Unless you've been living under the geek equivalent of a rock for the past six months you'll have heard of the Raspberry Pi project. The embedded device they are building will offer incredible power for the $25 it is projected to cost when launched in November 2011. A slightly higher specification 'Model B' (with more memory and a 10/100Mbps Ethernet interface) will cost around $10 more.
The prospect of having a well specified device the size of a credit card, consuming minimal power, that can run Linux is tempting many (including your author).
Patience is a virtue waste of time
But what if you can't wait? There are plenty of options available today that can run Linux:
Intel Atom based devices: Intel's low power CPUs dominate the netbook market, but have failed to dent the mobile/embedded space. You can find plenty of Atom-based mini-ITX (17cm square) boards and enclosures out there, and there will be plenty of options to use big disks, add more RAM, and so on. All of this comes at a price - not only financially, but also in power consumption and physical footprint. PC Engines Alix: A little known Swiss manufacturer, PC Engines has been producing high quality x86 boards for many years now. The Alix series utilise the AMD Geode CPUs. These are starting to look a little long in the tooth now, and the price is relatively high (around $100 for the board alone, without enclosure, power supply, etc). Linksys WRT54GL: No list of embedded devices that can be hacked to run Linux would be complete without a reference to the WRT54GL. Sadly this device is looking very dated now - it only has a 200MHz Broadcom CPU and it peaks at around 30Mbps WAN t hroughput. Modern routers: The Linksys WRT160NL, Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH, Netgear WNDR3700, TP-LINK TL-WR1043ND (and others) all utilise Atheros chipsets and are supported by OpenWrt (an embedded Linux distribution discussed below). Whilst these are all great devices, they don't have the low cost and small physical size that gives them the 'wow factor' of the Raspberry Pi. Ubiquiti NanoStation: This tiny little device is the only one mentioned that I've not experimented with myself. Whilst its footprint and OpenWrt support are appealing, its 180MHz CPU and relatively high cost ($79) leaves me wanting more.
All of these are either far more than $35 (I'm assuming we all want network connectivity), physically too large, have too little grunt, or a combination of the aforementioned.
So is that it then? Should we pack up our things and just wait until November/December for a tiny, lower power device that can run Linux? Not just yet.
And in the red corner...
TP-LINK is a Chinese consumer networking equipment manufacturer that many of us in Europe and America would not have heard of a year ago. Today they boast of being the largest broadband CPE manufacturer in the world (by market share), but this isn't why we're interested in them.
In early September 2011 TP-LINK launched a new device in China snappily dubbed the TL-WR703N. This device is designed to be a portable 3G WiFi router; plug in a USB 3G dongle and the device will broadcast the Internet connection via Ethernet and WiFi. But again, we're Linux enthusiasts, we're not fussed about what the devices was intended to be used for.
Let's take a look the specifications:
Atheros 400MHz MIPS CPU 32MB RAM 4MB flash 10/100Mbps Ethernet interface 802.11b/g/n wireless interface with one internal antenna USB 2.0 port Micro-USB power socket, approximately 1W power draw 5.7cm x 5.7cm x 1.8cm dimensions
There's no video output of any form (nor would you expect there to be on a 3G router!), so this is not going to be playing Quake 3 any time soon. That said, this is perfect hardware for a headless Linux box. And you needn't buy an extra case, wireless card, Ethernet module, power supply, etc - they're all included.
And the cost? It's not available outside of China yet, but you can order it from volumerates.com or some Alibaba sellers for about $23 (US) including delivery. I'm told it will start being sold in the US and Europe over the next few weeks.
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