Mini-ITX Computing For Everyone

An anonymous reader writes "So you have decided that you want an ITX system. Whether it's just to look cool or because you need to reclaim the desk space. Most people wouldn't know where to start when creating their system. Fear no more because XYZComputing.com has created a step by step process on how they created their system. Based on an MII10000 and using a USB Pen to load up Puppy Linux. No details are omitted so if you are new to Mini-ITX and do not have a clue what you need or where to start then this would certainly be a good place to start."

Comments

No details emitted

[Ohreally_factor]

It's a good thing, they might have had to notify the EPA.

Re:No details emitted

[saucercrab]

Or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Re:No details emitted

[nfarrell]

Why can't the editors do something about the grammatical and spelling mistakes of the articles they deem fit to publish? The more errors slashdot publishes, the more it'll get, as the geeks will think it's correct usage. Admittedly, if the editors can't even manage to prevent dupes every few days, I don't have high hopes of them being on top of this.

It's particularly sad when you see all the effort being put into getting the HTML semi-compliant. If only they could do a few more things about the content.

If they really HAVE to leave the original contributers' words verbatim, at least highlight or otherwise indicate the words which are wrong. We can laugh when you read 'site' and know it should be 'cite', but I'm sure there are times when we don't even realise the error is there until we've RTFA. And only rarely (and too late) will an update be posted to the original story.

If only we could moderate the editors...

Re:No details emitted

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Or "new-kew-lear", as their boss says.

Re:No details emitted

[Cerdic]

It's a good thing, they might have had to notify the EPA.
Wouldn't have been a problem - the current admin has upped the allowable amount of detail emissions.

Re:No details emitted

[Molochi]

do you digg it?

Re:No details emitted

[hamisht]

Any emissions are indicated by a Light Omitting Diode

Re:No details emitted

[pipingguy]

Just give up. It's cool to be stoopid and some intentionally mispell just as a form of trolling - then they can always claim "I knew it was wrong, and did it just to make you reply! Hahahahaha, moron!"

Re:No details emitted

[aichpvee]

Yeah, but only once every other year if the EPA gets its way.

Re:No details emitted

[aichpvee]

That's the most rediculous thing I've ever heard! Why would /. want an editor that would actually read the submissions?!?!

Re:No details emitted

[NanoGator]

"Any emissions are indicated by a Light Omitting Diode"

Anybody know what type of censors they're using?

Re:No details emitted

[Dachannien]

Maybe they should use an SED.

Or perhaps an LER.

Re:No details emitted

[unitron]

"The more errors slashdot publishes, the more it'll get, as the geeks will think it's correct usage."

Oh dear, that's all the world needs, for Slashdot to be mistaken for a grammar and usage guide.

"...at least highlight or otherwise indicate the words which are wrong."The way to do this is with the word "sic" in parenthesis next to the misused or misspelled word. That's basically Latin for "Don't blame me, this is how I found it". Of course if they really did this wherever needed it would double the length of the front page.

Re:No details emitted

[Anonymous Coward]

Nils Diaz doesn't say it that way...

Re:No details emitted

[sn00ker]

Why can't the editors do something about the grammatical and spelling mistakes of the articles they deem fit to publish?

The editors would have to first be aware that a mistake was actually a mistake, though. I think you're giving too much credit to the standard of literacy amongst the Slashdot editors.

Re:No details emitted

[einhverfr]

Any emissions are indicated by a Light Omitting Diode

Because my internet connection is fiber-optic, I guess I won't be able to RTFA then :-(

Re:No details emitted

[morcheeba]

Extra large silicone censors, I think. There very sensitive, but prone to jitter.

Re:No details emitted

[LordSnooty]

could do a few more things about the content.

Why is there always someone who, when hearing about the completion of some exciting project, says "yeh, all very well, but why didn't you fix THAT?!"

Re:No details emitted

[Jurph]

Editors: you guys seriously need to spell-check. You have drifted into the area where spelling mistakes are more than just inconvenient -- at this print, they actually obligate the moaning, and hunt my ability to pulse the seances.

Re:No details emitted

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope I get my mod points tomarrow cos I would mod u up funny!

Re:No details emitted

[CrankyOG]

Don't you mean ridiculous?

Re:No details emitted

[Anonymous Coward]

Jimmy Carter hasn't been their boss for a very long time.

Re:No details emitted

[Anonymous Coward]

Ugh, you don't need to censor something that isn't emitting, it is self censored... ;-)

Re:No details emitted

[Anonymous Coward]

Like the use of "payed" (incorrect, but I blame a Dilbert comic strip from a few years ago) instead of "paid".

Re:No details emitted

[Anonymous Coward]

low flying plane just gave you a haircut.

I guess you missed it.

Re:No details emitted

[kesuki]

I thought silicone censors had been banned, in favor of sodium-chloride-dihyrdo-oxide based censors.

Re:No details emitted

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh dear, that's all the world needs, for Slashdot to be mistaken for a grammar and usage guide.

fo shizzle we all kno that pop culture is da best McWay to learn teh language.

Re:No details emitted

[icbkr]

Latin? I thought it was an editorial abreviation for "seen in context". Unfortunately, dictionary.com agrees with the Latin explanation. I think my mnemonic is easier to recall than the Latin, though.

emitted->omitted

[arc.light]

That had me confused for a bit...

No details are emitted?

[Sleet01]

How will we read about it then? What happened, did they fall within the event horizon created by the over-abundance of pr0n data on the net?

No details Emitted?

[Anonymous Coward]

We're not going to get much from this posting, then?!? ;-)

Why not an Apple Mini?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not an Apple Mini?

Re:Why not an Apple Mini?

[Ohreally_factor]

No, you're thinking of the article where no details were i-mitted.

The story contains no details

[Anonymous Coward]

No details are emitted? So this time I really DO have a reason to not RTFA. I feel like I've omitted something though.

seems like a lot of work

[i_should_be_working]

when you can just buy a Shuttle or some other small form factor pc mostly put together already.

Re:seems like a lot of work

[TruePaige]

Some people enjoy building computers, as some people may enjoy watching a football game. Plus the savings money wise is very nice in the pocket. I assume you just don't get it. ~_^

Re:seems like a lot of work

[dbIII]

when you can just buy a Shuttle

Shuttles are fairly big in comparison and the really small form factor boards are expensive. Mini-ITX fits in the middle.

Re:seems like a lot of work

[Brainix]

Then the author didn't write the article for you.

Some of us don't see assembling a computer as work -- we see it as play.

DIY -- scratching the itch -- is the very spirit of Linux.

Re:seems like a lot of work

[spagetti_code]

Did you see the power supply - 60W - lets see you find a shuttle that runs on that!

I have one of these (MII12000 in fact) - idle draw is less than 20W - a dim bulb.

Power efficient, cool, quiet, small, but not very fast.

Pick the right tool for the job - in my case a PVR.

Re:seems like a lot of work

[i_should_be_working]

Well sure, I enjoy putting computers together too. But that's not how the article is presented, especially in the summary. It acts like if you want a sff computer, this is the way to go independent of how much you like putting them together. A better reason, as someone pointed out above, is that Shuttles are quite larger than the one in the article.

Re:seems like a lot of work

[Kat0325]

I agree. Many people take great pride in building computers and do it for 'fun'. Yes, go with the Shuttle if you don't want to take the time to build your own system... but there is a great joy to putting in the time to build a computer. In particular, there is something very exciting about experimenting with the unconventional form factors. Building your own computer system also fun because it's a challenging problem. What's most important about the new computer? The size, design, performance, and cost are all major factors. Building your own computer opens you up to the widest possible range of options, if you have the time to build it. In the end, it really increases your sense of ownership for a system... being able to say to spilled blood to make it happen, and also that it was made specifically for a particular purpose you had in mind.

Re:seems like a lot of work

[gl4ss]

however.. you wouldn't need an article to tell you how to do this.. what fun is following someones guide anyway?

anyways, problem with mini-itx tends to be just the one mentioned: you can get a shuttle type of machine for cheaper and end up with a faster machine to boot and end up with something just as cool looking. I'd like to play around with one but at the current price/performance i'm not going to pay for a toy that's slow and premium priced. even mini-itx cases are premium priced(even crap looking mini-itx cases seem to come with a hefty pricetag). the article is basically an ad anyways and pretty boring to read.

i like diy stuff, re-using old stuff and getting by cheaper by not being afraid to solder. but mini-itx doesn't fit into that at all, mini-itx for desktop is just stupid from the geek diy viewpoint and from normal user viewpoint as well.

and if you're hauling it around.. just get the friggin laptop.

Re:seems like a lot of work

[Wavicle]

My server at home, which sits on a static IP address, is a mini-itx based machine. It provides me with: web hosting, email hosting, storage, inside network services and firewalls outside access to my TiVo. Why did I do this with a mini-itx instead of a shuttle? Well, there are several disadvantages to Shuttle over Mini-itx:

• Noise. The shuttle will likely produce a lot more. The only moving part on my server is the hard drive platters, and they are hermetically sealed and use fluid dynamic bearings. As hard drives go, they are whisper quiet. I've bought a lot of fans in my time, even some rather expensive ultra-quiet ones. Given enough time, all of them eventually get dust in the bearings and start making a racket.
• Size. Shuttle is small, this thing is smaller.
  
• Heat. There is not a single fan running on my server. The hottest component by far is the hard drives.
  
• Power. This goes along with heat. The power supply's peak sustained output is 60W. I'd be suprised if the unit consumed more than 25W except during hard drive spin up.
  
• Battery back up lifetime. This goes along with power. A standard consumer UPS will run this thing for many hours. No, I haven't tested how long. It has survived 3 hour power outtages.
  

Put all this together, and I can hide the server in a closet and forget about it. Just need a power drop and two network connections.

Re:seems like a lot of work

[corsec67]

Does your 20 watts include a hard drive and an optical drive?

Re:seems like a lot of work

[gl4ss]

which is FAR from desktop use, you might notice.

Re:seems like a lot of work

[Aenema]

I thought space elevators were the future.

Re:seems like a lot of work

[Anonymous Coward]

Saving money? I'm sorry, but I actually did buy my last PC right from best buy!! Scary thought coming from a geek (yeah yeah i know - leave your card at the door now!) that has been assembling his for years (starting from the trs-80 era), but I just could NOT match the prices they had by buying full retail prices (well, OEM stuff included) at hardware stores anywhere across country (true enough, I did buy a P4 and I was pricing a [similar spec'ed] AMD64). Even with the low margins these stores make, it was significantly cheaper to buy a boxed system instead (not quite half price but close to that!). Build quality on that boxed system is actually better than all of those LianLi case/Asus mobo systems I've put together and the like.

So I suggest you go check the prices on boxed systems right now, you might be in for a shock too. I wasn't paying 400$ extra to get the previledge of having to assemble my system myself!

Re:seems like a lot of work

[slazar]

Heh, no, we are going back in time and reverting to saturn V style rockets where the crew module sits on top and is basically a stage of the rocket itself. If a bigger payload needs to go up then we would see two different launches, one with crew and one with payload.

Re:seems like a lot of work

[bigpat]

My server at home, which sits on a static IP address, is a mini-itx based machine.

Go ahead, post the link to your server on slashdot. I double dog dare ya.

Re:seems like a lot of work

[LnxAddct]

Size. Shuttle is small, this thing is smaller.
 
Yea mini-itx boxen are great, I've got my fair share of them. My only wonder/complaint is when the hell is the nano-itx coming out? I've seen photos of it for a year now and I keep getting promised the damn thing is coming. If anyone knows when they are going to be officially released, please reply with that info. With a form factor as small as the nano has claimed to be, I've already got plans to buy about 5 of them for various functionality throughout my house or automobile or work. I hope that the nano-itx isn't just vaporware.
Regards,
Steve

Re:seems like a lot of work

[jayloden]

Sounds like a decent home server. I've been wanting something similar so I can turn off my 650 watt power supply machine that's doing that duty now :-)

Do you have a list someplace of the components in your box/how you put it together? I'd be interested in taking a look. Maybe it'd be worth my time and money to put a nice home server together that'd be quieter and less power hungry.

Re:seems like a lot of work

[coaxial]

Tell more.

Re:seems like a lot of work

[Wavicle]

There's really not much to tell, the mini-itx has most of the peripherals on board. It's an EPIA MII 6000 mainboard sporting a 600MHz processor that I think I've clocked down to 533... or maybe it always ran at 533... Anyway, /proc/cpuinfo assures me it's at 533 MHz.

I'd like to say I had a good reason for only putting a 256MB DIMM on the board, but the truth is I had a 256MB DIMM harvested from another machine upgrade lying around, so I didn't even shop for something larger. There is only one DIMM slot on the board though.

Since that board has only one network interface, the lone PCI slot on the machine has another network card in it. I seem to remember that the motherboard had some problems with many PCI NICs, I had to shuffle through a few before finding one that worked.

The hard disks are samsung spinpoint V series 160GB drives which are raid mirrors of one another. Each drive is on a separate IDE cable (the Linux RAID HOWTO said that putting both drives on the same IDE cable was a sure way to kill performance). I'm sure someone out there is incredulous with the meager storage I have, but to be fair when I built the machine a couple years ago, 160GB was a fair sized drive and I haven't filled the drive up anyway.

It has an old CD-ROM I had lying around attached to it, but I don't think it has been used since the OS was installed.

The power supply I got from mini-box.com I believe. It has two parts: one that looks like a laptop power supply and another that attaches to the mini-itx board.

The server is running Gentoo Linux. I have several machines pick up and do a distcc to help the poor server through the big compiles. I've got my own set of iptables running as well as dhcpd, samba, apache2, tomcat, exim, sshd, courier-imap, postgres and named. Sadly, uptime right now is only 111 days. Every so often I want to download the latest Fedora Core, Knoppix, MAME ROMs or whatever and I'll use the server to do that as well (soaks a lot of CPU cycles to do bit torrent though). It's cheaper to have the server download the latest fedora DVDs than to leave one of my bigger machines on overnight.

The only thing it's not doing anymore is print serving. Although it could, the printer is doing fine attached to another box right now.

Re:seems like a lot of work

[pla]

seems like a lot of work ... when you can just buy a Shuttle or some other small form factor pc mostly put together already.

Really not all that much work. For starters, use a CF-to-IDE adaptor (around $5) and as big of a CF card as you need (I used a 512MB I picked up for $40 and could have gotten away with a 256MB) rather than USB, and the single biggest hassle of the job gets about 10x easier - That way, you can literally just install Linux like normal and once you have everything like you want it, follow any of the numerous and fairly simple "how to have a RO root filesystem under Linux" guides (alternatively, not to sound like a Linux zealot, you could also go with XPe using EWF).

Personally, I used an Epia CL-600 motherboard, because I didn't need any serious CPU power but wanted a silent machine (note - although you can run this fanless, it stays rather toasty. A low RPM 120mm fan on the side of the case blowing in the general direction of the CPU's heatsink will drastically lower that, with almost no extra power consumption or noise). Threw it into the smallest (weighted with price as a factor) ATX compatible case I could find on NewEgg, a Seasonic S12-330 power supply (serious overkill, but a damned fine PS with a near-silent 120mm fan and active PFC).

The result, a machine that would work just fine for any number of non-desktop machines, draws 20-30W, makes so little noise you need to hold your breath to hear it, and takes no more time to throw together than a typical whitebox PC. Granted, that takes somewhat more effort than buying a shuttle, but you get a better machine for quite a lot less money.

Re:seems like a lot of work

[default luser]

I have to agree, Via Mini-ITX are a lackluster choice for desktop use.

The problem is the anemic processor bus, which makes any rich content seem sluggish. Thanks to the Nemiah core upgrade, the processor is perfectly capable, but any modern GUI interface (XP, GNOME, KDE) will feel slow. Overall performance under load also suffers, as it becomes bus-bound.

An upgrade to a 200MHz revamp of the GTL bus and a slightly larger L2 cache would make this chip competitve without sacrificing cost or performance. Now especially that Via is offering a combined C3 core and northbridge on a single package, there's no reason the bus couldn't be pumped up (similar to what Freescale did with their integrated 667MHz MPX bus on the dual core MPC8641D).

Unfortunately for us, the Via Epia is already overpowered for it's real market: kiosk, POS, and other low-power specialty applications benefiting from x86 compatibility. Via is happy to release variants with LVDS panel controllers and compactflash slots, but there is no market need for improving processor bandwidth.

So, get used to that poor desktop performance. Luckily, AMD and Intel are starting to intrude on Via's low-power computer enthusiast market with the Athlon 64 and the Pentium M.

Re:seems like a lot of work

[Anonymous Slacker]

It depends on what you want/need a desktop PC to perform.
I'm currently running a Via 1Ghz Mini-itx M10000 as a PVR PC running Windows XP-pro, with 512MB DDR ram, 120 & 160GB hard drives, and a Hauppage PVR-250 tv-tuner card.
For my purposes, it handles quite well (though I have learned not to do much extra on it while it is under CPU-heavy loads -- recording/editing video being the primary resource hogs), and it doubles for web surfing/instant messaging when my main computer (a K6-2+ 450MHz screamer with WinMe ;) is on the blink)
Considering that these (and a few other computers) share my bedroom with me and those two are normally on 24/7, power consumption and noise are primary factors over having the fastest/most expensive components.
Plus they handle my needs well -- what I consider to be "desktop use" is different from what other people would consider it to be, and given that most of my "desktop use" is easily handled by a computer half as powerful as my mini-itx box, the form factor may well support many people's requirements (until Windows Vista gets here, of course -- then they probably won't even be able to bring up the command prompt let alone solitaire or minesweeper)

Re:seems like a lot of work

[Anonymous Slacker]

I have also made a PVR out of a Via mini-itx board (M10000), with a Hauppage PVR-250 tv tuner, 512MB ram and 120 and 160GB hard drives. I had to upgrade to a 90W power adapter for the second hard drive.
Originally I had a 60W power adapter, which worked well for a 2.5" hard drive and full-sized CD-rom.
A desktop CD-Rom drive and 3.5" HD were straining the limits of the power supply and had intermittent troubles during spinup.
After switching to an external CD-rom, I was able to run the system with a 2.5" and 3.5" hard drive and PVR card off of the 60W power supply.
Eventually this sort of setup will run low on hard drive space under frequent video recoring (which I do), so I swapped out the 2.5" drive for a second 3.5", but that would cause occasional problems during HD spinup as well (even with the external optical drive on it's own power supply), so I had to upgrade to a 90W power adapter and it has been fine ever since.

Since optical drives are not always needed 100% of the time, using an external drive when necessary, and low-power hard drives, it is possible to run such a system at low power levels, even with Windows XP.

Re:seems like a lot of work

[VolciMaster]

I did a quick search on newegg and fry's this morning, and the cost for the box as described in the article is around $325 for the MB and case, add in some RAM, hard drive (unless you want to go flash), cd (temporarily... should only need it to install the OS), and a keyboard/mouse/monitor... the total's around $575-$700 (512M or 1024M, 80G or 160G, 17" CRT, std mouse & keyboard; LCD will add $50-100)

Re:seems like a lot of work

[orev]

Savings has never, ever been a reason to build your own. 10 years ago, building your own might've saved you marginally, less than $100. Today, building your own costs way more.

The advantage to building your own is that you know every component going into it is something you chose, and (hopefully), high quality.

Re:seems like a lot of work

[Fenster Karton]

So I went to the Shuttle web site and looked at a G4 8500g for $899. Except for a 7200 rpm drive just what does this machine do that my HP zv6130us notebook doesn't do. In fact the HP does more. 802.11g built in and most importantly it has a display. Oh -- and the dual layer DVD is standard. And my HP has a battery. And 64 bit AMD And and and. . . What am I missing here? How do these people get away with this?

Re:seems like a lot of work

[cfuse]

Shuttles are fairly big in comparison ...

They're fricken huge in comparison.

Re:seems like a lot of work

[spagetti_code]

Actually (small correction) - I have an 80W power supply. I have a full sized hard drive, DVD burner and an encoder/decoder card (Hauppauge PVR-350), external HDD via firewire. With the 60W and everything loaded, I had intermittent failures on start. When I put the 80 on, I found that it drew about 72W very briefly after start. Its now reliable.

Re:seems like a lot of work

[bani]

feel free to submit a benchmark

Re:seems like a lot of work

[bani]

care to submit a benchmark?

Re:seems like a lot of work

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're building a high-end graphics machine you can still save some money, particularily on a dual processor system. (Mostly because your options are more limited on pre-built workstations)

wow

[celeritas_2]

No details were emmitted eh? That's just amazing. Editors might actually want to _read_ articles and check for large glowing errors more often then say... never, which is pretty much what happens now.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you meant to use the word "than" rather than "then".
When mocking people for their spelling/grammatical errors it is best to double check yourself. You know what they say about people who live in glass houses...

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha! Your attempt at making fun of somebody's inability to choose the right word also chose the wrong word! Now who is the fool?

Re:wow

[unitron]

" I think you meant to use the word "than" rather than "then"."

No, he's saving all his "than"s to use when he should be using "from" (as in different from). :-)

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool, man. Not only did everyone else notice this also, they also posted their 'witty' comments on it before you. Thanks for 'adding to the conversation', though.

The Previous Comments

[llamaguy]

Off Topic, but I find it hilarious that the first 6 comments all focus on the 'No details are emitted' phrase. And I was going to make a snide reference to it as well, but I'd prefer to be modded 'Off Topic' rather than 'Redundant', since at least I have something (slightly) useful to say.

Re:The Previous Comments

[NanoGator]

"Off Topic, but I find it hilarious that the first 6 comments all focus on the 'No details are emitted' phrase. And I was going to make a snide reference to it as well, but I'd prefer to be modded 'Off Topic' rather than 'Redundant', since at least I have something (slightly) useful to say."

Hehe. What's funnier is when you see a story with 10 or so comments (modded up, of course) bitching about it being a dupe. They never realize that they're not better at spotting dupes than the Slashdot editors are.

Re:The Previous Comments

[untaken_name]

Hmm...seems like I've read this comment before.

Re:Typo

[Anonymous Coward]

No details are emitted so if you are new to Mini-ITX and do not have a clue what you need or where to start then this would certainly be a good place to start.

I believe there's a typo in the summary. Obviously the submitter meant to say that it'd be a bad place for a beginner to start.

Easier process

[tji]

go to www.apple.com
click on Mac Mini
click "Buy".

I have messed around with the Mini-ITX's for a couple years. The Mini-ITX and the VIA C3 processors they use were way ahead of their time in low power/heat small sized computers. But, the Mac Mini did a big leap frog over the Mini-ITX boxes. It's smaller, cheaper, and faster than any of VIA's offerings - not to mention all the included software, and it looks better than any of the ITX options. If you must have x86, Mini-ITX is a good option. If not, save some headaches & pick up a Mac Mini.

VIA announced the Nano-ITX a LONG time ago, but have thus far failed to deliver anything.. The Nano-ITX might offer some interesting possibilities. But, at this point I think there is little chance of them actually shipping it.

Re:Easier process

[callipygian-showsyst]

If I got my kid a Mac Mini instead of some AMD box with an NVIDIA card, the kids in school would call him lame and beat him up! And he wouldn't be able to play any games.

Re:Easier process

[GaryPatterson]

The Mac Mini is not a powerful computer, but has power enough for just about anything below video games or serious number crunching. My iBook has about the same specs as the lesser Mini, and it does video editing, plays most recent games tolerably well, handles Office and iWork easily and is a good development machine.

What the Mini really, *really* needs is video out, and maybe surround sound. It's almost perfect for using as a home theatre device, but lacks video out and surround sound. If Apple could add those, then I'd buy one just as an entertainment unit. It would literally be perfect for me, and I could free up 25GB of space on my iBook (my CD collection).

I love the tiny form factor of the Mini, but can't buy one until it's more significantly different from my iBook.

Re:Easier process

[dbIII]

VIA announced the Nano-ITX a LONG time ago, but have thus far failed to deliver anything

When I talked to a rep about it there appeared to be some heat problems they needed to resolve. There are smaller form factors out there than mini-ITX (I have a little fanless VIA Eden-N 800Mhz machine that is in a 170 x 124 x 58 mm case) but you have to go looking outside of the mass market shops - industrial automation places may be willing to sell single units at a reasonable price.

Re:Easier process

[GaryPatterson]

So it would teach your kid not to care so much what others think, and give him more time to focus on important things instead of video games?

Sounds like a win-win to me.

Maybe you could buy him a console and a Mac Mini.

Re:Easier process

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got news for you: if your kid hangs out with kids who ponder the differences between a Mac and an AMD Box, he's likely to get beat up anyhow!

Re:Easier process

[tji]

> industrial automation places may be willing to sell single units at a reasonable price.

I looked into a lot of these back when I was building Mini-ITX boxes. There were several more powerful options (e.g. mini-itx form factor, socketed for Pentium M), but, any time I would find a reseller willing to talk to me they would want $500+ for just the motherboard in small quantities. Small volumes are apparently not worth the effort for those guys.

Re:Easier process

[dwater]

If you want to use the DVI output of the Mac Mini with an flat panel, be careful which one you buy :

http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?14@33.9SkZa nGL5BJ.4@.68a8dc69 ...or if you are dead set on one that is listed as not working, don't buy the Mac Mini.

(Why does /. join the line containing the URL with the line after it, irrespective of how many blank lines I put in between?!!?)

Re:Easier process

[tji]

The Mini *does* support video out. You just need an adapter. From the Mac Mini prodct page on apple.com: "Televise Your Visions - You can use any TV with Mac mini as a display. Some newer HDTV models already sport a DVI connection, but you'll need the optional S-Video/ Composite Video adapter to use Mac mini with regular TVs.

Or, get an HDTV, many/most have DVI and/or VGA inputs. Mine has both, and the Mini looks great in 720P HDTV.

But, you're right about the audio. It only does analog stereo output. You need a USB audio adapter to get Dolby Digital surround output.

Also, it would have a great HTPC, if Apple opened APIs for the MPEG2 acceleration hardware onboard. With that, it would be capable of HDTV video playback. Without that acceleration, it's not fast enough to keep up with 1080i video.

Re:Easier process

[puetzc]

About a year ago I built a silent computer based on a mini_ITX for my wife. Her requests were 1) Small and 2) Silent. It went together easily and has done an excellent job of general basic service. It installed Debian (first testing, and now Sarge) without any undue problems. Three months ago, I bought a Mac mini for my daughter to take to school. Everything she has tried has worked perfectly. If the Mac had been available when my wife needed a new computer, I probably wouldn't have bothered with the homebuilt, as the mini is about the same price and is more powereful. Stability hasn't been an issue with either one.

Re:Easier process

[callipygian-showsyst]

give him more time to focus on important things instead of video games?

Absolutely! And one of the other reasons I prefer Windows is that there are some great development tools available. All your favorite GNU stuff, plus Microsoft Visual Studio .NET which is the best IDE I've ever seen/used. Even though I've been a Mac developer in the past, it's obvious to me that Microsoft cares more about third-party developers.

So for a platform to learn computer programming on, Windows with Visual Studio .NET 2005 is my first choice.

Re:Easier process

[lucas teh geek]

just a guess but the line probably gets interpreted as html and wants a
to break to a new line

Re:Easier process

[CurbyKirby]

Mod parent up to 6, at least.

I was really looking forward to running my home servers on Mini-ITX boards. Then the Mini came out and almost every enticing feature of the Mini-ITX platform (for home use) was instantly overshadowed.

Power Tie, at 10W-20W for the entire system.

The other power The C3 Nehemiah is decent at integer math for its clock speed and power usage, but sucks at floating point. Google some benchmarks for more information. For a server, that's generally not a terrible problem, but it makes the Mini more flexible in the ways it can be used.

Price I can get a new mini at under $500 shipped direct from Apple, with a hard drive, CD-burner, memory, case, latest commercial software. Good Mini-ITX cases cost well over $100 just because the market is small. A recent Mini-ITX board is $200-$300. No, don't use the price of an original Epia, which can't hold a candle to a Celeron 400, not to mention a 1.25GHz G4. Don't use the price of a full-size cheapo ATX case, cause that's not a fair comparison. Then add storage, RAM, etc. Even after spending all that (easily $500-$700 for a system that can even attempt to rival a low-end Mini in terms of performance), you don't get...

Support Apple has legendary customer support (look at, say, Consumer Reports and their customer support comparisons). Via might not be terrible, but they'll only help you with the mainboard, not the components, nor integration.

Linux I haven't checked in the last few months, but I'd wager that the Mini has better Linux support for its embedded hardware overall. EPIA drivers have a history of being shakey. See also the stability problems below, if you're thinking of going with an older, cheaper board. I loaded Debian-PPC on my Mini and everything just worked. Granted I don't use Airport Express (which as far as I know still doesn't work) and the Mac's onboard hardware monitoring chip isn't easy to configure with lm-sensors, but nothing that I really needed required special drivers.

Tinkering If you insist on building things yourself, then the Epia wins here. Keep in mind, however, that you can open a Mini and make minor changes (like adding RAM) without voiding your warranty.

Expansion Be careful if you think the Epia wins here. Some boards claim to support up to 2 PCI cards, but they are plagued with DMA problems. Notice that the newest Epia SP has dropped claims of such support. The problem crops up while sending large amounts of traffic to a hard drive and PCI card at the same time, or Ethernet port and hard drive, etc. and it will tank the machine. This is a known problem apparently resulting from a slow interconnect between the North and South bridges. Via's official forums (www.viaarena.com) has threads about this issue. To be fair, the CN400 chipset has a much faster interconnect, so problems might be alleviated. As for the Mini, most peripherals and add-ons will support one or more of USB and Firewire, so there's not a big problem. Video capture may or may not be a problem (are there Linux-friendly Firewire video capture devices?), since I haven't looked into that at all.

Apple stickers Bundled with the Mini! =P

The Epia is often used to build car-puters, whereas I haven't yet heard of something using a Mini for that purpose. If you have a particular PCI card you must use, that might be a reason to go Epia. Aside from those reasons, the Mini is a better deal and probably more capable.

Re:Easier process

[Pierre]

ya *but*

that cpu is a bit anemic. i've been fighting to keep from buying one of these things for myself (bought one for my mother and brother). that cpu is a wimp compared to other things on the market

Re:Easier process

[Anonymous Coward]

If I got my kid a Mac Mini instead of some AMD box with an NVIDIA card, the kids in school would call him lame and beat him up!

Beaten up by AMD nerds and NVIDIA fanboys. There is a fate worse then death.

Re:Easier process

[Pierre]

more powerful than what?

I love the mini form factor but a 1.2 GHz G4?

What will it be like in year?

I used to love the macs for their longevity - seemed like they were usable for years longer than PCs... Just don't see it with this chip. I wonder what they will have when they go to intel processors - would love to see a mini with an AMD64 chip

Re:Easier process

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The Epia is often used to build car-puters, whereas I haven't yet heard of something using a Mini for that purpose.

I haven't been tracking this use, but I've seen several forum posts and several web sites around puting a Mac mini into cars. Heck, just put "Mac mini auto" into Google and you'll find a few of them. There are at least two companies offering add-ons, one sells a dock to put the computer in and pull it, and another is a DC power supply rather than using an AC inverter then the power brick.

Re:Easier process

[dwater]

Well, I don't remember it being a problem before....

Re:Easier process

[puetzc]

At worst, I will move it to Debian - that's what I did with an old iMac that wasn't powerful enough to support OSX. With Linux, it still does a fine job of web browsing and word processing for an undemanding user. If I do that with the mini, it is still small, quiet, and cost less than the mini_ITX. I am sure Apple will support if for several years, and that is probably long enough for a $600 computer. I agree that the AMD chip might have an advantage in 3rd party software that isn't always available for the PPC.

Re:Easier process

[Chalex]

If you got your kid a Mini-ITX machine based on the C3 chip, the kids at school would call him lame and beat him up! The parent is not suggesting that the Mac Mini replaces a gaming rig, he is suggesting that the Mac Mini replaces a Mini-ITX setup very well. Obviously, neither is a system that plays the latest 3D games well (although the Mac Mini is much more capable than the C3-based machine).

Re:Easier process

[Halfbaked Plan]

Power brick?

Hmmm. I hadn't investigated the Mac Mini very far.

I knew you didn't get a keyboard and mouse for your $500, but I didn't know the power supply was another big external block.

Less impressive the more I learn.

Re:Easier process

[Anonymous Coward]

lol... mod parent up - that's the funniest joke i've seen in a long time...

Re:Easier process

[scdeimos]

The Epia is often used to build car-puters, whereas I haven't yet heard of something using a Mini for that purpose.

Whilst it's probably not exactly what you were thinking of, there is always Team Banzai's DARPA Grand Challenge entry, Dora, powered by three Mac Mini computers

Re:Easier process

[CastrTroy]

I'm using a P2 266 at home. Really, all I do is browse the web, type some documents, a little bit of development for fun. It's pretty sufficient. For games I have a GameCube. Seriously, if you can't wait a couple seconds for your web browser to open up, you need some patience. I understand having a better computer at work, but for at home, I think most people should be fine with a computer like mine.

Re:Easier process

[Psykechan]

If you must have x86, Mini-ITX is a good option. If not, save some headaches & pick up a Mac Mini.

I'd go one step further and say that if you must have x86, wait until next year when there will be x86 based Minis. Apple pretty much owns this space right now. Heck, if you don't want to buy Apple products, then wait until after the x86 Minis come out and competitors have to either have comparible boards or substantially cut prices. It's all good.

Re:Easier process

[Anonymous Coward]

The scary part is that I think he's serious.

Re:Easier process

[ashayh]

The Epia is often used to build car-puters, whereas I haven't yet heard of something using a Mini for that purpose. .

There you go. See the entire thread.

Re:Easier process

[SpectreBinary]

Granted I don't use Airport Express (which as far as I know still doesn't work)

If anyone is desperate for Airport Express to work, you can run a Mac-On-Linux session, and tunnel the linux networking via MOL, which uses the broadcom chipsetted Airport Express natively. It's a big ugly cumbersome workaround... but it works until those in the know can get a Linux native driver together.

See the gentoo forums for more into.

Re:Easier process

[burnin1965]

At first I was going to disagree with you, however, after checking the details on the Mac Mini specs it is impressive. I was expecting the mini-ITX to beat the Mac Mini hands down on power efficiency but it looks like they are on par with one another.

You can still beat the Mac Mini price by well over $100 if you piece together a mini-ITX system with similar specs, but the Mac will have a much more powerful CPU and GPU. If you don't need the extra CPU and GPU power then the cost savings may make the mini-ITX a better solution.

I've used mini-ITX systems in several applications, webservers, firewalls, wifi access points, etc., but I will definitely consider the Mac Mini hardware in future projects that may need more oompf. Especially since it appears it is quite easy to install linux over the top of OSX. While OSX is a nice OS (works great on my dual 1GHz G4) but it would waste resources on a headless box.

burnin

Re:Easier process

[tji]

The original response was comparing to the VIA Mini-ITX boards. The G4 processor in the Mac Mini is much faster than the VIA C3. Depending on the instruction mix, the VIA C3 comes in somewhere between 50 and 75% of a comparably clocked P3. The fastest ITX boards are somewhere in the 1.2 - 1.3GHz range.

Whether it's powerful enough is really a question about what you want to use the system for. I really have not had any problems with the performance. But, I'm not a gamer, which seems to drive CPU requirements for many.

The only time the CPU has really come into play is when doing really heavy lifting, like making a DVD. But, that's gonna take hours with any CPU, so fast is a relative term..

Re:Easier process

[Fred_A]

Well, after you got the mac mini, you go to Amazon and click buy again.

And then your kid can happyly play, um, asteroids, and um, breakout, and super breakout, ah, um, and, um that other one...

Ah well, just using the Mac is so much fun, who needs games anyway ? Just have him read man pages and learn Python, at least he'll do something useful with his time.

Re:Easier process

[Fred_A]

I love the mini form factor but a 1.2 GHz G4?

What will it be like in year?

Presumably in a year it will be like it is today...
If you buy a machine based on that CPU for processing power, you picked the wrong box to begin with.

I picked an iBook (1.2 GHz G4) instead of the x86 I usually go with because it was cheaper (although less powerful, which was completely irrelevant to me) and more adapted to my use. In a year, it will still be adapted to what I do. Likewise in two years when I might start looking for a replacement (or not, depending on the state of the machine at that time).
For most applications, CPU speed is completely irrelevant nowadays. And I know I didn't get that machine for raytracing, I have a big Linux AMD64 desktop for that kind of thing.

Re:Easier process

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just play UT2K4? Or Myst 5? Or maybe Darwinia? What about Star Wars Lego? Or World of Warcraft?

Or you could go retro and play Asteroids. Not so much fun as UT2K4 though, but whatever you like...

Re:Easier process

[C A S S I E L]

go to www.apple.com
click on Mac Mini
click "Buy".

This gets you a sweet little desktop machine for doing iTunes, reading mail, browsing the web, and running other OS X apps. It doesn't get you a Linux-based firewall/router, or a mail exchanger, or a small RAID fileserver, and it only gets you a portable database server or J2EE engine with a fair amount of work. Oh, and it's not at all expandable, whereas there are two-ether-port mini-ITX boards and a lot of the small cases will take a PCI card. Using a Mac remotely is a pain, too, since you're basically stuck with VNC. And you're left with a machine which Apple controls (in terms of OS features, updates and fixes), rather than one which you control.

I have a Mac mini here, and it's a sweet little client machine. For a client desktop, I'd recommend it. But I have two (soon to be three) mini-ITX boxes for the infrastructure stuff. It all depends on the role you need a small machine for.

Re:Easier process

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather see my boy get beat up for being a geek than see him get beaten up by being a sissy :p If he owns a mac box, chances are his male friends will find him real cute (ewww), and he'll probably turn into some queer designer... If he has a mac, I'd put it to the curb along with his barbie dolls and makeup before it's too late.

Save him from a life of beatings and of the life-long pain in the ass! Hey, you might even get grandchildren :)

Re:Easier process

[daenris]

Price I can get a new mini at under $500 shipped direct from Apple, with a hard drive, CD-burner, memory, case, latest commercial software. Good Mini-ITX cases cost well over $100 just because the market is small. A recent Mini-ITX board is $200-$300. No, don't use the price of an original Epia, which can't hold a candle to a Celeron 400, not to mention a 1.25GHz G4. Don't use the price of a full-size cheapo ATX case, cause that's not a fair comparison. Then add storage, RAM, etc. Even after spending all that (easily $500-$700 for a system that can even attempt to rival a low-end Mini in terms of performance), you don't get...

Not so much. I recently started putting together a Mini-ITX system for my car. I got an EPIAMII 1ghz for under $100 from eBay (~$80). Got a 60GB laptop harddrive for ~40 from eBay again, a 10.4" Datalux touchscreen for ~$70, 512MB RAM for ~$35 (which admittedly I had to RMA to Kingston because it wasn't working, but that means I have brand new RAM for about $45 total after return shipping). I also got a car voltage regulator for about $20. I'm going to buy a Morex Cubid 3677 or 3688 case (which isn't quite as small as a Mac Mini, but at 2.5x8x10 (or almost 11 for the 3677) it's still pretty small). That case will run me about $90 new and includes the laptop harddrive adaptor, 60 or 80w power supply, and slimline CD-drive adaptor (which I haven't yet acquired). So all this will be running me about $315, and that includes a touchscreen monitor. So, no I don't see the point in a Mac Mini.

Re:Easier process

[Anonymous Coward]

Via/Eden is not the only choice for a mini-itx box. Sure you have to add a fan, or two, but commell has some nice mini-itx boards with P4 or Pentium Mobile CPUs and PCI Express slots.

www.commell.com.tw

I just bought a LV-672 and am looking at the LV-673, which runs off a single 12V power supply. Yeah, my system will cost more than a Mac Mini, but it will also have a PCI Express GeForce card in it.

Re:Easier process

[default luser]

Also, it would have a great HTPC, if Apple opened APIs for the MPEG2 acceleration hardware onboard. With that, it would be capable of HDTV video playback. Without that acceleration, it's not fast enough to keep up with 1080i video.

Huh? Any onboard MPEG2 acceleration on the Mac Mini comes from the Radeon 9200 chip, which has hardware iDCT and motion compensation. I thought the specifications on the 9200 were well known in the open-source community, so what's stopping them from accessing it directly?

Re:Easier process

[Minuo]

he Epia is often used to build car-puters, whereas I haven't yet heard of something using a Mini for that purpose.

Try here: http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f =71

Re:Easier process

[Anonymous Coward]

George Bush doesn't care about third party developers.

Re:Easier process

[Anonymous Coward]

miniMac is great. I have one in living room.
My home server / router is VIA EPIA. I need two network cards and I want two physical disks (I like my data so SW RAID is must). So miniMac doesn't work here.
I have 4 VIA EPIA Linux server / routers (1x home server / router, 2x router, 1x backup server) and everything works great. I don't know about xorg drivers and sound drivers - I don't need these.

Re:Easier process

[Anonymous Coward]

> You can still beat the Mac Mini price by well over $100 if you piece together a mini-ITX system with similar specs

Every price analysis I have seen says the opposite..

Mini-ITX motherboard - you can find closeout deals on old 800MHz board for ~ $120. A new 1GHz board will be around $200, and the 1.3GHz board is around $230. None of those are as fast as the low end Mac Mini.

512MB RAM - Generic mail-order crap will cost you $40. Quality RAM, like included with the Mini would be more like $60+.

Slim CD drive - The laptop drives I found were in the $100 range. The slot loading slim drives were more expensive.

40 or 80 GB 2.5" HDD - A 40GB will run you at least $75, an 80GB would be $110+

Case - Large-ish ugly Mini-ITX cases cost ~ $70. Smallish cases like the Casetronic C134 sell for around $160. But, that still isn't close to the small size of the Mac Mini, and is nowhere close aesthetically.

So, even when taking highly discounted online pricing, with lower quality components, diisregarding shipping costs for buying individual components and coming up with a result that is larger, louder, and slower than the Mac Mini. And, that disregards all of the software included with the Mini (MacOS X Tiger $130, iLife Suite $80, Quicken '05 $50? ).

Re:Easier process

[burnin1965]

Try http://www.directron.com/

VIA Epia C3 800MHz - $105
512MB Kingston PC133 RAM - $79.99
Sony CDRW/DVD Combo drive - $57.99
Maxtor 40GB Harddrive - $48.99
Casetronic ITX-2699R - $62.99
UPS 3 Day shipping - ~ $15
linux OS and all the GPL software you can download - $FREE

Total: $369.96

Comparable Mac Mini - $499.99

Now I will agree that the Mac Mini will have a better CPU, a better GPU, a better looking case, but is it worth the $100+? It depends and in many cases I would have to say no.

Oh, and you can keep your OSX, iLife and Quicken '05. I really don't need them on my firewall, or on my web server, on my hot spot, etc.

Now you could make things interesting by purchasing one of the older Mac Minis from Compusa or another vendor and you can get below the $499.99 price but you will end up with less RAM, but you can play this same game with the ITX system. Since you can build the ITX box specific to the application you can dump parts that are not needed, i.e. the DVD/CDRW combo drive which would be worthless on a headless box providing network services. The Mac Mini will require that you become flexible and pay for hardware and features that you may not need.

So again, the Mac Mini is an awesome piece of hardware that people should consider, however, it is most definitely not the end all be all of inexpensive low power computers. In fact it can easily be beat for many applications.

burnin

How stable is it?

[rsilvergun]

I went through 2 via boards on linux before settling on an Nvidia board because I just couldn't get the damn things stable (to be fair, the soyo board was stable so long as I didn't plug anything into the pci slots).

The other thing I'd love to know is if it can do full screen, high res divx in linux, or if there's a mini itx case that can. I figure most of these boards aren't going to run an accelerated X, but I haven't done enough research yet.

Re:How stable is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

They are pretty stable, but you need to use your own PCI network card. The VIA Rhine chipset on the motherboard will get confused if you unplug the cable and plug it back in again when running recent 2.6 kernels.

Re:How stable is it?

[Svartalf]

VERY stable. I'm using one of these Mini-ITX boards to serve as my household server. I've plans to make a Linux based media box shortly with another one of them, using something like OpenEmbedded to produce the image set for it.

Unlike the AMD/Intel motherboards you refer to, VIA has pretty tight design control over these boards as they make them internally for the large part- many of the manufacturers, Soyo included, tend to play with the parameters and step into the marginal operation territory, causing problems like you described...

As for full-screen high-res DiVX in Linux, the reviews out there indicated that it was a definite possibility with the latest codecs, etc. It's pretty much an extreme low-power Celeron of the same clock-speed for the intents and purposes that we're discussing here- if you're talking a Nehemiah core unit (Epia M10000 or later...) then you've got a Celeron 1GHz machine with basically a Savage 4 integrated GPU.

Me, I'm eagerly awaiting the dual-core machines. That way you can actually have one CPU handling the rendering to display, one handling other tasks.

As for accelerated support, it's available right now if you're a Fedora Core user or are capable of rolling your own stuff.

Re:How stable is it?

[smallfries]

That depends on what you mean by hi-res. The Via boards all have mpeg acceleration in hardware so they handle most divx well. X is pretty snappy through the accelerated driver as well. I've yet to find one that it can't play full screen without frame-drops. Normally it doesn't use much cpu to do it either. Most of the divxs that I've tried it with are HDTV rips (720p), or DVD rips. They all pay fine without a problem, I haven't seen any 1080 content yet so I couldn't say.

Re:How stable is it?

[ISayWeOnlyToBePolite]

I was thinking of building a small server out of one and did some research; turns out they are not stable at all, some sort of dma issue is plaguing all via mini-itx.
According to http://epialinux.org/drivers.html/ the M series (that's an old board) might work with a beta bios.

mATX ITX

[Fortress]

For my money, the mATX boards are a much better value. Cheaper, mainstream processor support, support for the usual PCI/PCIe/AGP peripherals means a more powerful, robust, upgradeable system. Plus, you can get cases that look like a piece of stereo equipment and can be unobtrusive in your living room.

IMHO, ITX is better suited for embedded systems, not a more general purpose computer. Unless you have a very specific, limited use (like a MythTV frontend), you'll almost always be better served getting an mATX-based system.

As with everything, YMMV.

Advertisements

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like an anonymous submittal just to drive visitors to the advert heavy low content pages of his own site.

the fine print

[The Fun Guy]

From the last page of TFA:

With a few additions, like a hard drive and optical drive, a computer like this one could easily be a great work computer.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement....

Re:the fine print

[Ohreally_factor]

It's like saying, "With a few additions, like large breasts and a tight cunt, my wife could easily be a great lay."

Re:the fine print

[Anonymous Coward]

I certainly enjoyed her.

Re:My first post ever

[Anonymous Coward]

" I finally registered after being an AC for years!"

We liked you better before ;)

Interesting Parallels to Roland?

[Anonymous Coward]

XYZ Computing is well known to be a Slashdot Whore in much the same way as Roland Piquepaille. Both seem to be friends of someone on the staff at Slashdot. And sadly, in this case, Roland actually has a better web site with better writing than this XYZ Computing guy does (and less ads, as well). Can you believe it?

Dying a slow death?

[tktk]

Over 2 years ago, I bought the M10000 Nehemiah boards when they came out. Since then, there have been small increases in CPU speed and a few new mobos with different configurations.

The Nano-ITX's were supposed to be the next big thing. The Nano boards would be around 4.5" square, with SATA...etc. From what I can remember, it sounded like a great little board. For the first year after they were announced Nano-ITXs were shown at the various tech trade shows. This year, I can't remember hearing about them at all.

It's been long enough without a Nano-itx release that I'm starting to think that Nano-itx boards are vaporware and taking with it the rest of the VIA epia line.

Re:Dying a slow death?

[renehollan]

They took forever to release them, but the nano-ITX boards are not vapour. I have one.

Re:Dying a slow death?

[tktk]

How did you get one?

They don't seem to be readily available in stores or by mail order. Looking at the Mini-itx.com website, it still talks about signing up to for early-bird purchases. Nor it it available at my local Fry's Electronics. Also I don't recall any fanfare reguarding Nano-itx board being available for purchase. I'm still subscribed to at least 2 Epia/Nano fan sites.

Unless they're available for anyone to buy, I wouldn't call the Nano-itx an actually shipping product.

Re:Dying a slow death?

[magarity]

Unless they're available for anyone to buy, I wouldn't call the Nano-itx an actually shipping product

Here's at least one: http://www.mp3car.com/store/product_info.php?produ cts_id=144
 
Just google for "Epia N"

Re:Dying a slow death?

[tktk]

Weird...somehow I expected Mini-itx.com to have it first. Actually I expected a bigger launch. I wonder why only 2 stores sell them.

Thanks for the info, but sadly, it's too late for me. A friend sold me his Mac Mini at basically a 50% discount.

Re:Dying a slow death?

[bani]

your link results in "product not found"

looks like they don't carry it anymore.

keyword search for "epia" at mp3car.com

keyword search for "nano-itx" at mp3car.com

Re:Huge Advertisment

[Anonymous Coward]

bah. That's what you get for subscribing to an ad-funded service run by an ad-profiteering business.

Disapointed by the old Epia-M (@933)

[obarthelemy]

I have an old Epia-m @933MHz that I tried to revive just yesterday. This is an old version of the Epia, I do think (and hope) the newer ones are better.

It took my 3 tries to get Windows up and running (correct steps are 1- update BIOS, 2- Install Windows, 3-Install drivers, 4- Windows Update a few times), while keeping your fingers crossed.

It hangs while lauching powerDVD and WinDVD, and VLC is too jerky to use (at 640x480x32@75)

I checked, it still costs 2 to 3 times more than a regular MATX board+proc, for about 1/2 to 1/4 the power. Plus, cases are VERY expensive if you want something that look nice, plus a low profile DVD reader/writer (check www.mini-itx.com).

It's kind of cool to have, and makes a nice conversation piece for all my nerd friends, but usage value is very low. I don't think I could make any kind of server of it. Maybe a router, a basic Windows Office PC, or a linux experimentation platform (but drivers are an issue).

It IS incredibly small, very silent, and does work.

Re:Disapointed by the old Epia-M (@933)

[jelton]

As I sit typing this, I am listening to my old Epia box sing its low-noise fan song. It sits in my living room, running as a local DNS, daapd, netatalk and web-based file server running on FreeBSD. I bought this for a media server a few years ago and it has served admirably well in this task.

Sure it never really gets put through its paces, but as far as a fire and forget server for my house, it has served me well. If I ever get less lazy (it's a disease) and decide to use a software router, I might get one of those dual ethernet versions.

The point is, they work great for an unobtrusive, relatively quiet server and everything's onboard, so you needn't have to deal with a parade of new hardware when you repurpose it.

Re:Disapointed by the old Epia-M (@933)

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the Epia M10000 myself. I run it at 1280x1024 with no problem. Playing a fullscreen DVD or an mpeg works fine. If Windows drivers are a problem for you, try to load up Ubuntu. Easy to set up and all hardware has got drivers for them. Runs like a champ.
If you want to try a low end linux (for snappier graphical performance) give VectorLinux a go!

Maybe there is something wrong with your optical drive, since it hangs only when you use it. Try the live-cd version of Ubuntu to see if you have same problem there.

(note: I have not had any problems setting up Windows 98, Windows 2000 or Windows XP on this machine)

Re:Disapointed by the old Epia-M (@933)

[RAMMS EIN]

``I don't think I could make any kind of server of it.''

Why not?

``or a linux experimentation platform (but drivers are an issue).''

You think so? I thought the older EPIA boards were fully supported by Linux. I know for a fact that on my two EPIAs (as EPIA VE5000 and an EPIA SP8000E), everything works just fine, with the possible acception of accelerated video. I have no reason to set it up on the VE5000 (which I use as a server), and while I hear the CN400 chipset in the SP8000E is now supported by X.org, I'm waiting for the next Ubuntu release before I try it. If anyone else knows more about this, I'd be glad to hear.

Re:Disapointed by the old Epia-M (@933)

[Anonymous Coward]

(1) VIA board
+(2) hard drives
+software RAID
---
Nice little linux server

I run one of these and it's nice to have. My goal with the box is more to get familiar with linux then to do hardcore number crunching. I run a fanless 600Mhz C3 with a pair of 5400rpm 3.5" drives. Laptop (2.5") drives would be better for speed/power reasons but I wanted the extra capacity that I could squeeze out of 3.5" drives.

If you must have x86

[cyfer2000]

go to http://www.apple.com/macosx/applications/virtualpc / , click "Buy Now".

Re:If you must have x86

[GaryPatterson]

God no!

Not on a Mini!

I've tried VPC on my iBook (1.2GHz, same specs as a Mini) and it's just horrible, an abomination. On a fast Mac, you're good to go, but never a Mini.

Budget Breakdown

[sakusha]

I was curious how much this whole project cost after seeing the price links for the ITX motherboard under the article. So I googled around for component prices, and after seeing the prices, I can see why the author didn't include his budget in the article.

$220 ITX mobo, 1Ghz VIA C3 processor
$139 Silverstone case
$95 OCZ 512Mb DDR RAM
$45 Flash Voyager 512Mb pen drive
---
$499 Total

Note the project breakdown as listed in the article does not include a hard drive, optical drive, monitor, kbd, mouse, etc. Just the CPU.

That is fuxxing insane. Mac Minis start at $499, come assembled, includes a 1.25Ghz G4 processor, optical drive (CD-R/DVD-ROM), 512Mb RAM, internal modem, and a 40Gb hard drive with OS X and iLife software preinstalled.

Either the ITX project builder is goddam insane for building such a ridiculously expensive, low spec machine, or Apple is goddam insane for selling such a powerful machine for almost nothing. Or both.

Re:Budget Breakdown

[gl4ss]

itx's are an insane choice for desktop if you're looking for bang to buck(didn't walmart have a 499$ laptop or something?).. or just anything to buck.

Re:Budget Breakdown

[sakusha]

itx's are an insane choice for desktop if you're looking for bang to buck

I remember when they used to say that about Macs.

Re:Budget Breakdown

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is goddam insane for selling such a powerful machine for almost nothing

*teh intarweb explodes*

Re:Budget Breakdown

[gl4ss]

used to? they still are. mac mini isn't good bang.

Re:Budget Breakdown

[Cerebus]

used to? they still are. mac mini isn't good bang.

Yes, but owning a Mac mini is more likely to *get* you banged.

Re:Budget Breakdown

[Halfbaked Plan]

Well, depending on how and where you look, the cardboard cutout computer they have on the flakewood computer desks at the office supply store might be more likely to get you laid.

Getting laid by a mac-loving woman just seems weird, a little like some trotskyite chick who sells newspapers on the mall.

Re:Budget Breakdown

[Nik13]

I bought a readily asembled PC at bestbuy (yeah i know!) 2 weeks ago for this much. It's much smaller than any of my normal towers (in every dimension), quite acceptable. Looks better than every PC I've had built with 150$ cases, better build than all these "nice" systems I've built (with expensive cases, asus boards and all)... Came with a P4 3.06GHz, 512MB of DDR2, a 200GB SATA HD, DVD+-RW DL with lightscribe and all, pretty kick-ass video (for onboard video at least-the new intel 915), 7.1 ch digital audio, usb2/fw and all. media readers at the front, everything one could ask for. (I threw in an extra 200GB and 1GB of ram and it makes a GREAT development PC). That even included a legit winblows license, keyboard, mouse and even shipping!

I had been looking at making something similarly spec'ed using an Athlon64 (assembled myself) but couldn't even remotely match the price... The Athlon 64 3000+ with venice core, dfi lanparty board, decent brand ram, case, video card and all always ended up costing 1000$ (CDN) at least - using the cheapest parts on the web across the country. Yes, it would have been cheaper using an ECS board and no name everything but quality wise... I'd rather save the troubles of having a PC to fix every second day.

I don't mind paying a bit more to have something smaller, but this thing is a mere 1GHz... Even if it's more efficient (in instr/clock cycles), it's still slow and under spec'ed (no HD???)

So either you opt for:
1) slightly bigger case
or
2) slow CPU, no HD, no DVD burner, slow video (haven't checked if sound is decent), plus keyboard/mouse and shipping on all parts (separately?), time to put it together (hopefully nothing DOA, then you gotta deal with that...)

Anyways. Sounds like buying parts at full retail price nowadays just isn't worth it anymore. After this I doubt I'll bother assembling a PC anytime soon. Sad thought really.

No details are emitted?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whew!! That's good! I'd hate to have details strewn out all over the floor after being emitted.

Oh! You meant omitted! Well, that's all right then.

How about a laptop?

[CheesyPeteza]

It looks nice, but wouldn't it just have been easier and cheaper to buy a laptop?

Why re-invent the wheel???

[Your Average Joe]

Just buy a Mac Mini. Small, quiet, cool, stylish and will not devaluate like a PC. I have one and you cannot hear the fan or the hard drive when you are right next to it. The only time the fan kicks on is when decoding video and listening to iTunes at the same time.

The Mac Mini just makes sense. We have yet to see the Intel mini computer they demoed in January...

nano-ITX

[renehollan]

TFA says that nano-ITX isn't quite ready, and that's almost still true: I have a Via nano-ITX board and a Silverstone Lascala LC08 case into which it....

... doesn't quite fit because Via changed the board form factor at the last minute.

Silverstone says they are retooling to make new LC08 (and LC07) cases to accomodate the nano-ITX board, and I'm waiting impatiently. Sadly, what was originally to be a fanless design won't be anymore, with Silverstone's new case: Via didn't like Silverstone's heat pipe instead of a fan, and nixed the idea for the retooled case, not giving it the "nano-ITX" moniker blessing if it didn't support a fan.

Why not just use a mini-ITX?

Two words: CN400 and VT1625.

The CN400 is an HDTV resolution equivalent to the old CLE266 MPEG2 decoder chip, and the VT1625 is an HDTV resolution RGB to YPbPr (i.e. component) encoder.

MythTV with hardware-assisted HDTV MPEG2 decoding on a fanless thin clint would have been 'da bomb'! (Well, O.K. "fanless" is starting to become a matter of opinion and "do I dare not hook it up and hack a heatpipe?", but still.)

There are miniITX boards with the CN400 (Commell makes one), and there are fanless mini-ITX solutions (Hush PC makes one, heatpipe-based, but alas it won't accomodate the Commell board, and is as expensive as it is good looking), but the two sets don't yet intersect, which is why I was pinning my hopes on the nano-ITX board.

There are already patches to CLE266 and VT1623 drivers to accomodate the CN400 and VT1625, so Myth on the thing looks like a slam-dunk.

I've already got the nano-ITX board, and an (early, and therefore useless) LC08 case, so, despite the fan issue, I'm likely to go ahead and build the thing (nano-ITX, 512MB RAM, trayless DVD-ROM, hard drive/flash disk), anyway, having spent $400 for the nano-ITX board, $175 for the DVD-ROM, and whatever the RAM cost (I had a spare drive) once I get an updated LC-08 case.

Re:nano-ITX

[tji]

I don't know how you got ahold of a Nano board.. I think it's been almost two years since VIA announced them, and continually pushed back the release date. I long ago gave up on any plans I had for the Nano.

But, you're right, the MPEG2 decoder in the CN400 would make a great MythTV frontend. If the Nano ever sees the light of day, and the mythtv compatibility seems good, I might pick one up.

It's a damn shame Apple doesn't open APIs to their MPEG2 acceleration in the Radeon display chip in the Mac Mini. It would also make an excellent HD MythTV frontend. But, lacking that iDCT offload, the Mini is not fast enough for HDTV.

Another really interesting option is the MythTV frontend port to the Roku Photobridge HD. It's a cheap HD media player, with a hardware MPEG2 decoder.
http://mythroku.blogspot.com/

Re:nano-ITX

[renehollan]

If you're really interested, I can plow through my old Visa statements from the summer to find out who I bought the nano-ITX board from. I remember that they specialized in computer systems for automobiles (DIN-sized motorized slide out and flip-up LCD displays were 'da bomb' for them), and when I expressed surprise that they actually had stock in the U.S. (they had two left when I ordered mine, but were ordering them from Via as fast as they were shipping them out), their sales rep explained that they had a "close, special" relationship with Via.

But, rest assured it isn't vapour.

I think they integrated two chips at the last minute into one package, and had to rework the board to accomodate the heatsink (it covers the C3, and two other chips). The effect was that they (a) had to rotate the power connector 90 degrees in the corner it was in, (b) change the power connector type, and (c) because of the rotated power connector, moved all the back panel connectors about 5 mm toward the right (when viewed from the back). Of course, that made it entirely incompatible with Silverstone's LC07 and LC08 cases. The Silverstone rep I corresponded with let it be known that Silverstone was not pleased claiming Via kept them in the dark.

Re:nano-ITX

[pe1chl]

I always wonder why one would want YPbPr so badly...
Are there many TVs in your country that support YPbPr and not RGB?
Over here, RGB is always there, and YPbPr often is (becoming more prevalent).

RGB has been a color-TV and color-monitor standard from the beginning, and now they want to convert us all to a different standard, requiring extra stuff in between...
(as you write, the RGB is encoded to YPbPr on the board, and the TV has to decode it back to RGB again because that is what drives the CRT or LCD)

There must be some dark plot here...

Re:nano-ITX

[renehollan]

In this country we have bad external RGB (i.e. SVGA) to YPbPr encoders.

YPbPr is prevelent because the transcoding to that format takes less bandwidth (when multiplexed over an analog channel with amplitude (Y) and phase (Pb and Pr) modulation) than raw RGB because of the corelation between the components. RGB is, at best, a color space model that is mathematically elegant. So, the TVs here like to see YPbPr (though, sadly DVI/HDCP is becoming popular) via their component video inputs.

Re:nano-ITX

[pe1chl]

What I cannot understand is why a connection between some peripheral (like a DVD player) and a TV set has anything to do with bandwidth. There are 3 coaxial cables running between the units, and who cares whether they all carry the same bandwidth signals or two of them use less bandwidth?
I know that S-video multiplexes the Pb and Pr signals over a single wire, but what does that have to do with a 3-wire system?

We have had 40 years of color television using RGB, with a color-difference system (either NTSC, PAL or SECAM) used to transfer the signal. The SCART system that has been popular here for some 25 years has provided RGB all the time.
And now that we are on the brink of digital-only TV suddenly the electronics industry is presenting us with a "new analog standard" that does not really bring anything new.

I think there is another reason. YPbPr lends itself to conveniently carry the Macrovision DRM system on the Y channel. RGB is (in the televsion world) usually used with a separate composite sync. Macrovision is not usable with that. It could be used with sync-on-green but that is not part of the usual TV capabilities here.
I think the sudden rise of YPbPr is an effort to move the analog TV world into a standard that at least provides some DRM possibilities, while forcing full DRM on the digital world. Without such a move, nobody would want to have digital when it restricts their rights, and good-quality (RGB) analog transfer is available a good alternative. SO RGB has to go.

Re:nano-ITX

[renehollan]

YPbPr does matter as far as storage is concerned: bandwidth requirements translate into space requirements. The only issue is what piece of equipment transcodes back to RGB to drive the guns: each playback and reception device or the one display.

RGB is the older, and easier technology to deal with, but it is bandwidth heavy, if modulated directly on a carrier. NTSC used a colour phase system to encode colour, losing a lot of colour resolution in the process (of course, the eye tends to be more sensitive to intensity (Y) than colour anyway). YPbPr is just a compact. reversible, coding of RGB (it is, after all, just a 3x3 matrix multiply). I don't see any conspiracy here.

As for Macrovision® that can be carried wherever you have a sync signal, either sync on green, or via separate HV sync lines.

Re:nano-ITX

[drew]

the new via epia sp uses the cn400 chipset, although apparently it still uses the vt1623 tv encoder.

http://www.viaembedded.com/product/epia_sp_spec.js p?motherboardId=261

Re:nano-ITX

[Phillup]

I always wonder why one would want YPbPr so badly...
Are there many TVs in your country that support YPbPr and not RGB?
Over here, RGB is always there, and YPbPr often is (becoming more prevalent).

Well... I'm not sure where "your country" and "over here" are... but...

Here in the U.S. I have a very nice TV... not a projection or LCD/Plasma system... a real, honest to goodness TV... with YPbPr... and no RGB.

It is made by Zenith. (37 inch inteq series... a quick jaunt to their site shows that they don't make 'em this big any more)

According to their site:

Component Video is the purest and best signal form available. Component video divides the video signal up into its three components: blue (PB), red (PR) and luminance (Y). By dividing the signal this way, you get a clearer image that provides for improved resolution and overall better color detail.

This was for their model # C32F33 32 inch television.

Re:nano-ITX

[pe1chl]

To me, this looks like typical consumer-electronics-brochure-talk...
Not only is it incorrect (Pb and Pr are not Blue and Red, but the difference between Y and Blue or Red), but also there is no reference mentioned. "better color detail". Better han what? Composite?

Here in Europe, every TV has one or more 21-pin SCART connectors. These provide at least audio and composite video, but usually also S-video and/or RGB inputs (when the TV has more than one SCART connector, they usually are not all RGB-enabled).
This RGB input is the most direct input, it is directly fed to the tube driving amplifiers via a switch matrix.

I understand that SCART is not used in the US, and that previous models of TV usually had only composite and maybe S-video inputs. Then YPbPr provides a better quality. But there is no quality difference compared to RGB.

For quite some time, any high-quality video source here in Europe (like digital receivers, DVD players and recorders, computers and games) used RGB output for the best picture quality.
Only the last year or two, there is a sudden appearance of YPbPr on this kind of equipment. But usually SCART with RGB is still provided.

Re:nano-ITX

[renehollan]

(Y, Pb, Pr) = (R, G, B) x [3x3 invertible transformation matrix]

There is no quality difference[1] between RGB and YPbPr, at least not theoretically: consumer sets with YPbPr inputs may not have higher video non-linearity and distortion figures that professional monitors with RGB inputs, but that is not a limitation of the format. [1] If you want to get really pedantic, there may be rounding that takes place to keep the signals within their limits, so the transformation is not perfectly lossless, but this is rarely a practical consideration.

YPbPr (and it's digital equivalent, YCbCr) offer benefits over RGB because they remove correlation between individual signals, which, in turn, reduces bandwidth and storage requirements.

It is true that RGB over SCART was (and is) a superior interface to composite and svideo interfaces commonly used in the U.S. before the advent of YPbPr. RGB was almost always used in professional equipment, sometimes with "sync on green" and sometimes with separate horizontal and vertical sync signal lines (yup: FIVE coax cables: RGBHV).

Re:nano-ITX

[renehollan]

Why anyone would want to use a VT1623 with a CN400 is anyone's guess, but it is common on mini-ITX boards (and frustrating).

Re:nano-ITX

[renehollan]

Another really interesting option is the MythTV frontend port to the Roku Photobridge HD. It's a cheap HD media player, with a hardware MPEG2 decoder

Almost missed that at the end of your post!

I'd been wanting to use the Photobridge in this application for a while!! It uses the ATI Xilleon X225 (or is it the 220?) chip. I wonder if mythroku uses the MPEG2 decoding capabilities of the Xilleon, or relies on the MIPS processor to S/W decode MPEG (which would be a real waste).

Re:nano-ITX

[drew]

Maybe some people are interested in other features of the CN400, such as 400 MHz memory bus, SATA controller, etc., but don't really care about video encoding?

I'm considering getting an SP board to use in a home firewall/file server as my old pentium pro is starting to reach the end of it's life.

Re:nano-ITX

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I just say, ive just seen this article and am very annoyed. I wrote the original news item for epiacenter.com I have never used slashdot at all, somebody ripped it off the site.

If you have any complaints or want to talk about it come to epiacenter.com and talk there. I am able to repsond to it then. Nobody picked up on my spelling there. Anyway, does it really matter?

Shagpile

Modding

[MrArmyAnt]

I run a pc modding site, a small one, but granted still a site. You can actually get a board the same size, that can take a P4 HT (sorry no amd) dual giga lan ports, firewire, usb2.0, and 1 pcie slot for 300 bucks.

Re:Modding

[pimpimpim]

Well, the board may be the same size, but what about the power consumption and heath production? Can you actually clock the P4 down in such a way that it will fit in a small form factor box with low-power psu?

Re:Modding

[allanj]

Yes, but will it run on ~25 Watts of power, and not need a Boeing-sized fan? That's what the (by comparison ridiculously slow) Via CPU boards are meant to do. We run one as an industrial controller (with a 667 MHz E6000 chip from E-Value [no affiliation]), and the damn thing consumes less than 15 Watts with harddisk and all. In fact, it will happily run for more than an hour on 5 standard AA rechargables (2200 mAh).

Re:Modding

[bani]

where?

Re:The Previous moderation

[williwilli]

your moderation preferences are meaningless to us, puny user!

Look at me. I built a PC.

[dustinbarbour]

Personally, I'm getting tired of homos building PCs and feeling they need to document the hell out of it and post it online for all to see. Seriously, there's a reason these parts all come with instructions of some sort. It's the same shit all over again. "Look, I built a PC. Everyone loves the pictures of the motherboard. Look how it has 1 slot for RAM and not 2. That's because this is a Mini-ITX board." Do they think the whole of the Internet is going to read his article and say "Oooooohhh..."? Arg.. The Internet gets more and more boring every single day.

Re:Look at me. I built a PC.

[MrArmyAnt]

Actually a lot of min itx boards have 2.

Why boot off of a Compact Flash?

[Stephen Samuel]

If you're always going to be attaching to a network, you should be able to pxeboot off of the net. Linux works reasonably well for that. It just saves you one more part. At that point, all you need is a keyboard mouse and monitor.

Mostly I've used netboot to run classrooms where the won't let me instll Linux or Unix for the students. I've also started using it at home to boot old boxes with limited drives, or where I'm too lazy to do a full install.

Re:Why boot off of a Compact Flash?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it only saves you one more part if you've already got a server to netboot from. Not everyone has one.

Re:Why boot off of a Compact Flash?

[Stephen Samuel]

Well, it only saves you one more part if you've already got a server to netboot from. Not everyone has one.

Any unixen linux box can serve as a netboot server -- I'm presuming from the article that he has at least on on his network. It doesn't even have to be all that fast of a box. It just needs about 100MB-2GB spare (depending on the distro you're serving).

Spellign on Slahsdot

[Fortress]

This is a little off-topic, but the first dozen or so replies (emitted?) to this story made me wonder about the poor spelling in many Slashdot articles. We all know spellcheckers have been around forever, and it would seem to be a trivial task to fix errors in accepted stories. So what's going on? I have two theories:

1. The editors are shielding themselves from liability by not changing submitted stories in any fashion whatsoever. Similar to the way that comments are never deleted or modified, only moderated down.

2. They're deliberate troll-food. Slashdot seems to have more than its fair share of grammar/spelling Nazis, and the occasional error is an easy way to throw them a bone. Trolls are happiest trolling, and they generate hits just like the rest of us. I think sometimes that dupe stories are the same thing.

P.S. Since I mentioned the spelling/grammar Nazis, I'm sure you (you know who you are) are looking at this psot very carefully. The question is, did I really make an error or am I just demonstrating #2 above?

Re:Spellign on Slahsdot

[Krimsen]

It's really much simpler than that; both emitted and omitted are real words. It's just that emitted means "given off", as in "The laser emitted a greenish light" and omitted means "left out", as in "All the boring details have been omitted in the interest of time." Both words will pass the spellcheck test. It's more of a grammer issue, similar to people who use "there" when in fact they really mean "their" or "they're" -- yes, it's sad, but the geniuses who program our nation's infrastructure, couldn't spell (or write) their way out of a paper bag.

Re:Spellign on Slahsdot

[Krimsen]

I will take this opportunity to correct my own spelling, thank you very much: "grammer" should be "grammar"

Re:Spellign on Slahsdot

[untaken_name]

The question is, did I really make an error or am I just demonstrating #2 above?

I'm going to go with "yes".

Re:Spellign on Slahsdot

[The Wooden Badger]

I was going to point that out. I took an English class in college that packaged with the syllabus and lecture schedule, etc. was a paragraph with every word spelled incorrectly. The only thing was that each misspelling was a real word and therefore a spell checker would say that the whole thing was correct. I wish I still had that thing, it was pretty priceless.

Re:Spellign on Slahsdot

[Krimsen]

Not sure either of these are it, but:
http://www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/people/faculty/te nn/SpellingChequer.html http://www.writersbbs.com/html/FishEggs/katie-anne 2.html

Re:Spellign on Slahsdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey! "psot" is supposed to be "post"! *ducks and runs*
Let's get real, there are typos, there common grammatical errors, and then there are just the plain ol' (and WAY too often) "I'm stupid or I just don't care" mistakes such as "your vs. you're", "their vs. there", and so on. It's those last ones that really get to me. Nothing shows laziness, apathy, or lack of intelligence like that. Sometimes I wonder if kids these days are being taught correct English or if they're really just that goddamn lazy.

Re:Spellign on Slahsdot

[The Wooden Badger]

They're not the one I saw, but they look pretty nice. Thanks for the linkies. I caught a few correct words in there (mostly simple words like for, a, be, etc.). In the one I got in my class there wasn't a single word correct. It was a nice piece of work to craft it. Maybe this is the motivation I need for a Google adventure today.

List of Compact Flash Linux Distributions

[Anonymous Coward]

List of Compact Flash Linux Distributions

http://www.scriptingbox.com/cfld.php

Mini?

[Donkey5555]

For a mini-itx computer that is one giant case.

A missing howto

[OverlordQ]

One piece of information I'd like to find is where the frak to buy a nice 12V power suppy to power multiple mini-atx systems.

I tried google, but the only thing I could find either could only power 1-2 or they want a bulk order of 500.

Re:A missing howto

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.mpja.com/productview.asp?product=15835+ PS

That should feed 6 Mini-ITX rigs running at full load.

Another irritating site

[Cyburbia]

Yet another irritating site where random words in an article link to irrelevant ads and Web sites.

Pimp Whoring

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeh, it's pretty obvious that this is a PIMP story for XYZ Computing.

My (negative) experience with mini-itx

[zerojoker]

Basically I spent a lot of money and ended up very disappointed. I wanted to create some kind of multimedia/streaming-box, capable of turning into a complete PVR for DVB-T oder DVB-S. The problem is: To have a smooth DivX - Playbay in any event you have to go for the 1GHz CPU at least. But even though the VIA EPIA platform is considered low-power, the CPU is cooled by this noisy 6000rpm spinning fan. Since the VIA EPIA platform is completely custom, it is very very difficult to replace this fan (and get another fan with appropriate cooling capabilities) or even cool this thing without a fan. Sure there are ways, but the point is that you're gonna spend much much more compared to a standard ATX oder microATX Board with a nice medium power CPU (Athlon XP, mobile Sempron) and an CPU Cooler with a low-spinning 80mm fan. The system turned out to be extremely hot (even with the stock fan), slow (sometimes smooth DivX playbay was not possible) too noisy to be a working solution. Linux was a problem, too, because the MPEG2 Accelerator Chip wasn't supported and DVD-Playbay was not possible because of this (the CPU alone is too slow for a smooth DVD playback). My 2 cents: If you don't really really need the form factor and want to build a nice PVR, go for a typical standard ATX system.

Why no Cappuccino?

[Sebastopol]

Why didn't this guy just get a cappucino? They are exactly what he's looking for but come with Intel processors, and the chassis is smaller than his. Ok, there's a fan inside, but it seems like he gave up a lot. Hmmm...

Serious number crunching

[soupdevil]

Isn't serious number crunching the whole point of a computer?

Oh oh, the next fad

[lullabud]

With as many posts as there are ridiculing the typo, I can see that this is likely the next inside joke for the slashdot crowd. Until I know for sure, all I have to say is this:

In Soviet Russia, emissions detail YOU.

Re:Oh oh, the next fad

[Anonymous Coward]

With as many posts as there are ridiculing the typo,...

It's not a typo. It's a grammatical error made by an ignorant writer.

Sell your detail credits here!

[dj245]

In other news, a large amount of detail emission credits have gone up for auction overnight. Hardware review websites so far appear uninterested in buying up surplus detail emissions (obviously they have more than they can handle already), and the expected winner is sure to snipe $.02 at the last second

Which games?

[SuperKendall]

The kid could still play UT 2004, or (more likley) WOW - otherwise buy the kid a MINI and an XBox (or PS2) and he'll not be laggng behind the others techologically.

Besides, with a Mac mini you can give the kid an account where he can't screw over the system unlike a PC which pretty much requires him to be an admin - unless he's not going to play games, which you said was the point of the thing.

The day of the PC dominating the game scene is over, it's a console world going forward. Especially so for teens.

are you telling me that

[Korbeau]

size *does* matter?

Someone needs to come up with an ad-blocker...

[callipygian-showsyst]

This site is one of those annoying sites where random words thoughout the pages are higlighted and link to some sponsor. Nothing is more annoying!

I also can't imagine that any of the clicks the advertisers get are legit. It's probably mostly accidental clicks as people are navigating around.

Of course, the best thing would be to encourage people to make their sites a little more user-friendly with more than a few words of text on each page. But barring that, some form of ad blocker that finds and kills these things would be a good idea. Maybe someone can write one for Firefox and Internet Explorer?

Re:Someone needs to come up with an ad-blocker...

[Cyburbia]

Uhhh ... and I say the same thing earlier, and get labeled "(Score:0, Offtopic)"

Maybe I should have said "W1nd0ws SuxxORz!!!1!" in there to score some points.

Re:Someone needs to come up with an ad-blocker...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't bitch about Karma! You either have it or you don't. Sorry. (And WINDOWS RULES! Macs suck.)

Re:Someone needs to come up with an ad-blocker...

[Anonymous Coward]

or you could just block http://dc.kontera.com/ That takes care of them.

Also block intellitxt.com who also do the same thing.

It's all there under page info in firefox

Re:Someone needs to come up with an ad-blocker...

[Hamish1931]

try blocking dc.kontera.com, that will get rid of those links. also block intellitxt.com to take care of them on a bunch of other sites

Re:Someone needs to come up with an ad-blocker...

[Monoman]

At first I didn't see the ads you were talking about then it hit me that you might be using IE. I happened to be using Opera today (available for free now)

I mostly use Firefox with the following plugins:

* Adblock Plus - very configurable ad filter
* Adblock Filterset.G updater for Adblock - automatically gets a great set of defs for Adblock Plus
* Flashblock - you decide what flash items to run
* Tabbrowser Extensions - lets me make tabs work almost as good as Opera. You gotta Google for this one.
* Foxylicious - updates bookmarks from Delicious.
* IE View - some annoying pages won't display correctly in any other browser.

You can find this stuff (except the Tabbrowser extensions) on the Firefox site. I switch back and forth between Firefox and Opera. Opera works fast and is very functional as is. Firefox definitely seems slower than Opera but has a wide assortment of extensions backed by a huge community.

Just remember this:
"Friends don't let friends use IE."

Re:Someone needs to come up with an ad-blocker...

[Fweeky]

I wrote my own ickle ad killer for Opera using CSS, which mostly scratches my itch. I'm sure there are better ones out there, but I haven't looked too closely at them.

Re:Someone needs to come up with an ad-blocker...

[Hadean]

If your OS can handle a large HOSTS file, then check out http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm. I find that nearly all annoying ads are removed, leaving the ones I honestly don't mind around (various simple banners, etc.). That and FlashBlock are all I need to surf happily.

Re:Someone needs to come up with an ad-blocker...

[callipygian-showsyst]

Wow! I loaded up that hosts file from mvps.org and now that xyzcompyting.com site looks 100% better!

Re:My first post ever

[unitron]

" MyNameIsEarl (917015)

I finally registered after being an AC for years!"

Just think, if you'd only waited a little while longer you could have gotten that "one Millionth User" ID number.

Ugh... replying to myself

[LnxAddct]

Replying to myself. It appears that the nano-itx has been released, everywhere I looked just was saying out of stock. I thought they were saying out of stock because it hasn't been released yet. I'm a moron, ignore my post.
Regards,
Steve

Re:Ugh... replying to myself

[the_quark]

Clearly we're in desperate need of an "Ignore; Moron -1" moderation...

Look at me. I have issues with sexual identity.

[Anonymous Coward]

"...I'm getting tired of homos building PCs..."

Anyway, everyone knows that gay people spend all their time shopping for straight people and deriding their hygeine habits.

Posting from one right now

[Sfing_ter]

Same Mobo with a gig of ram; I chose the Antec Aria case, an nec dvd-rw dl; and 160gb hd.w/mepis 3.3.2 test2. The nice thing is it is quiet; I have enough power to download torrents and pass them to my TV connected computer, surf the web, write email and the whole thing was about $300 and about 2 hours setup and tweek. Yes, my processor is only 1ghz. but, that is more than enough to do what I need to do here. Plus with this case I have plenty of room to add more things as need be.

Bah... get a Socket A mATX and an AMD Geode NX

[Anonymous Coward]

The VIA's kind of suck... the AMD Geode on the other hand, uses only 6 Watts and doesn't suck, has mmx/sse and a decent cache...

it's a shame

[idlake]

Mini ITX pioneered the small form factors, quiet desktops, and Nano ITX was supposed to go a step further. But complete and assembled Mini ITX systems are shipped only by a few obscure vendors and expensive for their limited performance, and Nano ITX has been MIA since 2003.

Apple, meanwhile, has grabbed the small, quiet desktop market with the Mac Mini, which is a beautiful piece of hardware, but is a bit limited in terms of software (pretty much OS X, since Linux isn't all that well supported).

Let's hope that Apple will come out with a Mac Mini/86, and that other PC vendors will clone the concept quickly. 640k may not be all you need, but a quart-sized PC ought to be all you need.

Re:it's a shame

[pe1chl]

That Mac Mini/86 would be a Mini-ITX board with some special DRM feature to lock-in OSX, I presume?
What other differences are there between an ITX system and the Mac Mini?

Re:it's a shame

[dbIII]

Mini ITX pioneered the small form factors

Only in the consumer markets. For a price you have been able to get even smaller boards with a 386 on board for ten years, and now much faster CPUs. The netwinder I suspect had a board smaller than the mini ITX formfactor.

Re:it's a shame

[GaryPatterson]

I think YellowDog put out a Linux that's well supported on PPC hardware from Apple. I've seen a number of articles on the Internet about getting your own version of Linux up and running.

There's a heap of software for the Mac platform, and more if you add in Unix/Linux apps (when you've got source!). What is it you need?

Re:it's a shame

[idlake]

What is it I need? A package manager that doesn't suck (Fink and Darwinports suck). A window system and web browser that aren't dog slow and enormously memory hungry. Desktop apps that don't go away sometimes for minutes spinning a little colored wheel. And for those UNIX apps, high-quality X11 support, rather than XDarwin.

OS X is a dog. It's a cute and friendly dog, and may be man's best companion, but it's still a dog. While it is nicer in some ways than Linux, it is worse in other ways, and I don't think it's the future of operating systems or "the world's most advances operating system" as Apple likes to call it.

Re:it's a shame

[GaryPatterson]

So what's wrong with YellowDog Linux then? If you detest the OS so much, but want (or already own) the hardware, just install Linux and be done with it.

I think there are several flavours of Linux you can go for if you don't like YellowDog.

Re:it's a shame

[bani]

the mini is one slow box. i have one. doesn't matter what OS you put on it, it's going to be sluggish. apple cut a lot of corners shoehorning what they did into the mini.

i use it mainly for crossplatform OSX builds of my projects, it's pretty miserable as a daily use desktop machine. i just start a compile going and then go out and eat dinner somewhere. when i get back it's just about finishing.

still, it's faster than the epias. which isn't really saying much. :P

Correction

[rbrome]

No details are emitted so ... this would certainly be a good place to start.

Nice typo! "emitted" is basically an antonym of "omitted", (which I assume - and hope - you meant,) so.. yeah, nice one.... Now please correct it!

real Mac Mini price

[Anonymous Coward]

Video capture may or may not be a problem (are there Linux-friendly Firewire video capture devices?), since I haven't looked into that at all.

That's a big issue, because the main task of a VIA mini-itx board is to support a PVR setup. Many of them have onboard MPEG2 and sometimes MPEG4 acceleration. Some of them also have an IR input for a remote control. They usually have a single PCI slot which you could use for a Hauppauge card or a wireless card.

So now back to the Mac Mini:

The only video-in setup I've seen for a Mac mini via firewire is the Elgato EyeTV, which - as far as I can tell - only works on OS X. It is also rather expensive.

So after you get your Mac Mini (the SuperDrive version -- remember you want a PVR, so you probably want to record DVDs) plus keyboard and mouse, you're in for almost $800 to start. Then tack on another $300 for the EyeTV. Oh and don't forget Toast 6 Titanium for another $100 or so.

I can definitely build a mini-itx system with the same features for less that $1200. Plus it won't have the ugly external firewire gadget hanging off it.

Re:real Mac Mini price

[Paul Carver]

I bought a Mini ITX setup including a PVR350 (because the Epia is too gutless to do video compression, but people claimed it worked well with the PVR350 offloading the MPEG2 work).

I don't have a PVR yet. For starters, the PVR350 ran way too hot for the Mini ITX case. The Epia itself is low powered, but with a PVR350 in the single PCI slot the outside of the case was very hot to the touch.

Also, several Linux distributions, including KnoppMyth, wouldn't boot at all. I finally did get Debian loaded, but the instructions on the web at the time for loading MythTV on Debian referenced non-functioning URLs to be added to apt.sources.

I have since put the Mini ITX aside and moved the PVR350 into a cheap Dell server. MythTV does work, but with some issues. First, I never did get the video output on the PVR350 and the VGA output on the Dell working at the same time. It's a major hassle to switch back and forth. (My KVM is in a different room than the TV, so doing anything keyboard related while using the PVR350 TV output is significant physical exercise) Secondly, the video "polish" of MythTV is severely lacking. Fine tuning the size and position of the display was tedious (and I never needed to do that with Tivo). Even after fine tuning, MythTV happily runs text right off the screen.

I'm contemplating putting Win2K and SageTV on that Dell with the PVR350, but it's not a high priority since my Series 1 Tivo continues to work flawlessly as it has for 3-4 years.

I've never even done any MythTV development, never tried to modify it in any way, but just in setting it up I've spend thousands of dollars worth of my time (at my current rate of pay) and not gotten it to a state where it works as well as Tivo. Hobbies are fun, if Mini ITX is yours, that's great. If Mini ITX isn't your hobby, and if you aren't prototyping something that you plan to mass produce, Mini ITX isn't worth your time.

Re:real Mac Mini price

[d0malaga]

I've spent some time fiddling with my EPIA based PVR too. I'm quite happy with it, but had the same problems using a precompiled kernel (FC2 original was ok) and heat with a PVR 350 card. Had to add another fan and it didn't become as silent as I hoped.

Anyway it has been fun! MythTV is great and can do a lot more things than most prebuilt commercial PVRs I've seen so far.

See some tech details on http://aronsson.zapto.org/pvr/index.html/.

VIA mini-itx boards with VT8235 chipsets may crash

[hippo]

I've got a M10000 in a TranquilPC case and it is lovely when booting diskless, almost silent apart from a very quiet hiss when the screen repaints.

But it's not stable and I think it's a hardware bug that VIA cannot patch. After a while (varying randomly from 10 minutes to 2 days) it will hang, sometimes with the hard drive light on. There's a massive thread on the VIA LInux forums at http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.aspx?catid= 28&threadid=60131&enterthread=y that's been going for years and VIA have not responded very well.

On the other hand I have a p4-itx board as a server with a Celeron 2GHz with one big Zalman fan and heatsink and that's rock solid so I'm using that as a desktop while I save up for Mac-mini.

Why do I bother?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, but where's the news in joe bloggs building a mini-itx box? Today I plugged a mouse into my computer and yesterday I plugged a USB hard drive into a slug, can I get front page if I write them up?

Here's the real Mini 'ITX' for everyone:

[Qbertino]

Buy Mac Mini. Unpack. Attach to wall outlet. Turn on.
Finished.

The x86's ultimate Hardware Mess (How many Sockets have we now? Thirteen?) is one of the prime reasons I've started switching from x86/Debian to Apple a year ago. Good OS, Hardware consistency all the way through, safe, predictable and usable. Absolutely zero driver-crap Windows and Linux is plaqued with. No need to shell out aprox. 2000$ and add another 20 hrs. of private Linux Install Party just to get a decent, quiet mini system.
If x86/Linux doesn't turn out to be prime choice in a few years from now it will be because Apple passed it just before the finishing line. And x86 hardware mess will be the reason for that.

Re:Here's the real Mini 'ITX' for everyone:

[bani]

zero driver crap because almost no hardware is supported :))

i have a mini. it's really sluggish, apple cut a lot of corners to fit into that little box. it's painful as a desktop machine, and just barely adequate for a compile box.

MacOS X mailserver

[hanwen]

I actually have a Mac Mini, which I setup as a music server and at first, a mail server. The music server is really nice (together with a Keyspan DMR remote).

Unfortunately, the mail server on MacOS sucked big time. I installed an IMAP server with Maildir storage on the native harddisk, and searching for new messages was insanely slow. I'd have to wait for over a minute to check for new email in a folder with 12,000 messages. For some reason that nobody could figure out, MacOS X performance for listing large directories on the system harddisk is really crappy.

I moved the mailserver to Dell Optiplex now. Quiet, but not so quiet as the mini.

Puppy Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Love this bit from TFA:

Problems aside, checking you email and browsing the internet are as easy as they would be with any another operating system.

I know how that goes. Problems aside, checking my mail and browsing the web on my C64 is as easy as MacOS X or any other modern OS.

Via & Linux - A Battle of Wills

[malus]

I have had the opportunity over the last several months to work with the VIA Epia-M, and Epia-PD boards.

I've used Debian as my primary OS, and the 2.6 kernel tree. Overall, everything seems to work quite well. The NIC has no problems of note. The soundcard was a snap. The I2C bus has been ignored, since I don't need any of it, but from what I read, there are (quite) a few problems with it's implementation & support under Linux. Their "padlock" features are for naught. Hardware random number gen has issues prior to (as best I can determine) 2.6.10, as in, "not bloody supported without a BIOS patch".

The main problem I have run into is with the graphics. Support for the unichrome graphics chipset is just plain AWFUL. Via claims "open source!", but all they have done is swipe the code from the OSS unichrome (reverse engineered) project, and incorporate it into a nightmarish install system which REQUIRES very specific versions of the kernel (both 2.6 and 2.4), running on very specific distros, Red Hat, Fedora, SuSE. There is *nothing* available as a raw tarball (at least nothing as far as I can tell). You must run VERY specific versions of X.org, and or XFree86, and these drivers are available ONLY as binary modules, more or less, the unichrome chipset is unsupported.

on a happier note

[JohnLeFucker]

Ammo Box

Error

[blorg]

The question is, did I really make an error or am I just demonstrating #2 above?
You made an error, certianly.

Defraying the cost

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a mini-itx running in my basement as a webserver. It has five websites on it. I bought the 800Mhz motherboard, and the case with the DC adapter power supply. IIRC it came out to about $180 for the two. I scavenged from old computers the RAM, Hdd and a CDROM drive which I later removed).

omac

ObMom

[sharkey]

Well, anyone who would beat your kid up over the architecture of his CPU is not his friend.

Small mobo = small brain?

[Old Wolf]

Both this site, and www.mini-itx.com, are hard to navigate and don't show a lot of appreciation of user interface design, unfortunately.

One article I can't find: how to make a mini-ITX PC boot up into my application, without any guff in the middle like 'Checking DMI table' and the Windows XP logo and the 'loading your settings' window. Someone must have done this before...

Did you RTFP?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't ignore what others think when they're beating you up. The Mac Mini may be inexpensive but those kung-fu lessons cost big bucks!

PVR

[slummy]

FYI if you're planning on building a PVR from this how-to, the motherboard they've chosen has known issues with the ivtv drivers. The ivtv drivers power cards like the Hauppauge PVR-XXX series which are very popular in the PVR world (I know because I use a PVR-150).

Is there a way to eliminate the hard drive?

[AZURERAZOR]

In larger faster computers? USB drives are a lot slower than HD access. Is there another way to get around the heat and noise of an HD?

Possibly a USB drive for the OS load... with a massive amount of RAM and back to the old days of RAM disks?

Nano-ITX in-stock here

[Migraineman]

The folks at mp3car.com claim to have Nano-ITX motherboards in-stock. They also sell a complete system in a spiffy blue case.

The fine folks at Damn Small Linux also have a Nano-ITX system. There are several versions of the machine at the bottom of this page.

Looks like I gotta stop calling it "Nano-ITX Forever" ...

Re:Nano-ITX in-stock here

[bani]

I click on your mp3car.com link and get "product not found".

Peope who live in glass houses...

[Anonymous Coward]

People who live in glass houses die from the heat in the summer due to the green house effect of glass; or freeze in the winter because putting normal building insulation into a glass house doesn't work very well.

You're a clown

[SunPin]

And 640KB is all the RAM you'll ever need, right?

Re:nano-ITX where I got mine two months ago.

[renehollan]

This is where I got my nano-ITX N10000 mobo.

Why?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does /. even post XYZ articles? It's not even very good, considering both content and grammar/diction. The articles get shot down every time!

Wouldn't help.

[neurojab]

I don't think a spell-checking mechanism would help. Usually a spell checker will suggest a similar word to the given text, but will not always choose the intended word. The spelling on Slashdot is so bad that no spell checker would guess the right word the majority of the time. It takes the comprehension skill of the human brain, and only the human brain, to decipher a typical Slashdot post. Introducing a spell checker would cause the posts to be falsely correct. They'd contain correct spelling, but entirely the wrong words. Every post would read like a Mad Lib:

BGH is bed. Network determines it. You didn't weed to be a karma to predicate *BGH's fastidiousness....

and so on.

It could be entertianing for a while, but would get old quickly.