View Full Version : Router Board?
Steve
06-12-2003, 07:31 PM
Anybody tried one of these yet? www.routerboard.com
I know they are from the company whose name I will not say but they are nice boards and apparantly rated for extreme environments.
I'm just not having any luck getting anything to boot on it. I've tried an OpenBSD image, a Wisp Dist and Star-OS. No errors on boot, just says "booting IDE" and that's it. Ethernet ports never come up and no wireless activity on either slot.
Anyone?
bobbyc
06-12-2003, 08:15 PM
Microtik... we don't need to be afraid to say it... each OS has it's strengths; and each OS has people representing it and starOS excels at that. I lurk on the isp wireless list ;)
What PCMCIA to PCI adapters are you using? Or are you using a pcmcia slot that is built into the routerboard?
You might want to disable all unused stuff in the bios(com/serial/usb ports), and/or manually select the HDD type.
Just some ideas...
Steve
06-12-2003, 08:58 PM
Only way I have seen to modify the bios settings in their docs is by loading RouterOS. I tried creating the 7 floppies for a demo install and gave up. All my floppies are antiques and kept erroring out me.
BTW, i should have put a :wink: in my first post, it was a joke.
bobbyc
06-12-2003, 09:07 PM
Hmmm maybe those rascals did this on purpose...
Bob C
Steve
06-12-2003, 09:09 PM
Ahh, conspiracy theory. I like it.
lonnie
06-14-2003, 01:05 AM
What image did you use? The client SBC might have watchdog issues. Try the Router desktop image or maybe the Router SBC. I would expect StarOS to work, and it would be really nice to have it running on Mikrotik boards. If someone sent us a unit I'd see what can be done. Tony is still getting 5 hours per day of personal time, so he has lots of spare time on his hands for another project.
Steve
06-14-2003, 06:01 AM
I tried the Router SBC version. I'll try a different one and see what happens.
lonnie
06-15-2003, 10:24 AM
I would expect that the desktop versions will work. The SBC versions are expecting AMD SC520 processors and we might be doing something "special" for them that is not liked on other hardware. Typically you can use any image on anything, but we cannot test everything and be sure. Hardware differences can give strange effects, so use the desktop as it is going to be a lot more general in its approach.
Steve
06-19-2003, 03:37 PM
No luck on the desktop versions either. I sent an email to Mikrotik awhile back requesting support. Still waiting on a response. What's the address for their support forum again? :wink:
georgew
06-19-2003, 05:19 PM
I talked to someone in their OEM sales department, and they aren't doing anything to stop it from working. They are also only selling them 1 or 2 units at a time as they have only done one small production run so far.
Someone needs to donate one to the cause so Tony and Lonnie can get it working, and test their new releases on it. It's priced right, and is designed with components that can take a lot more heat than the Soekris boards.
If we had one on-hand, it should not take much to support it.
David L. Vrablic
07-16-2003, 07:38 PM
Has anyone done anything more on this project?
Are the boxes available yet and who is the rep?
I'll buy one to send to Tony if someone will sell it to me.
ok i'm confused, did it work on the routerboard or not?
georgew
07-28-2003, 02:52 PM
It did not work, yet.
Someone needs to buy one and send it to Tony.
I'm more excited about the www.pcengines.ch boards myself, nice price...
Oh hell, they are out of stock!! :?
Anyone here order one?
The upcoming v1.12.7 release will have full support for the Routerboard.
Thanks!
bobbyc
09-16-2003, 05:02 PM
The routerboard has a minimal processor, right? Would you reccommend the use of only 1 minipci or PCI --> PCMCIA radio in it?
I understand the a,b card mikrotik sells is DMA so it doesn't rely on the processor as much.
Thanks,
Bob C
georgew
09-16-2003, 05:11 PM
If you don't try to make it a pptp server, it will probably do a fair job with two cards. It's twice the speed of a Soekris, so in theory it can do two cards almost as well as a soekris can do one.
By the same token, it IS a fairly slow board, so if you have a lot of users in a cell, you are probably right in only putting one card in it.
Once we are running on DMA cards, the load on the processor answering interrupts is much lower, so slower boards can do more work and handle more cards. I think most of the "a" cards are DMA.... probably all cards capable of higher speed modes will require DMA to actually perform. I've heard rumors of a DMA "b" card, but I haven't heard so many things that make me want to go throw away my old "b" cards...
Performance-wise, the board is not that bad, especially compared to the Soekris system. The processor should be able to withstand two AP cards pulling full throughput.
DMA-based cards should help with system load quite a bit.
bobbyc
09-16-2003, 05:43 PM
Thanks guys, I'm getting a couple of the 220 boards (minipci only) from Eje. They're only going to be AP routers.
Bob C
also the routerboard is a 586 class instead of a 486 class like the soekris. I'm not sure exactly why, but I know 586 is faster than 486 mhz for mhz.