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On Sat, 2006-09-16 at 11:17 +1000, Andrew Lowe wrote: |
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> |
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> Just a slight hijacking of this topic, |
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> I have a little EPIA server acting as firewall, npt, dhcp, dns,etc,etc. |
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> Now even though it doesn't pull a lot of power, I don't want it running |
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> all the time, it has something to do with missing ice caps. So I want to |
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> build a button that attaches to the machine via, say, usb that when |
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> pushed shuts the machine down. By a button I mean that sort of emergency |
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> shutdown button that is usually red and used in industrial control, the |
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> sort of thing the hero always has to push to save the heroine/world. |
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don't know about the James Bond stuff - you'd probably also need an lcd |
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countdown where the button only works if you press it on 007... |
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anyway, you probably don't want to go exactly the way of the industrial |
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Emergency Stop, as it's a hardware cutoff - ie. power is shut of |
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straight away, without any software intervention. Your disks will |
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probably survive the unclean unmounts, and you power supply may handle |
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the voltage / frequency spikes from the switch opening, but why bother? |
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If you really want, you can pick them up from any electrical distributer |
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(in Australia anyway)... |
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> Does anyone here have enough hardware design knowledge to say if this |
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> would be easy or not and as to whether I should just lower my sights and |
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> stick to the three finger salute or the "normal" on/off switch? |
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If I were you, I'd want to stay with the ACPI power button, most popular |
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OS's can detect this nicely. What you can do is this: |
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- "splice" the power switch cable (the motherboard/case one, NOT the |
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power supply side!). The button works by completing a circuit to the |
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motherboard when pressed, so you can have two buttons doing the same |
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thing on the same circuit. Join a new wire of each of the two existing |
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wires. (Inside your case, they're usually labelled PWRSW or something). |
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- buy any sort of big red button (normally open, non latching) and wire |
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it to the two new wires. I have a nice arcade "fire" button which would |
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do the trick. |
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- stick it on the top / front of your case with a sign saying "PRESS |
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ME" (or maybe "don't touch" if you want to go for the reverse psychology |
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angle...) |
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voila! |
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> p.s. The main reason driving this is that the wife never turns the |
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> server off. If I have a Big Red Switch, I can say "But it has a big red |
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> switch, how can you miss it????" |
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you could try some "reNedufication", or perhaps a script that detects |
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how many users are logged in and for how long, and then shutdown |
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automatically. Or just shutdown at midnight (or whatever time she's |
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guaranteed not to be on... |
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-- |
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Iain Buchanan <iaindb at netspace dot net dot au> |
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fortune: cannot execute. Out of cookies. |
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-- |
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gentoo-user@g.o mailing list |
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