Lowering TCO to Wifi ISP: Custom UX boot to Wine w/ Winbox?

RouterOS General
1

OK Ill try to make this as clear a question as possible. “BOOT TO WINBOX”

I know some of you are advanced NIX users, and this question is targeted specifically to someone who might know.

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  1. Purpose of possible setup

There are many 802.11 wireless ISP, it is a flourishing industry right now with rapid expansion. It is a frontier that hasnt been fully realized. Most wireless ISP are using MikroTik hardware, which has an optional win32 based utility to access and configure their hardware.
Total Cost of Operation for these companies is an issue as with all companies. I am talking about the cost of Laptop hardware in the field in general. I believe it may be possible to create a solution that would allow these companies to use cheaper hardware, used laptops ect.

MIkroTik Winbox is a Win32 only app and hasnt been ported to any other platforms, sure RouterOS has SSH and telnet, but when your on a tower or a rooftop, that isnt going to work, Winbox is required to effectivly function in these environments, but do we need windows? and do we need newer hardware with windows just to run winbox?


My question is this. Can Cheap Laptops be Converted into Useful hardware with custom Linux/Wine/WInbox distro?

Is it possible to configure a lightwieght Linux boot package that loads basic essential drivers, network, display, ect. And then load WINE, and Execute Winbox, with maybe a custom interface that houses the wine/winbox app.

A solution that could make cheaper equipment useful again, as I believe that if this could be done, it would run well on outdated, or older equipment, and provide possbile cross platform function for a native Linux Winbox port and potentially and other ideas that offer an affordable cross platform solution to those interested, and a service such as this, may, or may not with further research be marketable.

Also a note to MikroTik, please port Winbox to other platforms, as wireless technology expands, the issue of wifi ISP installer requirements is not being adressed. We need sma ller devices to configure RouterBoard when on towers and rooftops. and we need your help MikroTik.

Please market a viable solution. Laptops are too bulky, heavy and expensive, and get damaged easily in the field.

Any input would be gratefully recieved.

2

live-cd would be nice.
also a ppc-port for handhelds would be great and is not too complicated. (or any other mobile-os you like, linux would be great, for example on the nokia tablets)

3

That is why API was created, so you can develop your own configuration tools on any platform you like.
Also if you want to run Winbox in linux, it is not a problem, just install wine. I am using linux+wine+winbox for years, no issues at all. In some cases works even better than on windows.

4

Yes Winbox runs great under wine, But im talking about a solution that would let users basically turn any mobole “box”

Into a WINBOX, heh, Booting a dedicated device, maybe with Winbox inside a small shell, with menu options on the side, A machine dedicated to running winbox, because installers are roughnecks, they are quite different than Coders, sitting in an air conditioned office, they need our support, and we need Crossplatform support, not just running it in wine, and we need MikroTik to expand its franchise to also include mobile devices for the industry, for the installers.

5

use API and
create your own winbox on any platform

6

sure, it sounds like a good idea, but you will have to make it yourself, that’s why we have the API

http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/API

Make some custom Linux distro that boot’s into an environment specifically designed for configuring RouterOS devices, basically the desktop environment would be a winbox-lookalike. If you make one, I’m sold :slight_smile: