[LUAU] Anyone use a Linksys NSLU2? USB hard disk drives are FOSS friendly?

[Jim Thompson]

On Dec 27, 2006, at 6:33 PM, R. Scott Belford wrote:

> Jim Thompson wrote:
>
>> You might conclude that I'm considering building a product around  
>> all this.   About 70% of what I'm thinking is in this thread
>>>> http://www.intel.com/design/servers/storage/ss4000-E/
>
> This runs a Linux kernel.  Is it a m0no0wall derivative rather than  
> being based on freeNAS?

Yes, the product I pointed to, *as shipped*, runs linux.

You can think of 'm0n0wall' as a specialized FreeBSD "distro" for  
networking hardware.    FreeNAS is a 'spin' of m0n0wall focused on  
supporting fileservers, rather than routers/firewalls/Access Points.

For this application, I prefer FreeBSD over Linux.  There are many  
reasons.

For one thing, the ZFS support is further along, and Linux's "FUSE"  
architecture (necessary to adopt ZFS on linux, because ZFS isn't  
(yet?) licensed under a GPL-compatible license, so FUSE is used to  
keep the ZFS code in user-space), is never going to be 'fast'.

For another, FreeBSD's "Geom" architecture, so GELI and GDBE become  
options.   Now if you note that I explained that I'd found a board  
with an on-board HiFn crypto accelerator, (one that just happens to  
already be supported by FreeBSD's "crypt' framework (supported by  
GELI)), you can probably put the pieces together.  :-)   GELI also  
has some interesting 'features' that allow me to market a key  
recovery service.

Putting FreeBSD, ZFS (and a variant of FreeNAS) on the product  
involves some work, its true.

But I think I get a better product out of it than just sticking  
FreeNAS on a PC.

And remember, the hardware I'm buying is identical to that marketed  
by Intel, but I don't pay Intel's "uplift" (nor the channel margin)  
seen in the $560 price.

Jim