Slashdot Mirror
Shuttle XPC Linux Network Appliance
NoPants writes "Another big name looks like it's going to shack up with Linux. Shuttle, the maker of those small little cube looking PCs, is adopting Mandrake Linux with their newest network appliance XPCs. You can check out a review of the machine at Sudhian."
Shuttle has bundled Mandrake with it's barebones and motherboards for a long time now.
The unofficial
Bottom line: Mandrake was easier and faster to install than XP. It had just as many pretty pictures, and it required less knowledge on the part of the user regarding networking, hardware, etc. It took 40 minutes instead of 50, and required only one reboot as opposed to the nine+ required to install XP. And when it was done, the reviewer had far more applications ready to run installed on the machine.
His conclusion was that Linux is indeed ready for the desktop.
John
On a somewhat related note, there's a recent article on anandtech about the Asus DigiMatrix, a barebone computer aimed at people building a home-theater PC. that's one sexy box, with a volume knob and case buttons and an LCD, video capture card, radio tuner, tv tuner, gigabit ethernet, wireless ethernet, DVD/CD-RW, embedded audio-player OS, 7-in-1 card reader...
I'm seriously considering getting one of these and making a linux media station / fileserver. Obviously Asus supports only Win2k and WinXP, but it seems like a fun challenge getting all those cutting-edge hardware components to run in linux. Most of them, even the ethernet controller, are so new they aren't directly supported in the kernel yet. And getting all the various Linux media applications to start up and obey the case buttons automatically based on what is inserted sounds like a software project in itself.
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
I agree. I made one of these little machines for someone yesterday. It only has two fans in the system, a power supply fan and a CPU/system fan. Plus, the system fan is a 'smart' fan, so it scales its speed based on the temperature of the CPU. It is loud when you first turn it on, but as soon as it detects that the CPU is a safe temperature, it backs off. I couldn't hear it at all over my normal computer. Even with my normal computer off, it is still very quiet. Unless you are running Prime95 or gaming or something, it should stay fairly quiet.
I was really impressed with the little XPC machine. My mom thought it was cute machine and I was like, "This is what I have wanted to make for you!"
adpowers
Since the site is dying at 10 posts already:
Mirror!
Interesting topic, Shuttle XPC Linux Network Appliance.
A PC+Linux isn't a network appliance, its still a PC. A true network appliance, is a raid array with an ethernet adapter, its a piece of hardware performing a function.
Before you say, well yes the computer can do it also.. You have install and set it up. Appliances in general are stupid things that are cheap and easy to replace, you just plug in and turn on. PC's are not appliances.
Little pet peeve, but really if you don't care for HD's and the whole 1000k vs 1024K, this is along those lines. Use the correct terms you hackers.
The only problem is that it *doesnt* stay quiet. I have one of these on top of my TV. The fan on the CPU is a POS, and the two little fans are the same brand. After about 3-4 weeks of being on continuously they are all whining at 100 decibels. I've pulled the plug on the two case fans, but the CPU fan continues to whine and rattle. Cheap-ass POS.
I've built a few of these as well. My mother loves the one I got her for Christmas, even though it took her a while to understand that it was the whole computer and not just an external cd-burner, which is what she had asked for. =) Even better yet, on the noise fron though Shuttle has finally released a new version, the Shuttle Zen, which features an external laptop-style power brick adapter. Hence, only one fan total and it has even less equipment inside to cool. Very smart! This is of course old news to folks who prefer the Mini-ITX formfactor (or the absolutely tiny Nano-ITX or other such shrinkages), where external power and no CPU fan leads to truly silent computing.
From Webopedia: Network Applicance: A typically inexpensive personal computer, sometimes called a thin client, that enables Internet access and some business-related activities but lacks many features of a fully equipped PC, such as a hard drive or CD-ROM. Applications used on network appliances typically are housed on a Web server accessed by the appliance. Network appliances are used to ease remote management and cut costs. Is this not a full featured PC? Doesn't it have a Hard Drive and a CD-ROM?
--------------------------------------------- SignalGod ---------------------------------------------
Sorry for having to mention this, but we get spam from Shuttle Germany: ``If you don't want this kind of email, then please answer with "No Mail".''
I will never do business with Shuttle. Shuttle in Germany is a spam supporting company.
my other sig is a 500 page novel
My thinking is just the opposite. I've experienced installs of XP (during a short lived dual boot experiment) and Linux on my PC. I have plenty of potentially problem causing hardware, like my Hauppage 401 capture card and Mad Dog 52x CD burner. SuSe, the only distro I've installed since acquiring the afformentioned hardware, had both of them working after the install. It even threw in KWinTV for TV viewing, and K3B for burning. With XP, I had to use the install CDs that came with those products. That added about 1/2 an hour onto my install time, factoring in reboots. My long winded point is that Linux seems to have already surpassed Windows in terms of auto-configuration for hardware. This is especially helpful during a frustring OS install.
Another good thing about Linux, it was able to make use of my fancy new NVidia 5900 as soon as I put it in. A quick configuration dialogue (two or three clicks, no settings had to be changed) and I was done with it. With Windows, I was forced to run in a very low resolution while tracking down the NVidia drivers for it. Again, Linux makes using new hardware easier and faster.
One more story, I bought a USB keyboard to replace a broken, old, PS2 one. Linux autoconfigured it, and I was done with it as quickly as I was with the video card. In Windows, I could not type a password to log on, because it did not recognize the USB keyboard. I had to borrow a working PS2 one from a friend so I could log on, and then plug in the USB KB. I then had to use the character map utility for a bit as I installed the new KB. It took me an extra two days to get a KB working under Windows!
From the article:
"Unless you're a close follower of Shuttle press releases, you may wonder what defines a Network Appliance XPC - and indeed the definition does seem somewhat fuzzy. The common feature tends to be the inclusion of one or more "server" features - such as Gigabit LAN, or dual PCI, or dual LAN or RAID support. The current range of Network Appliance XPCs includes the SB52G2 (featuring the Intel 845GV chipset, Gigabit LAN and two PCI slots), the SB62G2 (featuring the Intel 865G chipset, SATA RAID, dual LAN adapters and the subject of today's review) and the SB75G2 (featuring the Intel 875P chipset, SATA RAID and a single Gigabit LAN adapter)."
My best guess is that it has some hardware abilities more in-line with a server than a standard desktop.
"What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
Now shipping with Linux (and it installs easier than XP)! Holy cow! How did the future sneak up on us like that?
The kids
What planet have you been living on for the past year? Shuttle is the most successful manufacturer of small-form-factor PC hardware. Begone, troll.
_/\ - Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crud.
OK, here are your heat pipes.
And if you want really quiet try one of these
- How about cutting a CD - most burners ship with some sort of burning software for Windows (e.g. Nero 5). Under Linux say hello to 'mkisofs', 'cdrecord' and another HOWTO. If you want to burn an audio CD of MP3's, you're in a world of pain.
Well, you haven't used K3b. I've used Nero before - truth is, K3b is easier. Literally a drag-drop-click-burn operation. For atypical data burns (or music), this is a great program.At the same time, I made a script to do my backups, mkisofs and cdrecord based. Being able to use the command line for these tasks is sometimes more convenient, at least for the repetitive ones. I just click the icon that runs my backup script, and I'm done, thanks to that ugly CLI.
Pretty has its place. Function has its place. Linux gives you both.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
I just built out my own Shuttle system a couple of weeks ago, based around the SB65G2 and a P4 3Ghz.
I have four of the SK41G Shuttle boxes running Debian stable as web servers. I have to agree that the construction it top notch and the cooling system is very effective. The integrated sound chipset is also quite nice once you set up ALSA. The integrated video is unimpressive for a desktop, but works well enough on a server and there's an AGP 4x slot open with plenty of room for a decent video card (air circulation might be a problem though.) The only downsides I've noticed are that you need a newer kernel than Debian stable offers to get IDE DMA working properly, and the memory is limited to PC2100.
Do all of the features of the SB65G2 work with a 2.4 kernel? I'd rather not migrate to a 2.6 kernel or rely on proprietary drivers for AGP 8x and SATA. Other than that, the SB65G sounds like a worthwhile improvement.
there's an AGP 4x slot open with plenty of room for a decent video card (air circulation might be a problem though.)
Well, I went nuts and got a Radeon 9800 Pro for the 8x AGP slot. Seems to work fine, no heat-related issues so far, and I've been giving the UT2004 demo a few workouts.
Do all of the features of the SB65G2 work with a 2.4 kernel?
On-board 10/100 ethernet works great. I use a USB keyboard with an optical mouse chained to it, both work fine. (You do need a PS2 keyboard to mess with the BIOS, but that's not unusual.) To take advantage of the onboard audio you need to download the driver from Realtek and build it for your kernel, but that's not especially difficult, and the sound quality is good.
I read a few posts that suggest Linux support for S-ATA is not quite ready for primetime, so I chickened out and went with ATA-100. Turns out that's damn fast as it is, and well supported.
UT2003 is not as fast under Linux as it is under XP, which is disappointing. I'm not sure why that is -- might be because ATI's Linux drivers are lagging behind their Win32 drivers, might be problems with AGP 8x support. Also, I couldn't get UT2003 to work with ALSA, though I confess I didn't spend a lot of time troubleshooting it, since the framerate and rendering features (reflective water and other icing) is just better under XP.
Anyhow, it's a sweet setup for gaming under XP, and excellent for getting real work done under Linux.
-- Bander
What we need more of is science!