could improve with a better thermal path between the two.

stephenw10

How are you measuring the temperature? Are you sure it's accurate? Even close?

Steve

binary_dreamer

where can we get one and what is the price?

33_viper_33

@gonzopancho:

The plan for pfSense 2.2 was announce prior to your post.

I wasn't involved with pfSense prior to September 2012 in any way other than the largest vendor and largest supporter of the project.
Since September 2012, I am a co-owner of the company behind pfSense (first BSDP, then ESF), as such, I have more ability to effect change.

Since I am, by avocation and training, a software engineer (and before I quit all the dot-com BS and moved to Hawaii in 2004, someone who managed large software and hardware projects), I agree that the release process for pfSense has not been as crisp as it could be.

The extreme delays in getting pfSense 2.1 out the door were due to two primary factors:

an abortive attempt at basing 2.1 on FreeBSD 9.0. Most people in the FreeBSD community agree that 9.0 was "not good". When this happened, the decision was taken to base 2.1 on FreeBSD 8.3. This resulted in the partial loss of 6-8 months of work.

Adding support for IPv6 required extensive changes and testing. This takes time.

Also, during that time, the original partnership fractured, new owners came on-board, Chris moved from Kentucky to Austin, and several other things which are not appropriate for posting in a public forum were handled. These all slowed work to some degree.

–-

On the subject of 802.11ac, I'll just point out that it is still pre-standard. The 802.11ac standard is expected to clear final 802.11 Working Group approval and publication scheduled in early 2014. See: http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/11/Reports/802.11_Timelines.htm

When you say things like 802.11n’s delay in ratification was a merely political hold-up, with little significance for real-world product availability, you appear to not understand the standards process. There was no 802.11n standard prior to its approval and publication in 2007. If you had been in the 802.11 world as long as I have, you would understand that there can be severe financial consequences for claiming something as "802.11n" or "802.11ac" prior to the process completing. Yes, vendors have taken to shipping products marked with "draft" appended to the standards compliance claim. I can't help what greedy people do.

If you really want 802.11ac in FreeBSD, I'm sure I can find someone to make it happen faster for payment.

If FreeBSD continues to be SLOW in terms of updates and rough around the edges for development purposes, why not do what IPcop did and move to a Linux kernel. Driver support and production ready releases are much quicker and better.

stephenw10

Switching from *BSD to Linux kernel is not exactly straight forward!
IPCop didn't move to a Linux kernel it was forked from Smoothwall which was always Linux based.
FreeNAS moved to a debian base but it ended up as a complete re-write and split the project.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeNAS#History

Steve

torontob

Just a quick question out of curiosity: Is FreeBSD in general a better choice for a firewall/router application? I mean does it provide faster response compared to Linux kernel?

Thanks,

stephenw10

Of course faster isn't necessarily better. ;)
Anecdotally Linux is faster but that does depend on many factors, NICs, system size etc. Currently pfSense (any BSD firewall using PF) is limited to a single cpu core for traffic filtering/forwarding. That should change with the new SMP PF that's coming with FreeBSD 10. I don't beleive Linux has that restriction in IP Tables.
There are other reasons that pfSense is built on FreeBSD:
https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Why_did_you_choose_FreeBSD_instead_of_%27insert_OS_here%27%3F

Steve

router_wang

When will these boards actually be out there for sale?

Crunk_Bass

@router_wang:

When will these boards actually be out there for sale?

I got mine from here: http://store.voyage.hk/ Code: KMPD3a
Note that this is a beta board. I don't know when they will be releasing the final version.

phil.davis

Just for reference, a Fit-PC3 with AMD G-T40N processor in the standard Fit-PC3 fan-less case and running Win Server 2008R2 is showing CPU at 63C and the internal disk shows 32C, sitting in a room that is probably about 18-20C ambient temp.
It is winter now, but in summer here the ambient room temp will get near 40C - so the CPU temp is likely to get around 83C in the Fit-PC3 kit.
It sounds like the PC Engines build will have a similar temp profile.

mbpfsense

The new Alix (apu1c) is expected on 5.3.2014:

http://www.pcengines.ch/order1.php?c=63124

nesense

Worth quoting:

"Compex WLE200NX Atheros 802.11a/b/g/n miniPCI express wireless card - for use with apu board. Not supported by pfSense."

That's the only miniPCI express PC Engines is offering, hopefully pfSense 2.2 will come soon :'(

Applied

@phil.davis:

Just for reference, a Fit-PC3 with AMD G-T40N processor in the standard Fit-PC3 fan-less case and running Win Server 2008R2 is showing CPU at 63C and the internal disk shows 32C, sitting in a room that is probably about 18-20C ambient temp.

PC Engines has switched to using the lower-TDP AMD G-40E on production boards.
Though, on the the other hand, their cooling will presumably be less efficient than the Fit-PC.

RaThek

http://www.pcengines.ch/apu1c.htm - does it work for someone?

mircsicz

http://www.pcengines.ch/apu.htm work's for me…

Note that this is a beta board. I don't know when they will be releasing the final version.

They weren't supposed to be resold.

phil.davis

It looks like the production batch are due for delivery on 5 March 2014.
The new board does not have a CF card slot. But I really like the nanoBSD 2-boot-slice functionality, and don't need a Squid cache etc.
How can these be configured to still use the nanoBSD image? Put a baby SSD in it and flash the nanoBSD image direct onto that? or?

stephenw10

It has an a USB connected SD slot. You should be able to boot Nano from that.

Then again it also claims 2 mini-PCIe slots but the picture clearly shows 3, am I missing something?

Steve

GruensFroeschli

2 miniPCIe slots and one mSATA slot.
PCIe and SATA are electrically the same (thus even the same connector) but run a different protocol.

stephenw10

Ah, of course. I knew I was missing something. Thanks.

Steve