Thursday, May 15, 2014

Re: [fedora-arm] Best hardware for Fedora/ARM Audio "Server"?

Gordan Bobic <gordan@bobich.net> writes:

>> However you're
>> right that something like the Wandboard is more powerful. Looks like I
>> can get a Wandboard Solo + Case + Power for about $100, not quite
>> double
>> the cost of the RPi for about 2x the performance.
>
> Indeed. Do you have a form factor preference, though?
> Most solutions like this have some uglyness associated, e.g.
> an external power brick. D2Plug is a single brick, just
> plug into power socket. But performance could conceivably
> be an issue.

No, the boxes are going to be hidden in closets. Having an external
power brick is actually better for heat dissipation, IMHO.

>> cheap enough then having one box per zone would be fine. But I'm not
>> looking for NAS or anything else today (actually I plan to build a
>> large
>> multi-TB NAS server, but it's not going to be ARM-based).
>
> ARM based multi-TB NAS is actually quite doable:
>
> http://www.altechnative.net/2014/02/23/qnap-ts-421-review-modification-and-redsleeve-linux/
>
> I have it running with 4x4TB HGST drives and ZFS (fuse) RAIDZ2.

Sorry, but multi-TB I mean starting with something like 24TB and
expanding out to ~100. I was planning to build a FreeNAS box for this
using a 4U 24-bay case which requires ~3 PCIe slots.

>> So thanks, all. I think I'll order a Wandboard Solo to test this out.
>> I can always select different hardware later, or upgrade to the Dual or
>> Quad if I find I need more CPU power. But audio processing doesn't
>> really require lots of CPU. I was able to do basic DSP functions on my
>> 8-bit 6502-based Atari 800 back in the mid-1980s, with only 48K of RAM.
>> I'm sure 512MB on an ARM can do much better, provided there is
>> sufficient design of the board so we don't get electrical interference.
>
> Depending on the form factor you are looking for, there are
> ARM boards out there with PCI/PCIe slots. You could get one
> of those and use a PCI/PCIe sound card in it. It would be a
> lot more expensive, though.
>
> On the cheap, there are always USB audio options. A USB
> sound dongle can be had for about £2, and you could plug
> that into any ARM device featuring a USB port (i.e. most
> of them these days).

Do you have a reference for these USB sound dongles (that are also
supported by Linux/ARM)? I've not found anything that inexpensive.

I also wonder how hard it will be to build Shairport? I suspect there
isn't already an RPM for it. *ponders actually signing up again for a
fedora account to donate the SPEC if I have to write one*

> Gordan

-derek

--
Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board (SIPB)
URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/ PP-ASEL-IA N1NWH
warlord@MIT.EDU PGP key available
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