Background
Sometimes you just end up in a discussion over older hardware. Sometimes you are also provided that same hardware to play with. Or three.It did not take me that long to see the potential of these devices. Even though the specifications for them are underwhelming. The critical disappointment with them is that the MiniPCI expansion kit that makes use of the RP-TNC jacks do not support WPA (or at least the kits acquired from the previous owner).
So what to do? Luckily the Net4511 comes with a CardBus slot, and capable cards (Wireless G, WPA2) end up in fire sales every so often. I purchased two for about $20 shipped. While that was being shipped, I worked on the software.
The Process
I took a hybrid approach to the operating system setup guides. A mix of creating a chroot jail with debootstrap in a VM to configure a base system to eventually load into a JFFS2 image. The installation media was Debian 7 Wheezy, which at the time of this writing is still being maintained. Although having reached something functional I am interested in trying older versions like Debian 5 Lenny or 4 Etch for performance gains (at the risk of security). The outlined process and configuation produced a few problems:- The i686 kernel packaged with Debian 7, over the course of it's maintenance schedule, "accidentially" removed 486 support by requiring PAE. The more reasonable way around this is to compile your own kernel designed/configured for the AMD Elan CPU.
- The MTD tools that come with Debian 7 do not produce very stable JFFS2 images. After a few writes, the next mount you will end up with magic bitmask errors. The way around that is once again compile your own and prepare the image with those tools instead.
- The initramfs scripts in the JFFS2 config guide probably needs to include the utf8 module to assist in vfat mount (in spite of also looking for the cp437 module). Also, for VM maintenance, you may need a separate initrd that points to /dev/sda1 instead of the /dev/hda1 that the Net4511 needs.
Considerations
- This brings us to the 64MB concern, and what makes the Net4511 so lacklustre. The limited RAM means an approximate six minute boot time with Debian 7. Package maintenance is just as scary, since the apt-get pre-steps require about ten minutes before deciding on the packages you want (or want updated). Worse, to help save the CF card, downloaded packages are saved in memory so you have only 20MB to download before the system chokes - space out your upgrades if need be.
- Another concern is a bit more practical - if going the CardBus route, you may have a range issue with the lid secured since the metal makes a good Faraday Cage. I have attempted moving the antennae to the exterior but I could not determine benefit.
- Finally, even though my image seems ready to go, it may still be in your best interest to get a serial crossover cable (male DB9 to male DB9). In debugging any little change, it is important to be able to see what is happening.
Result and Future Possibilities
With that said, I am willing to share my tens of hours of work, so if you end up with one of these, you can turn it around rather quickly. Please contact if interested; granted given how long I let this unpublished page fester, Debian 7 will soon (if it has not already happened) lose the potential for security updates.- The pre-made image for 1GB flash
- The kernel, as a Debian package
Next Steps
There will still be random moments where I try out different applications for these. For example, I still want to explore the idea of having two Net4511's bridge two LAN's - one broadcasting the SSID (which is the challenging part), the other connecting to that signal for the second LAN. Also want to:- Revisit the external antennae idea; make tweaks if necessary
- Attempt a DD-WRT image since security updates and performance should improve the viability of these boxes