Slashdot Mirror
Small Footprint Computers
Robert Cliff writes "VIA's Mini-ITX based computers have been
covered in Slashdot before, but not by this
company. This product
is interesting because it is a SiS based, fanless 233 MHZ system measuring only
4.75 x 6.25 x 1.9 inches, and it can run off BOTH AC and DC. If you need something
larger / powerful, they have other
Mini-ITX based systems, which they claim is built "on same factory that
builds the cases for many high-end audio products". These guys seem to
be heavily promoting Linux."
From my experience, at least with my vid card, SiS and linux don't mix all that well...
If my enemy's enemy is my friend, what happens if my enemy is his own worst enemy?
Another company uses the same concept with more of a specialty for diskless firewall products and wireless. The have good support for OpenBSD /w hardware crypto acceleration as well as Linux and FreeBSD.
http://soekris.com/
-ez
If you want to build your own system, go to Advantech and choose "Biscuit SBCs". They have fanless, VIA-based 667mhz computers that are roughly the size of 3.5" Hard drives. The computers include almost everything you need: audio, ethernet, VGA, TV out, IRDA, USB, IDE, and CompactFlash support. The only things you need to do yourself would be finding/building a case and finding a stable 5VDC power supply.
Look into the PJRC MP3 board - http://www.pjrc.com/tech/mp3/ . No need for a full computer.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
From the "Details" Page: "For example, at 100 Mhz, the SiS 55x offers the same computational power as a 233Mhz MMX."
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
It's not touchscreen, but it works well and there's already Linux based software to drive it as an MP3 jukebox
I used a VFD 20x4 display, an IRman IR reciever, and a credit card size remote control in my car. Works great.
A similar machine is the OpenBrick
One difference is that the Northtec uses a harddisk, while OpenBrick uses CF cards by default.
Does anybody have any further experience comparing these two machines?
How well does the video input on the Northtec machine work?
I've been using their high performance (MicroServer HP) model for a few months. At 667 MHz, it is powerful enough for a wide variety of applications and is also virtually silent (the hard drive makes a very small amount of noise). They have a very unique heatsink solution that allows for fanless operation (I've had mine running for weeks without a problem). Definitely worth checking out.
The SiS chipset is the least of your worries for this purpose. You either need an MPEG-1/2/4 hardware decoder/encoder, or a > 1Ghz processor, either of which will throw your form factor off in various ways. 233MHz is pathetic for MPEG work (yes the TiVo has a proc about that fast, but it also has embedded encode/decode chips).
The guys at MythTV have discussed this at length; there is just no small, quiet, cheap, Linux friendly way to make a TiVo. Sorry.
Shuttle will run you $300 for a bare system, $700 with RAM, an Athlon XP CPU, a disk drive, and a DVD/CDRW combo, maybe you can get by for a little less. Now, the Shuttle is a hell of a good system, but that's not the point.
An EPIA-800 and a case should be closer to $125.
Big difference. But it will also run about as fast as a K6-300. Might not even be worthwhile.
I'm sure there are MiniITX systems that bridge the gap between epia-800's and Shuttle XPC's, and others that go way beyond, but I don't know about them. I do have both a Shuttle SN41G2 and an EPIA-800 box. There's really no comparison between these two, but I bought one for a toy because it was cheap, and the other for a workstation for my music studio.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Who said you need to remove the cover? These machines support PXE, so all you do to recover your box to pull a kernel off the network and a minimal root filesystem, and *bam* you're in business, no drives of any sort needed. It's a bit tougher in Windows, but still very possible.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
My company wirespring uses these little P3 machines for kiosk and digital signage deployments all the time. They're only slightly longer than the nOrhTec product, and they're based on the i815 chipset (great linux support). Our FireCast Linux OS runs MPEG1,2 and 4 on these things great (and there's XV support to boot). Plus, if you can't live with a fan, you can pop out the Celeron/P3 and stick a VIA Eden or C3 in for silent running. On the flip side, the manufacturer also makes the product with a different case, and they even have models configured with P4s.