[fedora-arm] Best hardware for Fedora/ARM Audio "Server"?

[Gordan Bobic]

On 2014-05-15 16:11, Derek Atkins wrote:
> Gordan Bobic <gordan at bobich.net> writes:
> 
>>> However you're
>>> right that something like the Wandboard is more powerful.  Looks like 
>>> I
>>> can get a Wandboard Solo + Case + Power for about $100, not quite
>>> double
>>> the cost of the RPi for about 2x the performance.
>> 
>> Indeed. Do you have a form factor preference, though?
>> Most solutions like this have some uglyness associated, e.g.
>> an external power brick. D2Plug is a single brick, just
>> plug into power socket. But performance could conceivably
>> be an issue.
> 
> No, the boxes are going to be hidden in closets.  Having an external
> power brick is actually better for heat dissipation, IMHO.

Fair enough. My personal preference is toward reducing the cabling
sprawl.

>>> cheap enough then having one box per zone would be fine.  But I'm not
>>> looking for NAS or anything else today (actually I plan to build a
>>> large
>>> multi-TB NAS server, but it's not going to be ARM-based).
>> 
>> ARM based multi-TB NAS is actually quite doable:
>> 
>> http://www.altechnative.net/2014/02/23/qnap-ts-421-review-modification-and-redsleeve-linux/
>> 
>> I have it running with 4x4TB HGST drives and ZFS (fuse) RAIDZ2.
> 
> Sorry, but multi-TB I mean starting with something like 24TB and
> expanding out to ~100.  I was planning to build a FreeNAS box for this
> using a 4U 24-bay case which requires ~3 PCIe slots.

Fair enough.

>>> So thanks, all.  I think I'll order a Wandboard Solo to test this 
>>> out.
>>> I can always select different hardware later, or upgrade to the Dual 
>>> or
>>> Quad if I find I need more CPU power.  But audio processing doesn't
>>> really require lots of CPU.  I was able to do basic DSP functions on 
>>> my
>>> 8-bit 6502-based Atari 800 back in the mid-1980s, with only 48K of 
>>> RAM.
>>> I'm sure 512MB on an ARM can do much better, provided there is
>>> sufficient design of the board so we don't get electrical 
>>> interference.
>> 
>> Depending on the form factor you are looking for, there are
>> ARM boards out there with PCI/PCIe slots. You could get one
>> of those and use a PCI/PCIe sound card in it. It would be a
>> lot more expensive, though.
>> 
>> On the cheap, there are always USB audio options. A USB
>> sound dongle can be had for about £2, and you could plug
>> that into any ARM device featuring a USB port (i.e. most
>> of them these days).
> 
> Do you have a reference for these USB sound dongles (that are also
> supported by Linux/ARM)?  I've not found anything that inexpensive.

I use these with great success on my gaming Windows virtual
machines:

http://amzn.to/1gzLVAX

Never tried using them on Linux, but I'm pretty sure it comes
under the heading of generic USB audio (snd-usb-sudio driver).

At ~ £1.39 it may just be worth a try.

Gordan