I generally don't set up sub-forums by request. Every time I've done it, they end up with tumbleweeds rolling through them. The requester usually isn't active enough in answering questions and/or prompting disussion and / or there aren't enough people interested in the topic.
The notable exception is Merlin's forums, which are active and robust.
The notable exception is Merlin's forums, which are active and robust.
sfx2000
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Agreed - but consider perhaps a DIY section in the Smart Home - there have been a few interesting posts in various sub-forums, but we really don't have a good landing space for these kind of projects.
Please consider it, and let's see where it goes...
With regards to Eric's comment - there is a networking component at play here - and with firmware getting locked down, many hobbyists are migrating to these SBC's...
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with smart home DIY has been the best solution so far as there hasnt been a working solution out there such as when IP based CCTVs became a big botnet.
Thiggins says that manufacturers need to improve security but if you look at the blunders they make such as having access to another person's ip camera if you registered and then returned it. Its not that the manufacturers are incapable is that the people who are capable havent set down and worked out standards yet. There hasnt yet been a sit down in the industry to talk and research a way to build a reliable smart home and what constitutes a smart home. They also need to work out a standard for cloud and remote server usage as a secondary function and not a primary requirement in order to function. Even smart cars have been hacked and its is shown to be life threatening.
So currently the only hope for smart home is to build it yourself, using raspberry pis, arduinos and parts, rather than calling it single board computers instead. On the networking side such as using a raspberry pi as a server for many things, its not about single board computers, its about computers that are small enough to be insignificant yet useful. @sfx2000 has made lots of tutorials on setting them up and having a sub forum for him and others to put guides and discussions is useful but they should have the appropriate title like mini network servers for instance as that would help people click on it. I myself use raspberry pis as well and i used to use cups and xsane and other things on the raspberry pi, the beauty of it is that many routers come with usb ports and supply sufficient power for a raspberry pi 2 on the port. Its also a good test of the router's PSU as if the raspberry pi 2 doesnt freeze after a day of use that means the PSU is fine too.
Thiggins says that manufacturers need to improve security but if you look at the blunders they make such as having access to another person's ip camera if you registered and then returned it. Its not that the manufacturers are incapable is that the people who are capable havent set down and worked out standards yet. There hasnt yet been a sit down in the industry to talk and research a way to build a reliable smart home and what constitutes a smart home. They also need to work out a standard for cloud and remote server usage as a secondary function and not a primary requirement in order to function. Even smart cars have been hacked and its is shown to be life threatening.
So currently the only hope for smart home is to build it yourself, using raspberry pis, arduinos and parts, rather than calling it single board computers instead. On the networking side such as using a raspberry pi as a server for many things, its not about single board computers, its about computers that are small enough to be insignificant yet useful. @sfx2000 has made lots of tutorials on setting them up and having a sub forum for him and others to put guides and discussions is useful but they should have the appropriate title like mini network servers for instance as that would help people click on it. I myself use raspberry pis as well and i used to use cups and xsane and other things on the raspberry pi, the beauty of it is that many routers come with usb ports and supply sufficient power for a raspberry pi 2 on the port. Its also a good test of the router's PSU as if the raspberry pi 2 doesnt freeze after a day of use that means the PSU is fine too.
sfx2000
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There doesn't seem to be much interest - just a hard place for good DIY posts to land that are oriented towards the Internet of Things...
We have the General Smart Home forum - however IoT is much more than just Smart Home - it's the Connected Car and the Quantified Self as well - and then toss in the business aspects (traditional M2M, and this is a fast moving field right now) and benefits of IoT to the Small Business, which SNB clearly has a nose in that tent...
That along with firmware getting increasingly locked down in the BHR space*, there's a good opportunity for linux hobbyists and enthusiasts to share and gain knowledge. That's why I proposed the question.
These little hacker boards - it's a very vibrant ecosystem right now - and the barrier to entry is low compared to other sectors in the SNB industry. Heck, even Asus is getting on this bus with their TinkerBoard SBC, which I think is less about RPi, and more about keeping the FOSS community that has developed around AsusWRT...
thiggins makes a good point though - is that dedicated subforums may have a tendency to turn into deserts, with few posts... and once a subforum is set up, it's hard to make it go away. We don't have a strong "maker" community right now, but there are members that are doing DIY...
I recently made a bet on the IoT space, and it paid off nicely - so there's definitely a place for this - I'm hoping it's on SNBForums and SmallNetBuilder.com
It's like in Hockey - One should not skate towards where the puck is, but rather, focus on where the puck will be.
We have the General Smart Home forum - however IoT is much more than just Smart Home - it's the Connected Car and the Quantified Self as well - and then toss in the business aspects (traditional M2M, and this is a fast moving field right now) and benefits of IoT to the Small Business, which SNB clearly has a nose in that tent...
That along with firmware getting increasingly locked down in the BHR space*, there's a good opportunity for linux hobbyists and enthusiasts to share and gain knowledge. That's why I proposed the question.
* see the recent GPL code drop from Asus as an example, there's a lot of binary blobs in that code, and what was once a very open and hackable device is getting much less open - and Voxel's comment about the Netgear GPL drop getting pulled is another example.
These little hacker boards - it's a very vibrant ecosystem right now - and the barrier to entry is low compared to other sectors in the SNB industry. Heck, even Asus is getting on this bus with their TinkerBoard SBC, which I think is less about RPi, and more about keeping the FOSS community that has developed around AsusWRT...
thiggins makes a good point though - is that dedicated subforums may have a tendency to turn into deserts, with few posts... and once a subforum is set up, it's hard to make it go away. We don't have a strong "maker" community right now, but there are members that are doing DIY...
I recently made a bet on the IoT space, and it paid off nicely - so there's definitely a place for this - I'm hoping it's on SNBForums and SmallNetBuilder.com
It's like in Hockey - One should not skate towards where the puck is, but rather, focus on where the puck will be.
sfx2000
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I would agree except that most of the Pi's just use the 5Vdc power line, and don't do the right handshake with the Router BSP drivers to support the power class on USB - The Pi Foundation and others actually recommend not doing this, as the port might not know to provide enough current or not - Pi3 for example can surge power up to 2.4A under load, Pi2 isn't far behind... Pi (1) and Pi Zero - maybe...
sfx2000
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I hope you don't mind me quoting out of context - but you make a really good point - right now, in the BHR third party space, there is functionality to some degree - but the chance of things impacting performance and security, along with lack of options (not trying to say bad things about OptWare/EntWare) but certain tasks are better not running on the router/AP/Gateway, and shunting them over to a SBC is a workable solution.
The small server for applications - Transmission for Torrents, better not to host on the Router/AP itself, or Media Servers like miniDLNA, Plex, etc... and as SME so very well put, things like Print/Scanner services - better to off-load them to a dedicated microServer - some of these SBC's are powerful enough to be very good OpenVPN servers even, better than the Router/AP/Gateway itself - see the Minnow Board line or the Up Board, being Intel x86 based...
Good example is 3G/4G modem sticks for WAN support- the BHR's support a limited number of them, and it's hard to get new devices integrated in - however in the SBC community, pulling in changes from upstream, which is much more agile, is much easier - whether it's OpenWRT or Debian, or whatever...
And then we have the low power MPU stuff - like the ESP8266 micro controllers with WiFi - just one of many - TI has something similar with their MSP430 based modules, aka, SimpleLink CC31xx/32xx family - along with the entire Arduino ecosystem, including Intel with their Quark boards.
It's fun stuff - if one is a hardware or software hacker - it's still very fun to "make" a good solution and share.
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Raspberry pi 2 will work fine with the 500mA limit on most usb ports as long as you dont overclock it. Raspberry pi 3 however requires a 2.4A usb port. You dont need a raspberry pi 3 as the computing power of the raspberry pi 2 is sufficient. The raspberry pi series doesnt do a handshake on power however, it'd draw as much power as it needs and that can cause a voltage dip if the amps are too high and i see this happen on many AC to DC PSUs used for charging phones that arent genuine. Finding a decent one that isnt a particular brand is difficult too. This is why using a raspberry pi 2 is preferable as it can work within the 500mA limit of most usb ports and will run everything you need.
When the voltage dips too much the raspberry pi will freeze. So for the raspberry pi 1 and 2, it is generally safer to use an existing usb port from PC or router (that has a good PSU) than it is to take chances with phone charges as many use crappy ones. Its easier to find a decent PSU for your PC or router but the market is flooded with crappy PSUs for usb. You could however use a bench PSU which is an inefficient but sure way of giving it a stable 5V up to the maximum amps and it will not allow anymore than its maximum amps to be pulled. This is why i tend to say that usb ports on routers tend to be under used. They can be used for slowly charging devices that use usb, and can power devices that only need the standard amp output. I've seen the PSU on my AC88U and it is substantial, way more than the device needs and this is partly because of the usb 3 port as well. The PSU on my mikrotik CCR is one that i updated myself, provides 1A more than standard and at 24V looking like a laptop power brick but from a networking supplier. Very stable so it has no issues powering a raspberry pi 2 indefinitely from either.
sfx2000
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Pi1/PiZero - maybe - I wouldn't recommend Pi2 being bus powered from a Hub or USB port on PC or Router - it can surge pretty hard with those cores - I've seen it crash with the iPad charger even (red rectangle of death) - anyways, if we had a forum, we could discuss this further 
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this could fall under EEE. the ipad charger provides very little amps unless the device plugged into it uses apples own proprietary protocol.Pi1/PiZero - maybe - I wouldn't recommend Pi2 being bus powered from a Hub or USB port on PC or Router - it can surge pretty hard with those cores - I've seen it crash with the iPad charger even (red rectangle of death) - anyways, if we had a forum, we could discuss this further
Instead try using the raspberry pi 2 from a PC, not a hub. The raspbery pi zero itself is actually capable of drawing more if you consider the total output of its DC out pins on its GPIO but if you just use the raspberry pi/2 as a server with just the NIC and no usb devices attached that drain power from it than you will find it wont freeze as it has all the power it needs.
sfx2000
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The iPad charger is a pretty nicely designed power supply - but like most cell phone chargers, it'll dip to 3.7VDC under load, as this is what Lithium-Polymer batteries need to charge.
That's why Cell Phone chargers are not a good choice for SBC's - they're constant current, not constant voltage... the PMIC in the phone will manage the voltage accordingly, but will demand as much current as the charger can supply, and then manage the charge from there - Pi doesn't do this (however there are boards that do - C.H.I.P on the Allwinner R8 for example, includes a PMIC that can handle LiPo batteries, and still up convert to 5VDC to run the rest of the board) - the PMIC is the AXP labeled chip.
Depends on the PC (or other device) - I've seen many that don't deliver nominal current - and this is one issue that does affect many BHR's with bus powered USB drives even...
Pi Zero is interesting as it basically replicates the Pi3 DC power block onboard - it's a CAD/CAM lib, so why not, and this is good when dealing with power hungry PHAT's - but the board standalone on the Pi Zero/Zero W, is well within the power budget of any PC USB port...
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Actually the devices take 5V in and convert it appropriately. They tend to have a voltage operating range so phones may natively work on 5V (the arm dev boards i see take 12V or more such as routers for instance). The batteries need more than 4V to charge, so PSUs arent supposed to dip voltage by design. Without any communication some phones will check the voltage and when it dips below a certain level (usually this is above 4V) than it will not pull anymore amps as it means the PSU is at its limit. Not all phones implement this sensor way of charging but most android phones do. So using a phone charger does work fine with raspberry pi as long as it can keep the same voltage at the requested load (requested being some passive electrical pull, no data communication). The problem is other than bench style PSUs there are more crappy usb chargers out there compared to crappy PC or router PSUs. What really kills a usb port is a fully charged high farad capacitor feedback to the usb port which many usb ports arent designed to protect against. So if you're just using the raspberry pi as a server than it will be fine to power it from usb ports of other devices or even from your phone for instance if the battery can handle it as long as you dont attach other things to it.
Cake
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Someone (maybe myself) should buy a fqdn, and host a place for discussions on arm small servers, forums, news, etc. Just ordered a ODROID C2 that can be powered via otg microusb port. My plan is to test it out a bit then to collocate it to a data center for cheap. (approx $40/year) I am hoping it runs at less then 1A/10W (I have read 860mA stress test) It could be a thing in the future, as does anyone trust your vps host with all thats going on. Backdoors, mirroring of traffic, modifying switch , server hardware by intercepting mail, forced image backups...
Might be a trend, Who trust's the big names with their free email anymore. Just saying.
Whats nice about the ODROID C2 than a Banana Pro, is that it powers back on automatically after a power cut, also the rtc module and emmc module that you can plug in. Incredible!
Mail a Pi to a data center, etc, and super glue the components in, glue the case shut. I would get double performance at half the cost plus more a more secure server then sharing someone else's blade.
Edit: updated approx price
Might be a trend, Who trust's the big names with their free email anymore. Just saying.
Whats nice about the ODROID C2 than a Banana Pro, is that it powers back on automatically after a power cut, also the rtc module and emmc module that you can plug in. Incredible!
Mail a Pi to a data center, etc, and super glue the components in, glue the case shut. I would get double performance at half the cost plus more a more secure server then sharing someone else's blade.
Edit: updated approx price
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sfx2000
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Cake
Senior Member
Why? Just for mentioning there is no place for discussions of small servers?
whatever
edit: My apologies sfx, my speed reading comprehension is poor.
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sfx2000
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