Removal of the Windows-based server in the new Dude is really inconvenient.
Whenever I network an office, facility, trailer park, or whatever, I have always created a little Dude instance that I can put on the administrator's PC, so he can see their setup graphically, tell what devices are up or down, and where the big traffic flows are. They always love it.
But now the new Dude works only on Tile and x86 machines. These customers are way under the Tile weight class, so that's out. I know there's some virtualization hoodoo possible to run the new Dude Server as a CHR on a regular PC, but my clients would have to buy virtualization software and know how to run and maintain it. It's just a troublesome deal all around.
What I'd like is to find a really low-cost, small x86 machine that will run ROS, just to run the Dude Server. The x86 machines recommended in the list all have big routing muscles -- I don't need that. I just need something small and cheap that can boot ROS, sit in a corner, do regular polling, and talk to the Dude client. The customer would have to eat the cost of this machine and an MT license if he wants this functionality, but I just don't see any way around this.
Meanwhile, I've been testing the new Dude using an old Intel Mac Mini as the server. I was super impressed at how it loaded and booted ROS out of the box with no hitches at all. But it's not a solution -- I don't have a source of old, used Mac Minis for my clients, it doesn't do powerfail-restart reliably, and unless it's attached to a display it won't boot at all on ROS.
Can somebody suggest some good options?