Antsle based on Gentoo?

1clue · Advocate Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 2569

This company has been in my sights for maybe half a year now. Their first generation systems use Atom c2000 series processors and serve as a base for small VMs. I'm thinking maybe like docker?

At any rate they just came out with Xeon D systems, and I noticed in there that their OS is based on Gentoo. Has anyone tried these?

https://antsle.com/product/antsle-one-xd-ultra/

Zucca · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2018 4:37 pm Post subject:

Interesting product.

FIVE ethernet ports. 45W 12-core CPU. :o
Too bad DP and HDMI is absent. Although it's meant for hosting virtual machines.
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1clue · Advocate Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 2569

10 gbps LAN is interesting too.

No, it's server-only stuff, no HDMI. Which is one reason I'm interested.

Zucca · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2018 4:57 pm Post subject:

1clue · Advocate Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 2569

Yeah, the price.

It turns out that I have one of these: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/atom/x10/a1srm-ln7f-2758.cfm in a 1u, which it turns out is almost exactly the first-gen box by antsle. And it runs Gentoo. I did mine for all in around USD $1100, which is cheaper than the antsle box and has 7x Intel gigabit lan ports, and holds more memory but is otherwise almost exactly the same as far as processor and all. Mine is heavier in encryption and sacrifices some SATA ports.

I have been contemplating 2 possible boxes, one of which being an Atom c3000 16-core box similar to the one I have, and the other would be an Xeon box. I keep browsing dual-socket e5-26xx but that's not entirely reasonable for the programmer workstation I would turn it into.

Zucca · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2018 9:50 pm Post subject:

I have 4U box. I'd replace the old hardware there with used server hardware, but I doubt I could get server hardware silent enough. Also I think normal sized ATX is the maximum motherboard size it can take.

Silence and low power usage usually go hand-in-hand. That's why those antsles are so tempting...
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pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

Can their OS be replaced? They seem to be avoiding that issue :)
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1clue · Advocate Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 2569

The thing is, the c2000 atom series is extremely low power and really fast within its scope of specialty.

My c2758 is a 20w tdp. The case has a 200w power supply in it but my application is not using half that. Using old server hardware for as long as I've had this board, you could probably come pretty close to paying for the atom hardware. Then talk about heat and noise and that's a whole extra level. If you have to run an air conditioner to cool your room enough for your old server hardware to stay cool, then you're just adding exponential layers of expense.

That c2758 is faster than my i7 920 for encryption and compression. I don't have enough local hardware to test the networking capabilities to the limits of this board, but it can encrypt and compress a stream from network to disk or vice versa and saturate two gigabit adapters to near wire speed. My i7 box, if I handle encryption or decryption in the pipe for that test, the whole thing slows down. If I just pipe an encrypted/compressed file out the nics and then handle decryption and decompression on the atom in the pipe it gets the near wire speed. So I take that to mean my i7 is slower. That said for compiling and any normal 'heavy lifting' the i7 is way faster than the atom.

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

I'm skeptical environmental costs would come to half the cost of the base Ultra. And I'd love a viable silent system like that, but $4,500 is just too much. The Pro @ $1,300 isn't horrible. Add $700 for 32GB RAM, 2 500GB SSD and 2 4TB HDDs.

But for that kind of money, I think I can put up with large, slow moving fans. I just wish I could squeeze it into a case much smaller than a mid-tower. Modern heat sinks have become ridiculous.
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Zucca · Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2018 11:49 am Post subject:

Problem with such (sexy) compact server is the lack of expandability. Sure you can add more RAM and mass storage but for me that's usually not enough. This is why I haven't even considered Apple since 90's.
What I'd want is rack mounted 3U+ case with large heat sinks on sides. Somethng close to this. I have considered just installing a sliding shelf for the case if I ever buy one which is not "rack mountable".

1clue: As an alternative to those Antsle servers, I'd take a look at DB4 ITX case. That just might be a solution for silent little server. I know it can handle some low TDP Xeons as well.
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1clue · Advocate Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 2569

While I love the idea of fanless chassis, that wasn't the interesting thing for me. It started out as a link from a coworker as a small virtualization platform. Then I realized I actually have a board similar to this in a 1u. The thing that appealed to me on that was low power consumption and built-in encryption and compression extras. And lots of gigabit ethernet ports.

Over the years I've been persistently bothered by the way rack systems are designed. The biggest issue besides space used is getting rid of heat.

One aspect of that is being addressed by the Atom c2000/c3000 series chips. They're fast and low power, designed for a specific range of specialties but not very impressive as a general purpose chip.

The other aspect seems like it could be addressed if we would turn those chassis on end. I don't see why we can't use convection in our racks. Open/screened bottom, ports out the back, buttons out the front, open/screened top. Stack them like books. Even if the convection doesn't completely cover the cooling requirements it should help significantly.

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

Moved from Other Things Gentoo to Gentoo Chat since this isn't a support topic.
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1clue · Advocate Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 2569

I thought it was already in 'other things gentoo'?

At any rate, there's no reason for things higher in the rack to suffer any disadvantage from heat generated by systems lower on the rack. There are centuries of experience working fireplaces and furnaces in multi-floor buildings without insurmountable problems. Run a separate channel for heat. Every system will, if setup properly, benefit from the flow generated by the group. The higher the stack, the more heat generated by the stack, the more flow you get.

Naib · Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2018 5:33 pm Post subject:

https://github.com/antsle/antsleOS
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pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

1clue · Advocate Joined: 05 Feb 2006 Posts: 2569

Clearly I misread your post.