Domotiga server only or client/server on Cubox?

[OWK]

Dear Forum

Running a PC can be power consuming, so I went looking for an alternative solution and found among Raspberry PI also CuBox, which for power consumption, spec's and size is impressive.

Is a CuBox (http://www.solid-run.com/products/cubox) minicomputer sufficient for running Domotiga as a server or as a complete setup with Client and server using Ubuntu?

Spec's of a CuBox in a nut shell:

■800 MHz dual issue ARM PJ4 processor, VFPv3, wmmx SIMD and 512KB L2 cache (based on: Marvell Armada 510 SoC)
■1GByte DDR3 at 800MHz
■Gigabit Ethernet, SPDIF (optical audio), eSata 3Gbps, 2xUSB 2.0, micro-SD, micro-USB (console)
■Standard Infra-red receiver for 38KHz based IR controllers.
■Linux based distributions like Ubuntu, Debian and others
■Android

Would it require me to compile Domotiga every update, or can I use the standard download from the SVN?

Thanks!
OWK

[sj3fk3]

My guess would be that you need to compile it, because this is an ARM architecture (and thus not Intel). What I'm wondering, what would you be using as a disk? Because a micro-SD would be slow and not that big an external (eSata SSD) would be fast and more or less power efficient, but also kinda expensive or where you planning on a diskless NFS/BootP setup or something?

[OWK]

Thanks for your input sj3fk3

To be frank: I did not and assumed the SD card would take care of this
I have two alternative options:

1) use an external harddisk (eSATA that has to be). But it wil add, (I guess) 5-10 Watt to the already low consumption;
2) use a QNap NAS for storage (build in MySQL).

I prefer to run Domotiga server on a NAS completely, but haven't seen on the forum (here and on Domotiga) any successful implementations or a guide how to.
I'm a bit confused on the support of the correct type of ARM processor by Linux and Gambas. Besides that I'm a Linux newbe, compiling is not 'in scope' jet.

The post of user ticket on running Domotiga on Raspberry PI (domoticaforum.eu/viewtopic.php?f=38& ... rry#p56287 was the trigger to my question here, after finding de CuBox. The CuBox seems more powerfull.
Ubuntu is not supporting the ARM chip on Raspberry I read, so it requires compiling for an other distribution. Since CuBox supports Ubuntu (or vise versa), I assumed compiling was not needed, but that is wrong I now understand from you?

Regards
OWK

[RDNZL]

I have read that the CPU load of a Raspberry running full GUI with Gambas and DomotiGa is a bit high, so I guess running it on a Cubox results in similar behavior, but maybe the 1GB RAM on the Cubox works better.

[RDNZL]

If you want some more info regarding running DomotiGa on a Raspberry Pi, look at this user's blog..
http://tickett.wordpress.com/

[tickett]

I have it running pretty nicely at the moment through gambas2 with quite a few modules enabled AND just installed lighttpd + php5 and still going strong. I think vncserver was initially my bottleneck by changing the bitdepth seems to've resolved this.

[OWK]

Hi Tickett

Great job running Domotiga on the R-PI!

Can you give your (technical) impression on the system load on the R-PI while running Domotiga server and client as you do? Would there be a reason to choose CuBOX?

Do you store data locally on the R-PI SD card, or do you store data in your netwerk/NAS?

In your personal blog you wrote you found Gambas 2.23 for Debian. But if I follow the link only find 2.21 and 2.23 as unstable beta are listed. Domotiga requires 2.23 as a minimum if I'm correct...

OWK

[tickett]

Even with quite a few modules running, lighttpd, php5, server, client and vncserver the load is acceptable on the rpi

You can download the 2.24 gambas2 package from http://tomv.home.xs4all.nl/raspberry/ga ... _armel.deb

Good luck!

I'm tempted to to try gambas3 at some point (apparently there are some considerable performance improvements)- unfortunately quite a few changes are required to the code.

Keep us posted.

Lee

[OWK]

Thanks Tickett,

I downloaded the Debian Files, now order the R-PI

Can you answer my other question from the previous post: "Do you store data locally on the R-PI SD card, or do you store data in your netwerk/NAS?"

Regards
OWK

[OWK]

Tickett has taken the effort to create an image for the Raspberry PI running Domotiga. This is what he announced on Domotiga support forum:

I have uploaded an SD image for the Raspberry Pi: (http://tickett.wordpress.com/2012/07/15 ... -sd-image/)
The image contains a fresh debian squeeze install with gambas2 and domotiga ready to go.

Reading his web page the following is included

ssh enabled
mysql-server
tightvncserver
subversion
gambas2.24

I'm impressed what this small device is capable of with just 256MB of memory and 700 MHz single core CPU!

OWK

[FoRMaTC]

I was impressed untill I hooked up my rfxcom and opentherm device and started to actually use domotiga.
For example when I double click a device it takes up to half a minute to open up the popup with cpu maxed out

[RDNZL]

I think this kind of hardware is better suited to use as server only part (with GUI), but it's hard to determine if it's slow because of unoptimized mysql queries/lack of storage throughput/memory shortage or something else.
Do you have more info since the posting of your issue?

[OWK]

The post is now on two systems: Raspberry and Cubox

My opinion on Raspberry so far:
Because of memory (256MB) and processor (500MHZ) dimensions I agree with Ron running server only can be worth checking out. Experience from Ticket and FormatC are conflicting
I in this case opt to use the QNAP NAS mySQL as for storage if possible. I'm on the list for ordering but did not click the send button.

My opinion on Cubox so far:
Better CPU (800MHZ) and more memory (1GB) should give better performance. But it needs a memory reconfig (video memory sharing is claming a big chunk; I'm not into that level of Linux experience jet) and on top of that bad support (read some forum posts) decided me to put that on hold.

General:
So basically I'm still looking for server hardware that does not use a lot of power (aim: 10-15W), has enough memory/CPU to support Domotiga, based on x86 so I don't need to recompile all the time. So far looked at:

-Zotac ZBox: not clear on power consumption, but smal box with enough configurations to select from
-Asus EEE box: more expensive
-some industrial PC's
-mini-box.com
-Foxconn Nettop NT-A3500

Basically the majority of the systems available are HTPC configured thus consuming more power due to video requirements I don't need. And that makes it a hard nut to crack...

[FoRMaTC]

I did some memory tweaking with Mysql but the Raspberry is still doing 200mb mem with the domotiga client on.
If I refresh the graphs then the box goes tits up and I have to powercycle it.

My opinion about the PI is, it is nice for a controller board but not for a home domotica system. I will put it on the attic to connect with my opentherm gateway.
Coming frinday my Thecus n5550 will arrive, lets see what that brings.

[tickett]

Did you see I did a new SD card image of Raspbian with gambas2 + domotiga? http://tickett.wordpress.com/2012/08/16 ... -domotiga/

This is optimized for the Raspberry Pi and runs a lot more smoothly than the previous squeeze version!