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The costs are ridiculous? Yeah, at 1.5 GHz you're getting a slow CPU. Yet for a lot of server uses that's far more than enough, as well as for most of what normal citizens do with their machines if they aren't gamers or video editors. The cost of power isn't "mindless eco-babble," it goes directly to the bottom line, whether corporate or household. On the corporate side there are two routes: consolidate onto virtual machines (which AMD chips handle quite well), or go for power-efficient individual boxes (which VIA chips handle quite well). Sure, Intel plays in both of these spaces. But the price of an AMD-equivalent Intel CPU is roughly double across much of the range; and the power efficiency of the VIA chips (or ARM, for that matter) ... well, is Intel there yet? The reports don't say that it is.

$267 seems like a lot for a VIA mainboard, when one with the same CPU goes for as little as $60 shipped. The one they're featuring has better video outputs, but is that feature alone worth $207? And the board they're featuring only accepts a gig of RAM, while $60 and $70 VIA boards take 2 gigs.

Seems to me like affordability is a big part of going green. First, it means that you can get enough people to do it for all those percentage savings to add up. Second, and more importantly, almost everything you can do to make the extra money to blow on more expensive hardware involves its own externalities - often involving energy use, and greenhouse and other pollution. If you can lessen your economic activity, while getting equivalent value in goods at lower cost, both you and the environment are better off. The only loss is to somebody else who could have made more money off of you. I have a personal ethical commitment to the health of our ecosystem; but should I have an ethical commitment to boosting the GDP by needlessly spending too much?

$267 seems like a lot for a VIA mainboard, when one with the same CPU goes for as little as $60 shipped. The one they're featuring has better video outputs, but is that feature alone worth $207? And the board they're featuring only accepts a gig of RAM, while $60 and $70 VIA boards take 2 gigs.

Seems to me like affordability is a big part of going green. First, it means that you can get enough people to do it for all those percentage savings to add up. Second, and more importantly, almost everything you can do to make the extra money to blow on more expensive hardware involves its own externalities - often involving energy use, and greenhouse and other pollution. If you can lessen your economic activity, while getting equivalent value in goods at lower cost, both you and the environment are better off. The only loss is to somebody else who could have made more money off of you. I have a personal ethical commitment to the health of our ecosystem; but should I have an ethical commitment to boosting the GDP by needlessly spending too much?

An old PC full of hard drives looks cheap, but it will cost you in watts. An old PC server can easily pull 250-400 watts continuously. And don't forget this summer, when you will have to pay twice for the waste heat.

A better solution is a VIA PC1 board, plus a couple of new drives.

The "$60 PC 1" will only pull 20 watts at max. Combine this with 2 "$250 terabyte drives" mirrored, and a small low wattage "$35 case" and the "(Free) Linux" of your choice,

You will have a reliable Terabyte server for less than $700, that only pulls as much power as a small appliance bulb.

For super simple.
Freenas.org offers will do the trick.
Want to get fancy? Openfiler.com will do anything you could want.
For hardware. Well if you have a spare case with a good power supply sitting around you could go with this. http://www.clubit.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=A4842001
It will be low power and is pretty cheap. Just buy some DDR-2 ram and what hard drives you want and your good to go.
This board does have two slots free so you do have some expansion options for more drives or even a raid if you want.
If you don't want to build a system then you could get the $199 Walmart Linux PC which uses this motherboard. If you are going to put a lot of drives on it I would still upgrade the power supply.
You could also pick this up at geeks.com http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=TS-X2002RS
Or if you want just use what any old PC you have.

It all depends on what you want to do. There are some nice small NAS systems that you can just plug in as well.

"Was that being shoddy? No, just practical. Look at how many PC cases ship with openings for floppy drives. When's the last time you used a floppy for anything?"
They don't put in a none functioning floppy disk drive do they?
They put in a bay. That bay can and is used for other devices, card readers, hard drives, and in the case of the 5-1/2" drive bays they are used for optical drives. Yes I would have a fit if they put in a floppy drive that didn't have a driver to make it work. Windows, Linux, or Mac it is the same standard, you put device on the computer it should work.
And yes I know some people that still use dial up. They are usually people that only use the internet for email and to surf the web every now and then. They have broadband available to them but just don't see the need. I don't think they are the market for this machine but they do exist. I do use modems at work and at home. We use them at work for sending faxes and for accessing some equipment that has a modem built in. Winmodems can also be used as FXO/FXS cards for Linux based PBXs. Just because you don't see the need for one doesn't mean they are useless.

As far as any Windows box under several thousands of dollars worth more than one star? Yes I am afraid there are. I doubt that any are $200 but you are just dismissing the advantages that Windows does have over Linux. I love Linux and I think it has a lot of advantages over Windows but Windows does have some advantages over Windows.
Off the shelf software. There is just more software available for Windows than Linux. When it comes to games Windows has a real advantage. For me there are three programs that keeps me running Windows. Flight Simulator, Quicken, and Tax Cut. Most of the best FOSS software is now available for Windows. Firefox, Apache, PHP, MySQL, GIMP, OpenOffice, and PostgresSQL all run under Windows just fine. So to dismiss Windows is both illogical and just unfair. Again I don't think you will find a better computer for $200 running Windows but it will not cost you several thousand dollars to find a better Windows based machine.

Again you keep defending this machine when there isn't any need to. I am saying it is an okay $200 PC that shows in my opinion a real lack of effort. I still find gOS an odd and flawed flavor of Linux. I would have gone with XUuntu or Zenworks. The use of Enlightenment is an interesting twist but again I think it is under used by gOS. Yes you can put on a different distro but this isn't just a review of the hardware. All I am saying is that the review is for the most part fair.

Now if you really like the hardware then you can buy the motherboard here http://clubit.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=A4842001 for about $50. If you have an old case around you can build one into a nice little NAS or Linux work station.

Or you could get this http://clubit.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=A5400410 if you just want to plug and play.

"Was that being shoddy? No, just practical. Look at how many PC cases ship with openings for floppy drives. When's the last time you used a floppy for anything?"
They don't put in a none functioning floppy disk drive do they?
They put in a bay. That bay can and is used for other devices, card readers, hard drives, and in the case of the 5-1/2" drive bays they are used for optical drives. Yes I would have a fit if they put in a floppy drive that didn't have a driver to make it work. Windows, Linux, or Mac it is the same standard, you put device on the computer it should work.
And yes I know some people that still use dial up. They are usually people that only use the internet for email and to surf the web every now and then. They have broadband available to them but just don't see the need. I don't think they are the market for this machine but they do exist. I do use modems at work and at home. We use them at work for sending faxes and for accessing some equipment that has a modem built in. Winmodems can also be used as FXO/FXS cards for Linux based PBXs. Just because you don't see the need for one doesn't mean they are useless.

As far as any Windows box under several thousands of dollars worth more than one star? Yes I am afraid there are. I doubt that any are $200 but you are just dismissing the advantages that Windows does have over Linux. I love Linux and I think it has a lot of advantages over Windows but Windows does have some advantages over Windows.
Off the shelf software. There is just more software available for Windows than Linux. When it comes to games Windows has a real advantage. For me there are three programs that keeps me running Windows. Flight Simulator, Quicken, and Tax Cut. Most of the best FOSS software is now available for Windows. Firefox, Apache, PHP, MySQL, GIMP, OpenOffice, and PostgresSQL all run under Windows just fine. So to dismiss Windows is both illogical and just unfair. Again I don't think you will find a better computer for $200 running Windows but it will not cost you several thousand dollars to find a better Windows based machine.

Again you keep defending this machine when there isn't any need to. I am saying it is an okay $200 PC that shows in my opinion a real lack of effort. I still find gOS an odd and flawed flavor of Linux. I would have gone with XUuntu or Zenworks. The use of Enlightenment is an interesting twist but again I think it is under used by gOS. Yes you can put on a different distro but this isn't just a review of the hardware. All I am saying is that the review is for the most part fair.

Now if you really like the hardware then you can buy the motherboard here http://clubit.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=A4842001 for about $50. If you have an old case around you can build one into a nice little NAS or Linux work station.

Or you could get this http://clubit.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=A5400410 if you just want to plug and play.

I think you need one of these to install in that old beige box or if you crave a complete solution, one of these.

And let's not forget openfiler, since we're mentioning free NAS solutions. It's not lightweight, but it looks pretty cool.

The Linux $200 Linux box plus FreeNAS or OpenFiler would work just fine.
When I looked at the board it had two IDE and SATA ports You could use the IDEs for the CD and the a boot drive then use the SATA ports for a software raid.
It should work just fine. You could also use a USB drive to boot from if you use FreeNAS.
Openfiler will give you an enterprise grade solution. FreeNAS would work just fine and dandy for a home solution.
Heck with Openfiler you could add a 1000-base-T card and a Giga-E switch and make a SAN.

If you have an old P3 or Athlon sitting around those would works just fine as well. If you have a case and Power supply you might want to take a look at this board http://www.clubit.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=A4842001#
For $500 depending on what old hardware you have laying around you could build pretty nice NAS.

No PCI-E as the board doesn't support it. Two PCI slots. No SATA.

Also... the computers are in stock at zareason.com

You can also buy just the board for $60 if you have a bunch of spare parts laying around. board available here

If you want to roll your own, the motherboard/CPU + gOS bundle is still available from http://www.clubit.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=A4842001 for $60 incl. free ground shipping (and, I guess, whatever tax thing gets applied.. as a Brit that still sometimes confuses)

Stick of RAM, flash drive, pico PSU & power brick - and you'd have quite a nice, and silent box..

ClubIT sells them for $60, with free shipping: http://www.clubit.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=A4842001#

I ordered one on Friday, so by tomorrow it should be here.

Actually, the motherboard that this computer ships with is on sale for 60 dollars.

http://www.clubit.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=A4842001

I think you said it all with the words "I have been waiting for the Neo1983 for a long time".

Despite much promise and initial excitement, OpenMoko has actually achieved very little since it's launch. It's been pretty much stagnant, and despite my initial enthusiasm, I lost interest quite some time ago.

I also think the Neo1983 is a horrible looking phone, and with a projected price tag of $350, will simply face too much competition should it ever actually make it to market.

However, I have absolutely no doubts about Google's ability to make this happen, and that it will happen quickly. I also expect that we'll see phones and other devices running Android for much lower price points than $350. With the likes of these: http://www.clubit.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=A4842001# having more than enough processing power as well as almost all of the necessary hardware and being available in single units at only $60 retail, it's not hard to imagine a highly functional sub-$100 set top box using regular phone lines hitting the market within a year. By then there's sure to be pretty healthy collection of applications to run on such a device, and you'd have proper integration with your mobile as they'd be running the same platform.

Mark my words, there is much more that just a mobile platform in the making here.

For additional extra credit, google for the following:

Walmart/Everex GPC TC2502 (VIA CN700 + VT8237R Chipset), PC2500E

Or just check the LinuxBIOS Mailing List thread about this very board, which is available from ClubIT.com for about $60.00 with free shipping.