[time-nuts] Re: Clock display on Linux systems?

[John Sloan]

> In this application RPis seem to last for many years - in others where we
> use the SD-card (e.g. influxdb or similar) they seem to regularly fail in
> 1-2 years, requiring an reformat or new SD-card. An RPi or similar with a
> more robust SSD/M2 drive would be good.

I’ve had the same experience with the SD cards.

At least the most recent Raspberry Pis (e.g. the 4B) support firmware to boot from USB with just a little configuration effort. I just recently starting playing with this, booting a RPi 4B from a USB-attached Samsung T5 SSD. It seems to work mostly fine (caveat: see below). For other reasons, I’ve been running a RPi-specific version of Linux MATE, but Raspbian should work okay too. (I tried the RPi-specific image of Ubuntu, since I run Ubuntu on my Intel machines, but was not terribly impressed; slow interactive response.)

One thing I did run into: if I try to plug too many USB devices in along with the SSD - e.g. in my case a mouse, keyboard, and GPS dongle - the system crashes because the SSD USB connection resets. It seems to be a power problem; I solved it with an external powered USB hub, leaving the SSD on a USB port on the RPi.

:John

--
J. L. Sloan             Digital Aggregates Corporation
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http://www.diag.com     Wheat Ridge CO 80033 USA