Dockstar Debian VS. OpenWRT
by james on Dec.08, 2010, under dockstar
So why would anyone choose debian over OpenWRT on their Seagate Dockstar? Why go with OpenWRT? Let me clutter the internet with my opinions:
Why Debian:
You can make an actual “computer”. All you need is either some kind of USB LCD or USB VGA adapter and you have a display pretty easy. Well, LCD would not be that practical, you might as well have OpenWRT then. Some guy got on engadget for doing this. Big deal, I hacked an Xbox powersupply to power my dockstar and 2 harddrives! Come on engadet!!!
You want to use programs that aren’t compiled for OpenWRT. In my case, there is no mythtv package for OpenWRT let alone all it’s dependencies.
You feel more comfortable with a “real” distro. OpenWRT is real, but debian is meant to be played around with so it’s geared toward the “middle-of-the-road” end-user.
You have some special USB gadgets that require kernel modules that OpenWRT doesn’t have.
Why OpenWRT:
It will fit many times over in the NAND! Even with a lot of packages it will only take 8MB. This leaves more USB ports open for drives. Also, you don’t need to worry about the bootloader cause it’ll just boot the NAND.
You’re making a headless server, like how it’s supposed to be. Even using a USB drive, you can make a pretty robust server out of these things. I think I saw someone use it as an asterisk backend. If all you want is file and print sharing debian is total overkill (so is OpenWRT).
With the right wireless adapter you could turn this into a wireless router with a gigE port.
You want a proxy on your network. You could easily set this up using squid. If all you needed was a proxy, again, debian would be overkill.
You know what you’re doing and know that OpenWRT is really flexible, especially if you have the build system setup.
Otherwise, it’s not really going to matter. Debian isn’t built with all the gcc flags that could speed up programs or reduce their memory requirements, I’m not sure if OpenWRT build with a lot either probably just -Os for smaller binaries. The only way you’re going to see a lot of improvements is if you use NAND instead of some slow USB harddrive. Well, add your opinions in the comments!
