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The Mini-ITX Project Revisited
An anonymous reader writes "From the article: "Once my original Mini-ITX project was completed I finally had a chance to sit back and use the computer. After a couple weeks of general internet browsing, emailing, and so forth, I was able to get a better understanding of the system and a feel for its design. Knowing how simple my needs were, the Mini-ITX project computer was orginally designed to be as basic and quiet as possible. This meant no hard drive, no extra accessories- just a stripped down system. While this suited my needs well at the time, its lack of versatility soon became an issue. This meant it was back to the drawing board for a retooling of the Mini-ITX project computer. The changes include a new case, operating system and boot device, along with improved cooling. The new system was tested using Slax and then MEPISLite." Even better link is the site itself which regularly carries mods.
I thought Mini-ITX was a somewhat industry standard form factor? Didn't realize this one guy was responsible for the whole thing!
Lame.
M0571y H@rml355.
Article goes on about NEXT >>
Showing off his awesome NEXT >>
Mini ITX NEXT >>
Computer NEXT >>
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Has anyone been using them for any length of time? The one in the article is 60W, I've been using a few rated at 200W without problems in some of our boxes - but the longevity is always in the back of my mind.
We've put together a few dozen silent boxes based off of compact flash / IDE adapters and have been VERY pleased with the results.
..don't panic
Seriously, until mini-itx motherboards come down in price there doesn't seem to be any advantage, imnsho, over a MAC-Mini. Factor in the time you spend dorking around with the miniitx and it gets worse. Oh, and just about every case I've seen is just plain ugly. Modded cases are like ringtones, even if you think yours is an exception, it isn't, they all suck.
Wanted: Clever sig, top $ paid, all offers considered.
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And here is how i put my mini-itx motherboard into a NEW case designed for it *BUY HERE*
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This is news if you consider me taking a dump new...because its in a different toilet than usual.
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
Step 1: Buy computer parts.
Step 2: Assemble computer.
I have three of these things (silent, flashboot, netboot - the whole bit). Can I get a frontpage article for assembling commodity parts as well?
Why does this get onto the front page at Slashdot? Am I missing something, or is this just another web page about building a mini-ITX system? How is this either News or Stuff That Matters?
Wow, talk about an amateur. Here's my summary: Guy builds a small computer that runs off flash memory and uses a small footprint distro of Linux. He finds that he wants to run more programs, so he retools the machine to use a live CD. He's still limiting himself to whatever apps come with the distros he can find, rather than putting together the ideal (for his needs) combination of apps. He'll be happy for another six months until he puts out Part III of his ad-laden writeups, which will then be posted to /. again...
when you can just buy a Shuttle or some other small form factor pc mostly put together already.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
You weren't joking!
It only took him a couple of weeks to realized that a PC with no hard drive and no CD was "limited".
Disclaimer: I'm in the business.
One BIG advantage to mini-ITX is that they are easily put into functional, solid enclosures with additional power supply protection you don't find in the mini. The boards themselves support booting off of flash, and it's very easy to purpose-build them with no hard drive attached.
You're not going to run a piece of industrial automation equipment off a mac mini. There's no reason you couldn't, I guess, but it's much easier to purpose-build something around the VIA board. A lot of the time, these things end up running DOS. There's no RTOS available for the mini I am aware of.
We've done a lot of work replacing old tower PC's with things that can bolt into telco utility closets next to the PBX. With the via board, these are just drop in replacements.
For the consumer that just wants a computer, the mac mini is very attractive. There's lots of other applications - like bolting a computer to a wall - where it doesn't make a lot of sense.
YMMV, of course.
..don't panic
I can only speak for the M10000. Mine has been up since powered on, serving files and mail under moderate load. 458 days uptime and counting. The only stability issue I know of for this motherboard is it locks up under extended DMA (i.e. simultaneously record & playback for 1/2 hour in MythTV). Apparently there's finally a a fix for this. The tiny power draw is just fantastic; low power bills and it stays up for hours even on my crappy UPS.
I'm installing one with a DC-DC converter in my car this week. It looks high quality. We'll see...
Mini-ITX Boards are available with Dual CPU, HW random number generator, AES & 3des acceleration, dual fast NICs, and multiple SATA connectors....
I can think of a few applications where this combination would roxor a Mac-Mini, even if the 2 CPUs together have slightly lower flops than the Mac-mini's single CPU.
I was thinking of starting a company building special application machines based on these, but life got in the way.
I thought maybe Adblock was working better than I imagined, so I turned it off to see what you were talking about. Just a few ads on the side. Nothing obnoxious. What are you talking about?
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
How many articles per week must we get about this XYZ computing place. Any person can tell their articles are just wrappers for ads. If anyone actually goes to that site for real information, they should be shot.
Nice work.
I have to agree with the other comments about how Mac minis are killing mini-ITX. I'm just waiting for a Pentium-M Mac mini so I can install Linux and use WINE. It'll make a great PVR/game console.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Till it's fanless I'll just stick with a shuttle or mini mac.
Why don't you grow up and just buy a dual core server and stop trying to use Most-Inefficient-Means? Mini ITX server farm, that's a laugh...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
...he was going to run his website off it. Nice user experience, click, click, crash.
l [linuxdevices.com]LinuxDevices is miles better, 64-way Linux mini-ITX cluster... and it's silent(ish) too!
Bet the guy is using IIS too.
Definitely a spam-tastic link btw, much as I like Mini-ITX stuff, if you we're going to link to an interesting recent mini-itx article, this one at http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS3032138730.htm
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Mac fanboy or anything, but doesn't it strike anyone as odd that this computer is still more than 3x times larger than a Mac Mini? And it is probably slower with worse video as well. Why can't we make a PC that compares to the Mac mini? Is it because of the assembled nature and not having specially designed parts?
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
BINGO!!!
That's exactly why I chose the mini-itx for the science museum art controller.
It's going to be bolted to the ceiling 50 feet in the air!
I'm not interested in trying to do that with a mac-mini.
Can you even get the mac-mini to boot when power is applied without a
keyboard or monitor attached?
I guess I could get a 46 foot long pole and have someone poke the power button every morning!
Does it run Minix?
mini :P - I'll wait until they put the whole thing on a SD card.
Why wasn't he able to install the flash card? Seeing as it was an IDE-to-CF interface, Linux should have seen it as the boot device, no?
...an old junker VCR case might be nice, pizza box form factor (set screen on top in other words), available free or for 1$ at most thrift shops. Take where the slot for the old tape was and use that for the optical drive access. I like the mini itx idea, just don't like those cubicle form factor boxes. They don't really fit anyplace that looks "right" to me, and I just as soon as not don't care if the power supply is inside the case, one less do-dad with wires hanging out of it to stare at on the desktop.
Ya, I know, taste. Right now I just crammed mine (bought used so it was cheap, hear ya on the prices) in an old AT case just to get it booted up, I plan on doing the briefcase type install sometime once I find the right briefcase. One of those long term, one stage at a time projects...I just want a pure low power 12 VDC machine for extended power outtages when they occur.
And with that said,for anyone who might be interested, Beatrix linux was designed for mini itx and Via boards/CPUs from the get-go.
I built three Mini-ITX systems, only one of which is still in use. I built a 533Mhz goof-off machine fo rthe living room, a 800Mhz server and a 1Ghz unit for my wife. The server and good-off machines were chosen due to noise considerations. The wife needed a new MB anyway. The server was woefully underpowered and has been replaced by an old 866Mhz Del Opitiplex I bought from the local government surplus and the full P3 kicks the VIA chip's butt so much it's not funny. I never did anything with the 533Mhz unit because the TV-Out is less than worthwhile. Those two units are in pieces in my closet. My wife is happy with her unit, plus the NVidia TNT2 PCI video card I tossed in, but her idea of demanding computer use is playing FreeCell.
They are not bad computers, if you realize that they are slow as all get out. When used in the right environments (embedded devices, simple robots, etc...) they probably work well. They are not good desktop machines, however. On a price to performance ratio they suck. They are absurdly expensive for what you get. Especially if you add in the tiny cases. You can easily spend as much or more than a Mac Mini would cost and still end up with a larger, noisier and less powerful computer.
If I decide to go down the tiny PC road again I'm going Mac Mini. It can sit there and stare in awe at my G5 Powermac.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Take a cheap Dell (or any) commonly available notebook machine. Break it open. Remove the keyboard, powersupply and battery. Remove the screen being careful to replace the ribbon cable or at least not break it. Take the now free main planar stick it in any random 1337 shell - toaster oven, fishtank, DVD player, retro 8-track, whatever you want. Stick the LCD display on that shell or something else. Attach a USB keyboard and mouse. Plug in.
That's pretty much it for a 1.0 version. Later revs can include a DVD drive or any other peripheral that was in the original notebook. If you don't like the LCD screen just go out and buy the big screen you want and plug it into the SVGA port you already have on your anchovy-can PC.
Remember all the ports and connectors are already there and if you want to move or hide them you can do that with some simple extention cables inside the case. Because once you remove the keyboard, the screen, the case, the battery and the powersupply your pc is not that much bigger than 10" x 4" x 0.7" including the hard drive.
I have been contimplating building a car-pc using mini-itx for awhile now. Does anyone know how they handle cold weather? I do not want to have to bring everything in and out all winter!! I doubt the LCD and hdd does well with major temprature shifts a few times a day!
No wireless, less storage than a mini. Lame
Why would anyone pay attention to some guy who thought a computer with no writeable mass storage would be useful? It's about the data stupid!
I bought a Mini-ITX system a couple years ago. I think it had an 800 MHz VIA EPIA processor in it. Its primary function at the time was to play DivX movies which it did not do very well - it seemed the processor was a bit underpowered to do that.
I would like to get another one to replace the system in my MAME cabinet. Before I subject the internet store I bought the last one from to another buy and return, can anyone tell me if an 800 MHz VIA EPIA C3 processor can play common MAME games smoothly? Would you recommend a 1.0 GHz M or MII instead?
I'm a big tall mofo.
Whatever happened to the nano-itx boards we were promised over a year ago? They were seriously small, and looked rather interesting as tiny websurfing-in-the-kitchen type PCs.
There's no reason you couldn't take a automotive-spec power supply and attach it to the mini. Now you won't have a broken mini.
It's just amazing to me that somone "in the business" would miss this.
Note to other posters below, yes, any Mac can be made to power up upon application of power. It's in the Energy Saver preferences panel, called "Restart automatically after a power failure."
I do wish the Mac mini had a Pentium-M in it instead of a G4. It'd be a lot faster than the current Mac mini or a VIA Mini-ITX system. But that doesn't mean I'm going to make up other shortcomings for the Mac mini.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
RTLinux doesn't count? Chorus runs on the PPC too.
Stupid. So what? I've got a mini-itx 12000 with NO fans, super-silent HD, and it runs a full Linux (Ubuntu), not a stripped down one (Puppy or whatever). I don't run it off the CD so it doesn't make much noise.
Adding ONE fan to a system makes it louder than almost any notebook harddrive, and it is easy to find very nearly silent notebook harddrives. He has some problem with harddrives, but they are far better than booting it off a CD, and quieter than most fans (and certainly quieter than TWO fans!) So just what was he going for here?
Oh well. And I didn't even bother to post mine on Slashdot, although it is very cool looking in a Serener case.
The Mini is 1/3 the size and 1/2 the cost and already runs a secure and stable UNIX based OS.
Your Average Joe
Queue the shameless plug.... I've been working with my advisor and a couple other students on a portable cluster of these things. We've got eight nodes in a Pelican box, and it's just small enough to be taken as airplane carry-on. We've finally worked out all the hardware issues (diskless booting, consoldiated power supplies, etc.), and now we're moving on to making the software easy to manage. Pretty sweet, over all.
You might have a serviceable machine with a broken case or a burned out battery or a damaged keyboard also.