Robert Holt's Weblog

Friday October 17, 2008

OpenSolaris Realtek RTL8111C ethernet driver

so I finally found out how to get the ethernet port working on my msi wind low power deskside 

box.

I found this bug/workaround 

and with OpenSolaris b97 it works just as described.

Cool. 

Sunday September 14, 2008

Mini PCI /PCI E card problems ...

And of course the first network card I ordered was a mini PCI card not a mini PCIE card ...  yuk ..  I hate stuff like this - it should all just work !   - and I wonder why my mum can't use the computer.

Anyway I won't make that mistake again. I've ordered an Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG card which is apparently supported in OpenSolaris as of build 64 - hopefully this will work ok. $30 from the Dell site - it could have been worse.  Also ordered 4x4GB usb sticks so that I can try installing and running off z ZFS pool spread across them - not too bad - they were only $4 each on amazon - quite the deal.

Wednesday September 10, 2008

30 watts

so I played with the MSI wind today and the Kill-a-watt meter.

At 100% load - disk spinning at full, processor maxed out it was pulling about 33 -> 36watts.

At idle it was pulling 30 watts.

I think this is going to be my new mailserver.

Tuesday September 09, 2008

MSI-wind - as a low power Solaris home server

My continuing quest for a near silent / low power Solaris home server continue.

I ordered / had delivered an MSI wind barebones PC with atom processor.

I put a 1Gig RAM dimm in it, a spare 500G SATA drive I had lying around + a DVD drive ..

Total cost just over $200 so far.

It boots and runs the latest download of OpenSolaris (build 80 I think) and everything works apart from the

network which is a Realtek 8111C chip which there are no Solaris drivers for yet...

but ... 

there is a pci-e-mini slot on the motherboard and there are several wireless cards that are available

that do have Solaris drivers. Hence I ordered an Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG 802.11b/g Wireless Network Adapter - add another $22.50 to the total.

The machine is very quiet - only one small fan on the back to vent the case. The power supply is a 19v DC 3.5Amp external 'black brick' type power supply which means I should hopefully be able to switch it out for something like a  couple of solar panels at some stage in the future. But that's a future project.

 Tomorrow I'm borrowing a 'kill-a-watt' device from a friend.  I'll report findings.

Sunday October 21, 2007

fit PC / OpenSolaris

I just ordered myself a fitpc.

Even though 256MB is right at the lowest end of where Solaris is suported  I hope to be able to get OpenSolaris  running on it. It's going to be slow but that doesn't matter for a dedicated home email/webserver.

I still want to build a sub 10W Solaris / OpenSolaris mailserver / webserver with no moving parts. Maybe powered @ a later date by Solar during the day, batteries at night - but I think that's a second project.

Monday September 24, 2007

Quest for a low power PC

I've been loving George Ou's quest for a low power PC.

 Today he posted on low power supplies - it's good to see someone in the main stream press tackling this subject. The real issue is the CPUs though - I'm still waiting to get hold of one of Via's 1watt CPUs.
 

Sunday September 02, 2007

time to start

well it's time to start. My journey into the void - the internet. Having spent many years trying to active ly hide myself it's time to put it out there ...

Mike and I have blogged a plenty over @ our OneStop blog but it's
time for me to do something outside of that -
apart from all my random ramblings in Sun, the organizational stuff, the stuff I can't share - I think I'm going to try to dedicate this blog to my quest for a sun 10watt (home) email/web server.
I'm excited to see / test/ play with Via's upcoming 1watt processor

more soon.