On May 11, 2005, at 4:35 PM, alex wetmore wrote:

> On Wed, 11 May 2005, Jim Thompson wrote:
>> the routerboard 220/230 have no more CPU than the WRAP or Soekris 
>> 48xx boards.
>> All have a 266MHz NatSemi Geode.
>>
>> By the time you add the memory and IDE/CF adapter, you're going to 
>> have a lot more $s in the box
>> than you would with a WRAP or Soekris based box.
>
> The RouterBoard 500 series looks a lot more interesting, but since it
> has a MIPS CPU it is not m0n0wall compatible.

but it could have netbsd run on it (with the config on the CF card), 
and then something very m0n0-like
on top of netbsd.

> For $169 you get a kit that includes the case and PSU.  This is very 
> competitive with
> the WRAP and cheaper then Soekris.  They also have an interesting
> daughterboard that gives you a total of 9 ethernet ports and 4 miniPCI 
> cards.

they also *force* you to take their license, and the $169 version is 
power-limited, and won't run
the daughter cards, and we hear over and over on-list that 64MB is the 
minimum for m0n0, while
the board in-question has 32MB of DDR RAM soldered on.

> The 220 and 230 look interesting compared to the WRAP because they
> offer hard disk connectors and PCMCIA slots (on the 230).  The
> stock two ethernet parts on the 230 is a little disappointing
> though.  As you say the prices are higher than the WRAP (the 230 is
> $195 vs $150ish for a WRAP).

There are IDE connectors on nearly every mini-itx board, and nearly all 
of these are less expensive
than the routerboard 220.

jim