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More Cheap Linux PCs
prostoalex writes "The low-cost Linux PC market so far dominated by Lindows got a new entrant. According to News.com, Linare plans to sell a $199 no-monitor model with 1GHz VIA CPU, 128MB RAM, 20GB HDD, KDE, OpenOffice. An extra $50 would get the user upgraded to a 2GHz Athlon. Company is located in beautiful Bellevue, WA, which, as News.com noted, is quite close to another Seattle suburb - Redmond, WA."
I just called the number, 1-877-77-LINUX, and apparently there's one person who knows the technical specs on the PC, and he was away from his desk!! I was curious what (if any) dvd/cd drive it had, what graphics card it had, if it came with a floppy drive, and if there was any ethernet option.
I'm about to leave work, so someone else try calling and finding out =)
~Berj
to quote the article
Linare will try to offer better technical support than do current $200 PC makers by outsourcing technical support to employees in India who don't cost as much to hire. It will also sell its products in India, not just to countries such as the United States, where Microsoft holds more sway, Sundaram said.
"Because we are going to keep the operating expenses low, it gives us a good profit margin,"
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
The so-called Mini-ITX servers, which have possibly already been mentioned on Slashdot, are one way to go if this is what you're looking for.
They're like a regular PC, but in a much smaller box (perhaps the size of two 5.25" CD-ROM drives stacked on top of each other), and are often fanless (no, that doesn't mean they overheat, it means they're designed not to need one...), resulting in much less noise and much less power consumption. Many are cheap, and they make ideal Linux/BSD boxes for all kinds of things - web/mail/dns/anything server, backing up your data (or each other), monitoring security cameras for movement, etc. Here's a few examples for more information:
Here, here, here, here, here.
Some of them do actually officially support Linux/BSD AFAIK, such as the OpenBrick and LinITX.com.
-Andrew
Last time I looked at Walmart's site at the Lindows PCs I noticed they had inexpensive computers preloaded with SuSE 8.2. I don't know if the sales are competitive with Lindows, but its good to hear that another Linux desktop option is out there.
How about just buying a fucking router?
Because most routers I have come across have broken functionality, broken security, and don't have much scope for expandability. What if I want to use my router as a proxy web server too? Or as a DNS caching server? Or to host a website for my home network? Or as an NTP server so all my machines have their clocks in sync?
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
From the description it sounds like the $200 model uses a VIA mini-itx motherboard which includes integrated video and ethernet. I just puchased one to upgrade my FreeBSD box. The good news about these is that they are tiny (17cm X 17cm), have low power consumption and low heat output so they can be used anywhere. The bad news is limited expansion options (one ram slot+one pci slot), and a slow FPU. It's not going to win any performance awards but after all, I spent all of the last 3 years using a 350MHz Intel with few problems.
At home I have an SMC Barricade SMC7004VBR and a Siemens SpeedStream SS-2604 (Not a bad deal for $25 and includes a printer port). I have also worked with a few of the Linksys and Dlink models.
Making a port forward to another machine with them is often impossible.
I have not found this to be the case. Every one I have ever used has offered configurable port forwarding, port forwarding with a trigger port option and a blanket DMZ forward all rule (ouch).
A true firewall includes things like proxy services, if only to make sure your LAN isn't going to open your network up to the world, not to mention the possible performance improvements with caching.
I agree with you that home routers do not have these abilities, but I have never expected such devices to be able to do that, specially since they cost less then $35. I use my Linux machines behind the router for those functions. Why would you want your router to do those functions anyway? The less it runs the easier it is for you to keep secure.
Why people think a $100 or even a $200 router from a retail outlet is capable of being a bastion for security I'll never know.
Again these devices cost less then $35USD, not 100 or 200. They are much better then hooking up a pc directly to the wire and way more secure then an unpatched/uncared for Windows or Linux machines running the show.
They do have easy to use setup screens and do offer quite a bit of filtering, VPN, rulesets, and forwarding options but each has something the other does not. My main issue I have with these home routers is I have not seen one that defaults to deny and I have not found one that can block outgoing requests to specific ip addresses. That is why I still keep my floppy based Freesco router that runs on my old DX2/66 around, plus I can dial in on it.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.