[PLUG] Re: silent, small form factor, linux

[JP Vossen <jp@jpsdomain.org>]

> Date: Sun, 27 May 2007 10:09:40 -0400
> From: "Jonathan E. Magen" <yonkeltron@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [PLUG] silent, small form factor, linux
>
> i found this tidbit showing a *very* small machine that is still
> equipped sufficiently to be considered usable...
>
> http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/26/stealth-computers-lpc-450-mini-pc/

That looks pretty nice, but "...just under $1,400 in the base 
configuration..." may be way to much $$$, depending on your use case.

I am pretty happy with one of these for a dedicated backup server for 
1/3 the cost:
http://www.synertrontech.com/products/embedded_computing/twister/ec-twister.html

It is significantly less powerful than the "wee machine" above, but the 
key point for me was that the *only* moving part is the hard drive (no 
fan to make noise and die).  I have a minimal Debian install on a 
bootable CF-Card, and the hard drive contains only backed up data (and 
swap), so it's trivially replaceable.

There is a large market for what used to be called "book-size" PCs [1] 
in the retail vertical, for use as point-of-sale terminals.  I 
personally find that market overcrowded and quite confusing, but in this 
context it's handy; if you can sort through all the noise you can find 
small units for much cheaper than the ones targets for "PC hobbyists" 
(for lack of a better term).  When I last dealt with that market 
(admittedly, going on 10+ years now), they mostly ran Win9x, so Linux 
compatibility might be an issue.  OTOH, given the inroads Linux has 
made, maybe it won't.

My $0.02,
JP

[1] http://www.google.com/search?q=%22book-size%22+PC
----------------------------|:::======|-------------------------------
JP Vossen, CISSP            |:::======|        jp{at}jpsdomain{dot}org
My Account, My Opinions     |=========|      http://www.jpsdomain.org/
----------------------------|=========|-------------------------------
Microsoft has single-handedly nullified Moore's Law.
Innate design flaws of Windows make a personal firewall, anti-virus
and anti-malware software mandatory. The resulting software arms race
has effectively flattened Moore's Law on hardware running Windows.
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