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Webserver with PW on Raspberry Pi and Odroid-C1


ivanr
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For some people it may be cool to run their own website on their own HW.

But a PC is power hungry and some micros aren't powerful enough; therefore I tried to use a mini server with less than 5W power consumption.

The setup:

Linux (Pi: Raspbian/C1: Ubuntu)

Apache2 + PHP5

MySQL + PhpMyAdmin

NoIp2 (dynamic DNS client)

PW (of course;-)

PW is running OK on Raspberry Pi, but when you create a page with some images and resizing, you have to wait for the results between a couple of minutes and an hour; page rendering afterwards is within seconds.

I wanted to try something quicker so I got an Odroid-C1 (same price as Pi - 35$) and the results are very good - C1 is about 6 times faster than Pi and after some configuring it runs stable and without problems.

If someone's interested in details, don't hesitate to ask.

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@ivanr

That's interesting. I run our Amazon-integrated book-sale pick-n-pack system on a raspberry pi running as a headless server but with a few differences to your setup. Firstly, I use nginx instead of Apache. Secondly, it doesn't use PW although it is written in PHP and thirdly it uses redis as the DB instead of a relational DB. I also print out all the address labels using a thermal label printer that was a nightmare to get working on the pi.

Thanks for the pointer to the Odroid C1 (UK link)... looks interesting. Am I right in thinking it's about a 10watt machine?

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@netcarver

C1's typical power consumption: 0.5A @ 5V, up to 2A @ 5V with several USB peripherals. So 10W in worst case, but normally 2-3W. I use it as headless server, so some RAM and maybe power (HDMI and graphics off) are saved.

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@ivanr

I would be interested in the details of your C1 configuration as I'm very tempted to try one of these out (there are some things for which the Pi just isn't powerful enough) I am torn between the C1 and low-end intel NUCs which also perform really well and have a reasonably low power usage (last one I tried was ~14watt) and possibly better software support from linux packages as they don't use the Arm architecture, though their price is somewhat higher.

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@netcarver

I use Odroid-C1 with 5V/2A power supply (2.5mm plug), a Samsung EVO 16GB microSD card (class 10, UHS-I) and last Ubuntu image for C1 (from Hardkernel site). Ethernet is limited to 100Mb and a little tweak is needed for this setup to run properly, but I asume it's not interesting at this stage.

If you wish I could run a php benchmark on the Odroid (e.g. like this one) so you could compare it with whatever you wish.

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@ivanr

I had the same idea. Energy consumption of the Odroid-c1 is very attractive as measured here (http://frank-mankel.de/?p=392). So I guess, based on the measurements of Frank, It draws on average about three Watts an hour. That means 72 Watts for a whole day (24h). So 26280 a year, devided by 1000= 26,28 kW a year.  1kW costs 20 eurocent here, so that means 26,28 * 0,20 = 5,25 euro for a whol year 24h/day!  It can draw at maximum 5V * 2A = 10 W (that's the power supply). Even at maximum power full time (which is not realistic at all!) it only costs 17,5 euro. But it will in reality probably be under 10 euros (about the same as Raspberry). Combined with the faster speed (mucht faster then the Raspberry Pi B+) it is very interesting to use as a webserver (certainly when you also use the faster Emmc module with it). So I ordered it (with the Ubuntu preinstalled emmc module) also because the Gigabit ethernet port attracted me (I have glassfibre 500Mb up- and down). I just received it yesterday and got it working with a normal monitor (you have to change the monitor settings in the Boot.ini for this from HDMI to DVI and choose the right monitor resolution). However the ethernet speed is a major disappointment.  It does not seem to work at the proper speed they promised. I installed flashplayer with Chromium and ran a speedtest (needs flash) and it did not even reach 100 MB, while my PC and laptop reach 500MB. I found some posts about it, but it is not clear to me which offers the right solution and how to do that. I also discovered that the keyboard language settings won't work. You can adjust them, but the Odroid simply does not react to it. I use Dvorak and can't get it to work. I also would like a minimal Debian Wheezy install on the Emmc so I can install a Lamp-stack on it. That would make optimal use of the speed. It is not clear to me how I have to format the Emmc and put an image on it, without damaging or spoiling things. Again there are some posts about it, but still too fragmented information. I need a clear step-by-step guide. Anyone?

So I have three questions:

1. Clear instruction how to get the gigabit speed of the ethernet port

2. How to adjust the keyboard language to Dvorak

3. Clear instruction how to install a fresh Debian Wheezy (minimal) on the Emmc module

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The big issue with running a web server from home is energy consumption. I used an old PC for it first, a Dell Optiplex 170L. The problem is that it has a power supply of 250 Watt. With general use it draws very easily about 120 Watt/hour. That is 40 times more then the Odroid-C1! If the Odroid-C1 with an average of 3 Watt/hour, will cost an extra 5,25 euro/year, then an old PC  will cost you at least 210 euro's extra/year on your energy bill! That is not worth it if you compare it to the annual hosting cost. At least I am not willing to pay that. An other big disadvantage of an old PC is the extra heat loss (!) and noise produced (very annoying). An Odroid-C1 is totally silent and produces almost no heat (you can add a cooler to it). You can host for let's say 17,50 a year. So any power consumption higher then 17,50 euro's is not worth it (in terms of cost). So the Odroid-C1 is perfect for it. Anything more powerfull and faster will draw more energy and will mean a disadvantage in terms of cost.     

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@jerry, @ivanr

Thank you for your posts. If possible, could you let me know what your C1 is like when viewing this web page in Chromium or Chrome or FireFox? (That page is a demo of one of my modules running on PW.) I have a need for a low-power PC to drive a kiosk running a browser set to permanently display digital signage produced by my module and wonder if the C1 can handle the rendering needs.

Thank you!

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@netcarver

Today I could try your site on a fresh C1 ubuntu install; it was a bit jerky, but after I allowed hardware acceleration in Chromium, it was just like on my regular PC - I would say perfect - but judge yourself (see PM).

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What a great idea. I have a similar idea to have an offline version of the site I built for trade shows where wifi is sometimes spotty and portability is key. I really wanna see how you guys get your environments tweaked, I have debated on nginx vs apache running on a pi. Please post your results :D

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I would also probably recommend the Pi 2 (quad-core) over the C1 - the HW seems to be OK, but the SW is buggy compared to the Pi's (e.g. no booting after apt-get upgrade etc.); they are working on it but anyway...

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I'm currently working on a Pi A+ model and I can see, why people strive for a little more power. But as I'm trying to build a digital picture frame for my creative stuff like processing or as of late preverably openframeworks sketches I don't have the space to fit in the bigger Pi 2.

You really have to build your stuff with as less overhead as possible to work with these. I just had experimented with a processing sketch, which mimiced this site: http://whatcolourisit.scn9a.org/. As processing is based on Java it needs X11, JVM and the sketch to run, so I got around 20-30 fps for this simple thing. Built the same thing in openframeworks, which is c++ based and compiles down to raw machinecode, it hardly drops below 57 fps.

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Could any of you Pi2-owners-to-be please let me know how my demo site renders once you get your Pi2s up and running? I've gone with the C1 (for now) but I like the appeal of the Pi2 as it uses a full-size HDMI socket and the SW support sounds better. Thanks in advance if you can do this.

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Ok, so I received the C1 and have just been trying it out on my demo site after performing a system update. Chromium seems pretty stable and responsive but Firefox performs really poorly for a few seconds and then crashes. Not too impressed with FF on this platform and I'd prefer to run FF as there is a kiosk-mode extension for it that I wish to use in my intended application. 

On the plus side, this cheap, tiny form-factor and low power machine is capable of running several low-demand desktop apps with a good response time and is way more usable as a desktop platform than the Pi B was.

Now looking forward to seeing your results for the Pi2 - particularly in Firefox.

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@ivanr

Thank you for testing and sending me video results. I'll try getting the C1 to run chromium in kiosk mode as suggested by LostKobrakai and see if I can drive it all from a touch screen monitor as well.

@LostKobrakai

Thanks for the tip.

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