Tiny Fanless Mini-PC Runs Linux Or Windows On Quad-core AMD SoC

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Tiny Fanless Mini-PC Runs Linux Or Windows On Quad-core AMD SoC

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 14, 2015 @09:47AM from the getting-small dept.

DeviceGuru writes CompuLab has unveiled a tiny 'Fitlet' mini-PC that runs Linux or Windows on a dual- or quad-core 64-bit AMD x86 SoC (with integrated Radeon R3 or R2 GPU), clocked at up to 1.6GHz, and offering extensive I/O, along with modular internal expansion options. The rugged, reconfigurable 4.25 x 3.25 x 0.95 in. system will also form the basis of a pre-configured 'MintBox Mini' model, available in Q2 in partnership with the Linux Mint project. To put things in perspective, CompuLab says the Fitlet is three times smaller than the Celeron Intel NUC.

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Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by damn_registrars · 2015-01-14 09:48 · Score: 4, Insightful

These guys are claiming barebones PCs will start at $129. I find this a relief in comparison to the companies that keep offering barebones rigs like these starting at $400 or more.

--
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
1. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 09:54 · Score: 0
  
  Brix fucking rock.
  No I'm not an employee of asrock or whoever makes them.
  You will shit bricks with a brix.
2. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by TheRealMindChild · 2015-01-14 09:54 · Score: 1
  
  My youngests computer died, and I ended up replacing it with a Biostar A68N-5000. It was $70 shipped. It is fanless and draws very little power. I imagine this is just a further iteration of the technology.
  
  --
  
  "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
3. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Hadlock · 2015-01-14 09:55 · Score: 1
  
  You can get an ASUS X205 with Windows 8.1 preinstalled for about $200 shipped if you shop around, $179 if you're willing to walk in to a Microsoft Store.
  
  That said it's not three times smaller, it's three times less volume. It's only 2cm on a side smaller, not much bigger than a Raspberry Pi B+, which let's be honest, isn't game-changing at this point. 2012 was a long time ago.
  
  --
  moox. for a new generation.
4. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by PPH · 2015-01-14 10:00 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  with Windows 8.1 preinstalled
  And since nobody likes Windows 8.x, its pretty much a fanless PC as well.
  
  --
  Have gnu, will travel.
5. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 10:04 · Score: 0
  
  "These guys" (CompuLab, I mean) have finally come to their senses and noticed that they *do* have competitors.
  And, in some regards, they are still running circles around their competitors (come on, mainstream mainboard makers, I'm looking at you -- what are those laptop PSU voltages doing in a robotics niche? have we got lots of 19 volt batteries around here?).
6. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by damn_registrars · 2015-01-14 10:11 · Score: 1
  
  My youngests computer died, and I ended up replacing it with a Biostar A68N-5000. It was $70 shipped. It is fanless and draws very little power. I imagine this is just a further iteration of the technology.
  That is only a motherboard, though. You still need a case - and the mini ITX cases generally come without power supplies. You could likely get this with case and power supply for under $200 but not by a lot. A nice recommendation either way, though.
  
  --
  Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
7. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by jellomizer · 2015-01-14 10:11 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  If you buy the top of the line model for around 2k you get about 6 years out of it, so that is $300 per year. If you buy a starting PC for $400 you will get about 2 years out of it $200 per year.
  Now if these barbone PCs will be able to operate modern OS and websites without being unbearable for over a year we are still making out.
  
  --
  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
8. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by damn_registrars · 2015-01-14 10:13 · Score: 1
  
  You can get an ASUS X205 with Windows 8.1 preinstalled for about $200 shipped
  When I search for "Asus X205" i find only laptops. We're not really in the same class, here; there are times when a small form factor desktop is distinctly advantageous for the application.
  
  That said it's not three times smaller, it's three times less volume.
  
  Yeah, but the former is catchier for advertising than the latter. :)
  
  not much bigger than a Raspberry Pi B+, which let's be honest, isn't game-changing at this point
  Have you seen a PC in the past 5 years that would honestly count as "game-changing"? Neither have I. Everything is an iterative step now.
  
  --
  Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
9. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Hognoxious · 2015-01-14 10:14 · Score: 2
  
  Do low powered PCs wear out quicker, or are you talking out of your ass again?
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
10. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 10:24 · Score: 0
  
  I bought a celeron-based chromebox for $119 last month.
  Put linux on it just fine.
  2GB ram and 16GB SSD.
11. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 10:25 · Score: 0
  
  Chromebox? Replace OS with Linux if you like?
12. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Red4man · 2015-01-14 10:26 · Score: 1
  
  $200 is a lot more money than $35 for a Raspberry Pi.
  
  Cost per performance, and especially for embedded stuff, the Pi is all kinds of awesome.
  
  --
  Sock Puppets: damn_registrars=pudge_confirmer=jimmy_slimmy=raiigunner=cml4524=a_klavan=red4men=ronpaulisanidiot
13. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 10:32 · Score: 0
  
  When was the last time you shopped for components?
  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147131
  Mini-ITX case, 250w power supply 45 dollars shipped.
14. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by rwa2 · 2015-01-14 10:36 · Score: 1
  
  The $35 Raspberry Pi doesn't come with a power supply, or a case, or any storage. That stuff adds up... display, peripherals, HDMI cable... Most little projects I could think of doing as a Pi project would be better served with an old (or even a cheap new) android phone/tablet, which would also include a touchscreen, wifi, bluetooth, audio, camera, power supply for not much more.
  For any kind of embedded use, I think an arduino would do better. For any kind of small computer kiosk, I think a tablet or even an old EeePC netbook would do better than even a Banana Pi. I'm glad the Pi exists, but wish I could find some use for my Pi... The best I can come up with so far is a portable BSOD screensaver for any random monitor I might walk up to in public, but I have a feeling one of those HDMI stick PCs would be better suited for that.
15. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Blaskowicz · 2015-01-14 10:37 · Score: 1
  
  I checked on that X205 laptop and it is sadly a model with everything soldered down (like a mac book pro) with not even wired ethernet, and limited storage (a fifth of what old Windows netbooks have, and these could be upgraded to bigger).
  It is a tablet with permanently attached keyboard more than a traditional PC. In this the new tiny PC is more PC-like, as the memory is upgradeable and storage is too by the way of the mSATA slot (the next generation will probably have M.2 PCIe), external bandwith is USB 3.0 + USB 2.0 not just USB 2.0. Imagine you attach wired ethernet, hard disk and sound card to the X205's measly few USB 2.0 ports and watch it all crawl as they are sharing 30MB/s bandwith.
16. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Blaskowicz · 2015-01-14 10:55 · Score: 1
  
  Load it with 8GB RAM and an SSD, and it's already better than my desktop except for the CPU performance.
  OS requirements stay the same or decrease slowly over time (e.g. Windows gets better, linux graphics drivers get better).
  Browsers get better with time : Firefox is better than a year ago, then it will get Electrolysis, then it will get the rewrite in the Rust language (this may takes years, but in the end you'll get the four CPU cores used instead of one and a half)
  The Web will still be full and even more full of crap made by people who don't care, malicious people, advertisers, big sites full of galleries and autoplaying crap etc. so there will be some filtering to do but it's already the case today. Likely it will be a wash : performance increases from the OS, drivers and browser will be canceled out by the performance decrease from the web content.
  I will still miss the times my PC was fast at anything I did and ran almost any game, that was when it had a single core 2GHz CPU and 768MB of sdram.
17. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Gavagai80 · 2015-01-14 10:59 · Score: 2
  
  If you buy a starting PC for $400 you will get about 2 years out of it $200 per year.
  Where do you get this number? I've had my current PC for more than 2 years, and it cost ~$250 new. My previous PC lasted 6 years and cost ~$350 back around 2006 when PCs cost more.
  Mini-PCs are a different animal though. People are buying them for the form factor and the lack of fan noise, not purely for price.
  
  --
  This space intentionally left blank
18. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by rwa2 · 2015-01-14 11:05 · Score: 1
  
  Have you seen a PC in the past 5 years that would honestly count as "game-changing"? Neither have I. Everything is an iterative step now.
  Really. I've been looking for something like this since for projects 2009. The nVidia ION nano-ITX reference platform looked perfect, but NOBODY ever made it for sale:
  http://hothardware.com/reviews...
  I did evaluate a Fit-PC2 , but it was too badly hobbled by the binary blob video driver. Plus, we had some severe issues with SATA that made it almost unusable with an SSD.
  I'm glad CompuLab is trying an AMD version of this form factor. My only worry is with the AMD/ATi video, but it's been a long time since I had been burned by the ATi 7500 All-in-Wonder, which never received any of the OSS treatment promised from ATi (though it had great support from the GATOS project).
  In the mean time, for both work and my home server, I ended up going with mini-ITX nVidia ION boxes, which were fast and flexible enough to build decent shoebox / piggyback PCs with full compiz compositing and could run just about any x86 software short of virtualization.
  That said, just picked up the $100 HP Stream 7 tablet last month, and am liking it. I think that could possibly be some sort of game-changer, esp. once someone figures out how to bootstrap Linux on it, or maybe even if it's stuck with Win8.1
19. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 11:15 · Score: 0
  
  These guys are claiming barebones PCs will start at $129. I find this a relief in comparison to the companies that keep offering barebones rigs like these starting at $400 or more.
  Which is pretty ironic since, after 8 clicks through garbage pages linked from the summary, I find the these Fitlet systems run from $400 to $700 on amazon, or $400 to $800 buying direct.
  But at least the fitlet uses a closed source video driver blob.
  Not cool when raspberry pi does it, but OK for everyone else. That's the slashdot way!
20. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by LarryRiedel · 2015-01-14 11:16 · Score: 1
  
  I don't know of any Linux distribution that comes close to running well on the X205, or at all without doing a lot of unusual installation and configuration steps. I hope one will soon.
21. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by cdrudge · 2015-01-14 11:28 · Score: 2
  
  You still need a case - and the mini ITX cases generally come without power supplies. You could likely get this with case and power supply for under $200 but not by a lot.
  A M350 mini-ITX case runs $37 on Amazon. Presuming the power supply isn't some stupid proprietary design, $5-10 for a power supply. I did exactly this for a Intel miniITX HTPC that used a laptop charger as the power supply.
22. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by dfsmith · 2015-01-14 11:41 · Score: 2
  
  I got an nVidia ION-based Asus Aspire Revo PC a few years back. It worked fairly well, gets nice and warm, and is still in service as my Kodi box, NAS/backup server (eSATA+GbE with RAID) and secondary DNS/DHCP. It does leave out the PCI slots from the reference platform though.
  I'm currently evaluating a $150 (from Fry's) Asus VivoPC as my next primary server. Dual core, hidden micro-PCIe, SATA and USB3. So far, so good.
23. Re: Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by corychristison · 2015-01-14 11:43 · Score: 1
  
  I've been highly interested in a Gigabyte Brix with the AMD A8-5545. unfortunately, even with a modest sized SSD, and 2GB od RAM, it still works out to $350+ in my local currency.
  I'd like one for a new HTPC. Its not a need at this point, so I've been putting it off.
  These new units sound like they could work for what I need. Going to keep my eyes open.
24. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by steveg · 2015-01-14 11:52 · Score: 1
  
  Pretty good job finding these for sale, considering they won't be available until February at any price. Amazon doesn't have them listed yet. Nor does anyone else they have linked.
  Yes, there are other Fit-branded systems by the same people, but no Fitlets. And no idea about prices other than the bare-bone base model.
  It sounds really interesting, and I'm sorry I have those cartons full of mini-itx stuff sitting on my kitchen table. This would probably have made a better firewall.
  
  --
  Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed.
25. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by kamapuaa · 2015-01-14 12:09 · Score: 1
  
  If you buy the top of the line model for around 2k you get about 6 years out of it, so that is $300 per year. If you buy a starting PC for $400 you will get about 2 years out of it $200 per year.
  Ridiculous. For one thing, who would bother with a $2000 desktop, except for a gamer with money to burn?
  
  --
  Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
26. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by binarylarry · 2015-01-14 12:27 · Score: 1
  
  I think he means "useful life"
  
  --
  Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
27. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by LessThanObvious · 2015-01-14 12:30 · Score: 1
  
  Will I begin contemplating idiotic reasons why I need one of these in my car? Yes, yes I will. I don't know why in the age of laptops, tablets and GPS enabled smartphones, there is still some nerd sex appeal to the possibilities of trunk mounted PC. What possibilities at my command, what freedom from the confines of the factory "infotainment" system.
28. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Tough+Love · 2015-01-14 13:37 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Their previous offerings have been in the $300 range, I have two of them from a few years back. Beautiful, understated and rugged engineering. Due to the technology of the day, somewhat underpowered but they still manage debian with KDE, short of smooth video playback or 3D animation. With wifi and a hard disk they run a bit hot at 11 watts, but with 100 MHz ethernet and a SSD they drop down to less than 4 watts.
  I certainly do not begrudge them their relatively high price point in the past, it allowed their boutique business to survive until technology caught up with them. Now, with the kickass AMD graphics, improved mips/watt, more memory and half the price, they land firmly in the buy it and try it zone. Remember Shuttle? We all hoped they would keep pushing the envelope of light and tight, but they lost the plot and devolved to just another mediocre box maker.
  This new generation of Fit PCs should now be just about perfect for video playing, and even work decently for legacy 3D games, but don't even think about the latest Far Cry. Or the latest Windows for that matter, if you want it to be not a toy then it better be running Linux, you have been warned.
  These little boxes are just about as perfect as you can get for a home server. Completely silent, can be exanded to as much usb storage as you want, the right network connectivity, enough memory. The tiny power envelope means "always on" is a no brainer. Also decent for a non-professional browsing/emailing box capable of running drawing programs but not engineering CAD. Gimp but not Photoshop (unless you are truly patient...) Blender but not Maya.
  I really appreciate the return to the straight box form factor. Their previous couple of generations are curvy and cute, but what practical sense does that make? I will take squat and homely, but stacks nicely, any day. That is beautiful to me. Much like the way I like my stero amplifier.
  So long as Android fails to gain the UI functionality you actually need for productivity apps, these tiny PCs have a niche to grow in, and needless to say, these are fully functional with completely "libre" software with all the benefits that entails, not at all the case with Android.
  No, they didn't pay me to write this post or send me a free machine. I just really like the way they engineer their boxes, their general attitude, and their stick-with-it-ness, and needless to say, their first class Linux support.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
29. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Jane+Q.+Public · 2015-01-14 13:57 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  That said it's not three times smaller, it's three times less volume. It's only 2cm on a side smaller, not much bigger than a Raspberry Pi B+, which let's be honest, isn't game-changing at this point. 2012 was a long time ago.
  "Times smaller" is an excruciatingly ambiguous phrase anyway. It is very much open to interpretation, even if you presume they mean volume.
30. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by WuphonsReach · 2015-01-14 14:06 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Give it a SSD and 8GB of RAM and useful life might approach a decade. It might add $100 to the cost, but will definitely make it into something that will be useful for more then 2-3 years.
  
  --
  Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
31. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Tough+Love · 2015-01-14 14:30 · Score: 1
  
  My only worry is with the AMD/ATi video, but it's been a long time since I had been burned by the ATi 7500 All-in-Wonder...
  That stopped being a worry a few years back. I've been running Radeon graphcs exclusively and continuously now for years. I switched from fglrx to exclusively Xorg drivers a few years back, at first with some noticeable loss of functionality and performance, but now... no worries, it is way past good enough. BTW, that is not just normal desktop loads but a lot of serious OpenGL hacking. For a coulple of years I put up with jaggies... no antialiasing support (though I hacked some myself with buffer accumulation, only applicable to my own code.) Now the Xorg drivers have MSAA antialising for all recent hardware and MLAA up to Evergreen with the last few generations apparently just needing testing. (MLAA is full screen smoothing just of detectable edges, slightly crappier but way faster than multisampling.)
  By way of illustration:
  lspci | grep Radeon
  01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Park [Mobility Radeon HD 5430]
  01:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Cedar HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 5400/6300 Series]
  $ uptime
  18:17:28 up 169 days, 4:44, 25 users, load average: 0.62, 1.18, 1.40
  The 25 users are all me, last reboot was a power failure that outlasted my UPS. I guess you could call that stable :) I know, I know, 5430, the machine beside it has a much better card. But the 5430 is surprisingly good and - most important to me - completely, utterly silent. And I can push a million triangles per frame through it at video rates, not bad for an ancient card that set me back all of $50.
  I haven't tried many 3D games, but I can report that Civ V works just fine with Xorg drivers, the only serious problem being the risk of getting permantly sucked into the game and losing touch with real life.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
32. Re: Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by ArmoredDragon · 2015-01-14 15:58 · Score: 1
  
  I want an HTPC as well but I've found the software stacks offered by both Windows and Linux to be inadequate for that purpose (mainly due to lack of being able to switch applications with remote control seamlessly, but also some things like Netflix and Amazon Prime don't work terribly well with a remote in either setup as well.) Android TV sounds about right, but I don't want to buy a device like this without being able to verify that it works.
33. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 16:20 · Score: 0
  
  The Raspberry Pi has been the price performance leader in the SOC PC, but not on an IA platform. This moved the bar for IA architecture closer to the Raspberry Pi price point.
34. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Tough+Love · 2015-01-14 16:27 · Score: 1
  
  I believe that was his point. Nobody besides a fanatic or clueless rich guy buys a high end PC these days, as witness the market statistics. Even highly paid engineers are now making do with years old gear that was never top of the line in the first place. So it goes.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
35. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Tough+Love · 2015-01-14 16:34 · Score: 1
  
  I paid $260 and $300 for the two earlier generation Fit PCs I have, and I love them. Getting a little long in the tooth now but they still work great as light duty headless servers. What do I like most about them? The anodized extruded aluminum box secured with bog standard cross head machine screws. Industrial art for my jaded eyes.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
36. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Tough+Love · 2015-01-14 16:40 · Score: 1
  
  ...there is still some nerd sex appeal to the possibilities of trunk mounted PC. What possibilities at my command, what freedom from the confines of the factory "infotainment" system.
  What a great way to broadcast the guy who breaks your side window to the internet (be sure to take a photo for insurance).
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
37. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Hognoxious · 2015-01-14 20:24 · Score: 1
  
  Even then he's wrong.
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
38. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 20:30 · Score: 0
  
  I hope that was meant to be sarcastic.
  Compulab has always been offering the most expensive "mini PCs" on the market. An "equivalent" of a $200 NUC from Compulab would be around $500.
  I know they have got these nice rugged aluminium cases and stuff, and it might be worth the premium. The point is a Compulab product will never really be cheap.
39. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 21:20 · Score: 0
  
  if you're on a notebook, and you want to save watts, the first thing you do is use MATE instead of a glitzy 3d desktop, and the second thing you do is install fglrx. The free drivers aren't very good at power management.
40. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Dutch+Gun · 2015-01-14 21:29 · Score: 1
  
  For one thing, who would bother with a $2000 desktop, except for a gamer with money to burn?
  There are some professionals who think nothing of spending $5,000 to $10,000 for a high end PC workstation, let alone $2000. Hell, the software alone can cost many times that much, so why would they balk at buying the best hardware money can buy? Digital audio workstations are a good example of this sort of high-end niche industry.
  
  --
  Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
41. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by OolimPhon · 2015-01-14 22:40 · Score: 2
  
  Agree. Why can't they say "a third the volume?"
  Slack thinking like "three times smaller" probably accounts for many bugs in software. Precision is important.
42. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 23:22 · Score: 0
  
  I like it, I was a die hard 7 user but 8.1 made the desktop experience much better.
43. Re: Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-15 00:09 · Score: 0
  
  The Pi is the worst performer in its niche, hands down. It's slightly cheaper than the Beagle Bone Black, which is slightly cheaper than most other comparable ARM SOCs, so I suppose the Pi gets points just for being cheap. But you get what you pay for, and with the Pi you save ten or twenty bucks and get a horribly crippled piece of junk, given the other things in its class.
44. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · 2015-01-15 01:35 · Score: 1
  
  Well not $2k but ~$1300 is what I spent on my current desktop at home. Then again I was building a machine to support my hobby of doing amateur cartography and needed a machine that had at least 24GB ram to do what I was trying to do. That was about 2.5 years ago and since I put a priority on reliability and quality instead of cost it should last for close to a decade. The one splurge was going from a middle of the pack i5 to a top of the line i7 since MicroCenter had the i7 on sale for only $25 more than the i5 I was looking at at the time. Then again my use case is kind of special but there are cases where a higher end machine is needed. Also I went and got the $75 graphics card instead of the $600+ one since I don't play any games that would tax any currently made card.
  
  --
  Time to offend someone
45. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Lumpy · 2015-01-15 01:41 · Score: 1
  
  They will start at $129 in lots of 100 or more.
  Plus it will be damn near impossible to buy them.
  
  --
  Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
46. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by FilmedInNoir · 2015-01-15 01:50 · Score: 1
  
  Sinofsky?
  
  --
  Sig. Sig. Sputnik
47. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-15 03:01 · Score: 0
  
  "n times (less|fewer|smaller)" is one of those phrases that just makes my head hurt. And mathematically, it should fall under the category of false advertising.
  If you have an object with a property valued at x, then "n times" that value is nx. If you then complete the subtraction, you get x - nx = -((n - 1)x).
  So if something is "three times smaller", that means it's a negative size. If the NUC has a volume of, say, 50 cubic cm, then "three times" that is 150 cubic cm, and the "smaller" modifier makes this NUC competitor have a volume of -100 cubic cm.
  It becomes false advertising when something "costs 5 times less" than their competition and then I don't get paid 4 times their competition's cost when I buy that item.
  Do not use this ridiculous phrase, and please be a pedantic dickweed and point it out to everyone that attempts to use this phrase to market products to you.
48. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Red4man · 2015-01-15 03:18 · Score: 0
  
  The $35 Raspberry Pi doesn't come with a power supply
  
  Not hard to build a rechargable battery pack capable of also powering servo motors
  
  or a case
  
  Look up "Embedded"
  
  , or any storage
  
  SD Cards are cheap. You don't just have a few laying around?
  
  . That stuff adds up... display, peripherals, HDMI cable...
  
  Ever hear of SSH? Headless?
  
  Most little projects I could think of doing as a Pi project would be better served with an old (or even a cheap new) android phone/tablet, which would also include a touchscreen, wifi, bluetooth, audio, camera, power supply for not much more.
  
  Not my problem you lack imagination.
  
  --
  Sock Puppets: damn_registrars=pudge_confirmer=jimmy_slimmy=raiigunner=cml4524=a_klavan=red4men=ronpaulisanidiot
49. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-15 05:44 · Score: 0
  
  I use a Sempron 3850(1.3GHz quad core) with 8GB of ram and a cheap 64GB SSD as my media machine.
  With Debian I'm able to watch Netflix and Youtube at 1080p, I use livestreamer for anything else, and I've played a couple hours of Civilization 5 in Strategic View. These are decent little machines and I'm quite happy with the $250 I spent on the parts.
50. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by CrashNBrn · 2015-01-15 07:03 · Score: 1
  
  These AMD-based boxes are a steal compared to the "barebones" NUC's that Intel is pushing. Although HP showed off a half-decent Intel based micro PC at CES (value/$) --- when it comes to on-board GPU you are almost always better off with an AMD solution.
51. Re: Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by corychristison · 2015-01-15 10:46 · Score: 1
  
  I actually wrote my own HTPC interface that runs on Linux. It's pretty hacky, but it's a relatively simple system written in PHP 5.6 and runs in Mozilla Firefox. I've gone through the trouble of integrating Netflix (via Pipelight), and Youtube leanback.
  We use a Nintendo Wii Remote to interface with it. I've toyed with a web-based remote to control it via my android phone, but I prefer the Wii remote.
52. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Tough+Love · 2015-01-15 13:15 · Score: 1
  
  Well, I guess $1300 only qualifies you as "performance" not "high end". OTOH, it's getting hard to find a $5k PC to buy... remember when high end always meant $5K? Not that long ago.Today, load up a box with as much memory as the motherboard can take, more SSD than you really need and a stupidly powerful GPU and it only costs $3K. And even then, you will be feeling small and slow in a couple of years, compared to the latest disk prices etc.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
53. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · 2015-01-16 03:39 · Score: 1
  
  Yes but the only thing that wasn't on the high end in that box at the time was the graphics card, everything else was on the higher end but it becomes much harder to justify a very marginal increase in performance for a massive increase in cost.
  I could have jumped up one more level in processor but that would have added over $100
  I could have gone with the fastest ram but that would have cost double and required playing with the default settings
  I could have gotten the largest and fastest SSDs but at over 10x the cost of the smaller but highly reliable ones I did get. I did say that I was building a machine to meet a specific need and it meets it just fine with room to grow. Apart from the graphics card most of the machine was build out of penultimate parts and the graphics card would have been up near top of the line 2 or 3 years before I bought it.
  
  --
  Time to offend someone
54. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by snizzitch · 2015-01-16 06:15 · Score: 1
  
  http://xkcd.com/870/
55. Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Tough+Love · 2015-01-16 10:00 · Score: 1
  
  Right, not only do the top of the line firebreathing cpu and memory cost a disproportionate amount of money, they tend to eat significantly more power, run hotter and create more fan noise. And the high end SSDs have a smaller user base, therefore higher likelihood of unknown/unfixed bugs. So moderation is really the key to being a happy high end box consumer. Even though one tends to feel some sense of loss when settling on only the second or third fastest part, it only takes a short time for that to turn into a sense of smug satisfaction as the next generation lands, where even the budget parts blow away the specs of the old high power, high cost, geek trophies. Unhealthy envy of the bad old high end parts turns immediately into healthy and actionable envy of the shiny new budget parts.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
56. Re: Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-16 12:32 · Score: 0
  
  For what psu? The M350 picopsu's are like $40.
Cluster by gibbled · 2015-01-14 09:49 · Score: 1

Obligatory cluster of these post.
1. Re:Cluster by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 10:06 · Score: 0
  
  You're doing it wrong.
  That's "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!"
  You're welcome.
2. Re:Cluster by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 10:14 · Score: 0
  
  Get with the times.
  Image a duplicate post cluster of these!
3. Re:Cluster by Rob+Riggs · 2015-01-14 10:37 · Score: 1
  
  In Soviet Russia, Beowulf cluster imagines you!
  
  --
  the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
4. Re:Cluster by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 15:49 · Score: 0
  
  I like turtles so get on my horse and you done goofed.
5. Re:Cluster by Tough+Love · 2015-01-14 17:47 · Score: 1
  
  Good one :)
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Frequency by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 09:55 · Score: 5, Interesting

clocked at up to 1.6GHz
Actually we might as well stop mentioning the CPU clock speed of devices already. :) They all hover around 2GHz and still vary wildly in performance. At this point the clock speed is essentially just a trivial configuration parameter of the chip.
1. Re:Frequency by sonicmerlin · 2015-01-14 10:42 · Score: 1
  
  You can still compare it to other devices with the same chip.
Network appliance by phorm · 2015-01-14 09:56 · Score: 3, Interesting

Depending on how well the ethernet interface performs, this looks like it would make a decent little network appliance (PFsense, etc). Of course with the R2 graphics, it's probably good for more than that, but since Via seemed to slow down on their stuff I've had issues finding good mini-boards for firewalls etc (not enough interfaces on a Pi, which is also a bit slow).
It looks like the 6200T also has some AES acceleration, but I wonder if there's anything like Via's padlock (which was quite nice for VPN's or SSL tunnels).
1. Re:Network appliance by nuckfuts · 2015-01-14 12:02 · Score: 1
  
  Have you looked at the stuff that Soekris makes?
2. Re:Network appliance by SternisheFan · 2015-01-14 12:25 · Score: 1
  
  Or the "Compute Stick" shown recently at CES? (intels-compute-stick-is-a-full-windows-or-linux-pc-in-an-hdmi-dongle) http://arstechnica.com/gadgets...
3. Re:Network appliance by Bengie · 2015-01-14 12:44 · Score: 1
  
  make nice network applicances
  It only takes one word to counter your suggestion... RealTek
4. Re:Network appliance by Blaskowicz · 2015-01-14 14:25 · Score: 1
  
  It's AES-NI, same as in the first 32nm Intel Xeon and successors, core i5 and i7, recent Core i3.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
5. Re:Network appliance by phorm · 2015-01-14 15:10 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, that was the part that turned me off too. It's not such a big deal for an internet firewall though. Even a realtek card can manage that in most cases.
6. Re:Network appliance by phorm · 2015-01-14 15:12 · Score: 1
  
  Computer stick. Cute as a small computer. Useless as a firewall/router (what ethernet)?
7. Re:Network appliance by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 20:51 · Score: 0
  
  The I version looks promising indeed - I'm currently looking for a small pfSense box. The two gbe ports are supported by igb(4) and there's some work beeing done to get the wireless 7260 to work in FreeBSD (https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/intel-dual-band-wireless-n-7260.42515/) The X version looks snazzy too with it's 4 gbe ports, but no built in wifi.
8. Re:Network appliance by pak9rabid · 2015-01-15 06:25 · Score: 1
  
  Problem?
9. Re:Network appliance by pak9rabid · 2015-01-15 06:48 · Score: 1
  
  What's the problem? My RealTek interfaces have worked just fine.
10. Re:Network appliance by pak9rabid · 2015-01-15 06:50 · Score: 1
  
  I second Soekris. Their net6501 system is really nice, but kind of pricy. I just got one of these recently because it's cheaper and have been very happy with it:
  
  http://store.netgate.com/kit-A...
  
  Full specs:
  
  http://pcengines.ch/apu.htm
3 times smaller... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 10:06 · Score: 0

Does anyone see a 2.5" hard drive/SSD as can be installed in Intel NUCs?
1. Re:3 times smaller... by Blaskowicz · 2015-01-14 14:33 · Score: 2
  
  No but you can install such kind of SSD in there (a picture is worth a few dozen words)
  http://www.newegg.com/Product/... or http://www.newegg.com/Product/...
  After which there's wired ethernet, or attaching a 2.5" hard drive to USB 3 (which can power the drive with a single cable) ought to give some nice quite fast storage.
2. Re:3 times smaller... by Tough+Love · 2015-01-14 16:42 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, that is they come with. I upgraded an older one with PATA hard drive to PATA SSD (getting a bit hard to find those now...)
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Only thing missing is a fan by Russ1642 · 2015-01-14 10:07 · Score: 4, Interesting

I have a Chromecast, which is a mini PC on a dongle. It has a fanless design, but it desperately needs on. Trying to keep it cool in the summer is difficult and after ten minutes it's too hot and stalls.
1. Re:Only thing missing is a fan by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 10:32 · Score: 0
  
  You have a faulty Chromecast.
2. Re:Only thing missing is a fan by Russ1642 · 2015-01-14 10:36 · Score: 2
  
  I don't have air conditioning. The Chromecast isn't exactly faulty, it's just not properly designed to be fanless. There's no thought whatsoever given to cooling, but for $30 that's what you get.
3. Re:Only thing missing is a fan by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-15 00:24 · Score: 0
  
  Have you thought of popping the case open and fitting a ramsink to it? It has an internal aluminium heatsink, but it's just a piece of aluminium inside the case. You could do a lot better with a small copper block with fins. Take a dremel to the case over where the RAM and SoC sit (opposite sides of the board, sadly) and you should be able to get much better airflow.
  
  Teardown here and ramsinks here as a suggestion.
Nothing new by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 10:07 · Score: 0

Al kinds of fanless stuff out there. Plenty of it with Chromebooks, Windows 8 notebooks, small form desktops, and of course tablets and smartphones. I don't think any of them are that great, but they do basic tasks fine and if you have enough RAM they can satisfy the less demanding user. I bought my Father in law a Dell notebook with a fanless has a low powered Celeron with decent speed, but does lack big Cache and other speed improvements. But the battery life is great, and it runs a browser which is pretty much what he does with it. Do you really need to spend a lot for that kind of computing? No. Be like buying a race car to go
grocery shopping.
SoC by ChrisMaple · 2015-01-14 10:08 · Score: 0

It's not a system-on-chip until the whole thing is on a single chip: CPU, I/O, display driver, keyboard input (from keys, not an already encoded keyboard), PSU.

--
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
1. Re:SoC by iggymanz · 2015-01-14 10:23 · Score: 1
  
  no, that would be system-and-peripherals-on-a-chip. You don't get to make the definitions.
2. Re:SoC by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 16:55 · Score: 0
  
  seriously... it's a *system* of multiple logic blocks, which used to be on multiple disparate chips, now integrated onto a single die. from the original usage of SoC, almost every ASIC in production qualifies for the SoC moniker. and in my time at ATI (such an awesome place to work) and AMD (god awful place to work), we called all the chips with GPU IP on them an SoC.
  it's funny to watch some folks get their knickers in a twist about chips being "not a real SoC" because it lacks some IP $FOO.
3. Re:SoC by temcat · 2015-01-14 23:21 · Score: 1
  
  And that is not a SoC until the actual keyboard is on the chip, too.
4. Re:SoC by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-15 03:05 · Score: 0
  
  Damn, talk about fat fingering.
Hope it has GigE. by Mal-2 · 2015-01-14 10:10 · Score: 4, Interesting

I have an E-350 laptop, and although it has only two cores at 1.6 GHz, it can easily keep up with 1080p video. (Having maxed it out at 8 GB of RAM doesn't hurt.) The thing that tends to be an issue is WiFi bandwidth. If wired to the network (it has GigE) or if the file is copied to local storage first, it's fine. Otherwise, you're just asking for the darn thing to burp several times during your movie.
Even 100Mbps Ethernet (using some old three-pair cable already in the wall) can prove insufficient for pulling 1080p off the NAS box, if there's any kind of contention at all.

--
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
1. Re:Hope it has GigE. by jandrese · 2015-01-14 10:18 · Score: 1
  
  Fitlet-B and Fitlet-X — 1x gigabit Ethernet port
  Fitlet-i — 2x gigabit Ethernet ports
  Looks like it has you covered. I'm actually interested in turning the thing into a router. It's cheaper than a lot of commercial home router solutions, and can do a lot more.
  
  --
  
  I read the internet for the articles.
2. Re:Hope it has GigE. by sootman · 2015-01-14 10:18 · Score: 1
  
  I rarely say this, but RTFA. Not only does it have gigabit ethernet, you can optionally get 2 or more gig-E ports.
  
  --
  Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
3. Re:Hope it has GigE. by jandrese · 2015-01-14 10:26 · Score: 1
  
  It looks like the options are for 1, 2, or 4 Gig-E ports. I'm most interested in the 4 port version, but I need to see the price on it first. It's not a good sign that they only announced the price on the bare bones starter model.
  
  --
  
  I read the internet for the articles.
4. Re:Hope it has GigE. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 10:39 · Score: 0
  
  edgerouter lite. cheaper then this especially after adding hardware. It handles up to gigabit connections fine and is just a solid little router that's basically enterprise grade with a vyatta command-line and ability to toss (some) other stuff on it. Worth consideration.
5. Re:Hope it has GigE. by GonzoPhysicist · 2015-01-14 10:40 · Score: 1
  
  That doesn't sound right to me, your movie would have to be about 90 GB (at 2 hours) to saturate that bandwidth. 100Mb/s*7200s /8[b/B] =90GB. Am I missing something?
  
  --
  horror vacui
6. Re: Hope it has GigE. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 11:30 · Score: 0
  
  That's weird, my e-450 laptop is also only 1.66ghz. I only have problems watching movies over wifi if it's congested. Also, this thing plays Rocksmith just fine even though it's minimum requirement is like 3.2ghz. WTF did they just guess?
  Hmmm, do you have any older b or g wifi things? They will make your n wifi go down to their speed when they are on.
7. Re:Hope it has GigE. by jiriw · 2015-01-14 12:03 · Score: 1
  
  Probably a combination of:
  1) High bandwidth consuming action scenes (actual bandwidth demand can fluctuate quite a lot over the runtime of a movie)
  2) Not enough buffering (I guess that primarily depends on the media playing software)
  3) Congestion on the WiFi channel (neighbour(s) also streaming video... and even if you can't find another SSID doesn't mean there isn't another non-WiFi appliance or a 'silent' WiFi using that bandwith and your access point has to 'packet switch' around the nuisance... )
  Never choose WiFi over wired unless you really (it's less reliable), really (it's less secure), really (it consumes limited resources) have to.
8. Re:Hope it has GigE. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 12:38 · Score: 0
  
  You're missing two points:
  First, your math assumes a perfect connection with a no-overhead protocol. A more realistic conversion from bits-per-second to bytes-per-second is to divide by 10.
  Second, playing video is a situation where you need a smooth transfer of data. The Blu-Ray spec allows data rates as high as 6.75 Mbytes/sec, so a 10 Mbyte/sec connection doesn't have a lot of room to work with if you're trying to play a non-transcoded movie.
9. Re: Hope it has GigE. by Mal-2 · 2015-01-14 13:29 · Score: 1
  
  Hmmm, do you have any older b or g wifi things? They will make your n wifi go down to their speed when they are on.
  Yes. That's probably the problem. Still, if it's that simple to shit on an entire n network, this thing had best have a decent wired connection available.
  
  --
  How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
10. Re:Hope it has GigE. by drinkypoo · 2015-01-14 15:08 · Score: 1
  
  Second, playing video is a situation where you need a smooth transfer of data.
  Or a nice fat buffer. These days, ram is cheap. A lot of programs refuse to buffer enough to help, though
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
11. Re:Hope it has GigE. by Tough+Love · 2015-01-14 16:54 · Score: 1
  
  A more realistic conversion from bits-per-second to bytes-per-second is to divide by 10.
  Not just realistic, but exactly correct, because 100 MHz ethernet uses a simple 8B/10B encoding, otherwise known as start and stop bits. FWIW, 10GigE uses 64B/66B encoding to claw back most of that 20% non-coding wastage.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
12. Re:Hope it has GigE. by thegarbz · 2015-01-14 17:57 · Score: 1
  
  Can you verify you're actively hitting the CPU for video decoding? Because that sounds very late 90s. My RPi can also easily keep up with 1080p video and has never once stuttered playing anything over a 100Mbps network despite it's horrendously specced CPU and RAM.
  Playing video is not a good indication of performance given how many SoCs simply do hardware decoding or otherwise accelerate video.
13. Re:Hope it has GigE. by ihtoit · 2015-01-14 18:06 · Score: 1
  
  it isn't the Toshiba in Monza Red from PC World (2011) is it?
  
  --
  Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
14. Re: Hope it has GigE. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 21:24 · Score: 0
  
  minimum requirement is probably minimum required Pentium 4, plus a bit extra so no one buys it and returns it claiming that it was supposed to run.
15. Re:Hope it has GigE. by Melkman · 2015-01-15 06:36 · Score: 1
  
  There is no 100MHz ethernet. There is 100Mbps ethernet that runs at 125MHz on copper with 4B/5B encoding (and MLT-3 to limit the bandwidth of the signal). The overhead is in ethernet and IP headers, preamble and interpacket gaps etc. Although the theoretical maximum efficiency for TCP on IP over ethernet with an IP MTU of 1500 is about 95% this is almost never reached due to latencies and suboptimal implementations etc. It's quite normal to get 90% maximum throughput in optimal situations.
Benchmarks for that AMD chip look bad... by JoeyRox · 2015-01-14 10:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

For example, the AMD E1 Micro-6200T in the Fitlet-B:
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cp...
1. Re:Benchmarks for that AMD chip look bad... by Rob+Riggs · 2015-01-14 10:40 · Score: 1
  
  Really? For 4W TDP? Versus the top tier Intel i7 @ 47W? It depends on what you are measuring.
  
  --
  the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
2. Re:Benchmarks for that AMD chip look bad... by Gaygirlie · 2015-01-14 11:05 · Score: 1
  
  Personally, I think it's actually pretty swell. I have a Core 2 Duo T7500 - laptop serving as a small-time server at home and compared to that this AMD E1 Micro-6200T provides 75% of the performance at ~11% power-consumption! Of course, compared to desktop CPUs it's going to suck ass, but hell, would it be fair to compare a Pinto to a Ferrari and complain about the performance?
3. Re:Benchmarks for that AMD chip look bad... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 11:05 · Score: 1
  
  Beaten by an 18 month old Intel part
  And the Intel chip is cheaper (contra revenue and such).
4. Re:Benchmarks for that AMD chip look bad... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 11:48 · Score: 0
  
  You are comparing a dual core CPU to a quad core CPU, and the test at cpubenchmark.net is highly multithreaded. Even so, the Micro-6200T is only about 10% slower, which implies a much better IPC. Here is a better comparison. The Micro-6400T is optional on this mini PC according to TFA and is a quad core part. It performs about 50% faster than the Atom and is 80% of the performance of a Celeron J1900 while using 40% of the power. That seems pretty good to me. Granted the new Broadwell Core Ms will be faster still with similar power usage, but those are also much more expensive.
5. Re:Benchmarks for that AMD chip look bad... by iamwhoiamtoday · 2015-01-14 11:55 · Score: 1
  
  But if the NICs are decent ones, and are able to offload most traffic, I'd love to use this for Untangle / PFSense / VMs and such.
  cpubenchmark shows this as being roughly 30% more powerful than the Intel D525's that I've been using for said task.
  Might even use it for XBMC / PLEX Home Theater.
6. Re:Benchmarks for that AMD chip look bad... by Rockoon · 2015-01-14 11:58 · Score: 1, Troll
  
  It will be slower and/or consume more energy than an Intel version
  Unlikely at the same total price point. That only happens in the $300+ area of the desktop space.
  
  The price of the Atoms people are comparing the E-series with doesn't include a GPU for the Atom... as if GPU's are magically free... dont use energy... conveniently ignored for the purpose of cheering on... shitty Atoms?
  
  --
  "His name was James Damore."
7. Re:Benchmarks for that AMD chip look bad... by SQL+Error · 2015-01-14 12:31 · Score: 1
  
  Check the single-threaded performance - AMD is 50% faster than Intel.
  (Not often you get to say that these days....)
8. Re:Benchmarks for that AMD chip look bad... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 12:37 · Score: 0
  
  Well, the Pinto sure performs better in exploding and at a lot less than half the price!
9. Re:Benchmarks for that AMD chip look bad... by Tough+Love · 2015-01-14 17:14 · Score: 1
  
  Really? For 4W TDP? Versus the top tier Intel i7 @ 47W? It depends on what you are measuring.
  I believe he is measuring dick length. For the rest of us, this is a more than capable processor and the GPU is the best in the business at that form factor. See, at this scale the name of the game is getting the most out of small number of transistors because there is only so much power you can dissipate from that little box into the surrounding slow moving air. Or to put it simple terms, sure, you can stuff an I7 into that box but it will burn a hole through your hand and set your stero cabinet on fire if it survives long enough.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
10. Re:Benchmarks for that AMD chip look bad... by Tough+Love · 2015-01-14 17:29 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Intel is two generations ahead on semiconductor process technology.
  One generation. Atom is at 22nm and AMD is at 28nm. When Atom goes to 14nm TSMC/AMD will be at 20nm. Intel could move it along a little faster if they really wanted but they won't because, firstly the shiny new tech always goes to the high end chips, and secondly, they fear cannibalizing their own markets.
  Another point: the generation advantage isn't what it used to be, remember when the speed would double and the cost would halve like clockwork? Those days are gone forever.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
11. Re:Benchmarks for that AMD chip look bad... by Tough+Love · 2015-01-14 17:34 · Score: 1
  
  I got burned twice believing Intel's crap that an Atom would be anything other than an electric hot plate chewing through my software at snail speed. Never again.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
12. Re:Benchmarks for that AMD chip look bad... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2015-01-14 18:12 · Score: 1
  
  Wrong part, perhaps?
  
  --
  Ezekiel 23:20
13. Re:Benchmarks for that AMD chip look bad... by steveha · 2015-01-14 18:36 · Score: 1
  
  remember when the speed would double and the cost would halve like clockwork? Those days are gone forever.
  True. If you buy AMD processors, you aren't getting the fastest possible, but they will still be plenty fast enough. I built my wife's computer with an AMD FX-8350 and she's very happy with it (and I want one for myself).
  And as I said, I would be happy to buy the tiny computer discussed in TFA. Sounds neat. (I'd also be happy to buy a tiny computer based on an ARM chip, but I'd rather have full Linux than just ChromeOS so I probably won't buy a "ChromeBox".)
  
  --
  lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
14. Re:Benchmarks for that AMD chip look bad... by steveha · 2015-01-14 18:43 · Score: 1
  
  Huh, I didn't think that was a troll when I wrote it. But it has been modded as Troll twice now.
  Well, I really do prefer to give my money to AMD and I really would buy the fanless mini-PC in TFA.
  
  --
  lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
15. Re:Benchmarks for that AMD chip look bad... by Tough+Love · 2015-01-14 19:02 · Score: 1
  
  I'd also be happy to buy a tiny computer based on an ARM chip, but I'd rather have full Linux than just ChromeOS so I probably won't buy a "ChromeBox".)
  Full Linux runs on ChromeThings with various degrees of hardware support. I would like that too, though keep in mind that once you start putting full scale application demands on an ARM it starts hitting a rather similar power envelope to AMD's APUs. The win for ARM is part costs... those things are produced on way huger scale than anything by AMD, and sell for way less than Intel can possibly afford (given that shareholders have become dependent on a certain level of monopoly-blessed income). And you get: gyros, GPS, accelerometer, MicroSD, etc. Because you know it is really a handset chipset.
  Actually, it's only a matter of time until PC chipsets get completely killed by handset chipsets coming complete with way more gizmos, costing next to nothing. But we're not there yet. In practice, if you want to run a desktop and not kill your eyes, wrists and neck, you are stuck with PC hardware.
  
  --
  When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Cablecard by sonicmerlin · 2015-01-14 10:15 · Score: 1

Can you connect a USB cablecard tuner to these things and use them to replace your cable company provided STB?
1. Re:Cablecard by silas_moeckel · 2015-01-14 10:35 · Score: 1
  
  Why bother? Put in something like a homerun and get multiple tuners serving the whole house.
  
  --
  No sir I dont like it.
2. Re:Cablecard by sonicmerlin · 2015-01-14 10:44 · Score: 1
  
  But the homerun needs to connect to a router or PC anyways.
Three times smaller!!! by RandomAdam · 2015-01-14 10:19 · Score: 2

What a crap way of saying a third of the the volume.

--
@Random_Adam

Sometimes a sig doesn't have to be funny!!
1. Re:Three times smaller!!! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2015-01-14 18:22 · Score: 1
  
  If something is three times larger, it's 4x the original size.
  I seriously hope you're only trolling...
  
  --
  Ezekiel 23:20
2. Re:Three times smaller!!! by preflex · 2015-01-16 10:32 · Score: 1
  
  Nope. I'm not trolling. Like many people you're taking a wrong turn at the intersection of English Language and Arithmetic.
  That's why it's such an awful way of representing the idea. It's confusing. You seem like a reasonably smart person, and it even confused you.
  "a volume N times larger" and "N times the volume" are not the same thing.
  It's easy to understand when you consider the domain 0 = N =1
  For "N times the volume" use N x V = VN
  This is simple and straightforward. "This object is twice as big as that object"
  My dog (Da) is twice the size of your dog (Db): Da x 2 = 2Da = Db
  My dog is 50% (0.5x) the size of your dog: Db x 0.5 = 0.5Db = Da
  For "a volume N times larger" use N + (N x V) = (N+1) x V
  My dog is two times bigger than your dog: Da + Da x 2 = 3Da = Db
  My dog is 50% larger than your dog: Da + Da x 0.5 = 1.5Da = Db
  Notice the HUGE difference in meaning between "50% the size of" and "50% larger"
  In this context, the difference is a whole dog.
  What happens when N = 0? When N = 1
  (At this point, it should be obvious how wrong you are)
  Thus, for "a volume N times smaller" use V / (N + 1)
  Your dog is 3 times smaller than my dog: Da / ( 3 + 1) = Da/4 = Db
  Downmodded as a troll for being right. *sigh*
3. Re:Three times smaller!!! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2015-01-16 14:04 · Score: 1
  
  Except that a mere cursory research in the OED shows you're historically wrong. Even as a foreigner, I've never glimpsed as much a hint that "times" could refer to anything else than simple multiplication (which is definitely the case for my related Indo-European native tongue), leading me to the conclusion that this mental gymnastics of yours is an arithmetic foray into what linguists call "hypercorrection": a well-meaning and seemingly logical effort that ultimately turns out wrong.
  As for your "What happens when N = 0? When N = 1", the answer seems rather obvious: since this usage is artificial, these cases can be hardly used in this argumentaiton. Word usage isn't group theory, so these corner cases are irrelevant. Instead of "one times larger", you just say "as large as" and are done with it. Nobody says "one times larger" because nobody needs to. Again, in my Slavic native tongue, that's how it works, which is why nobody bothers to exercise corner cases.
  
  --
  Ezekiel 23:20
4. Re:Three times smaller!!! by preflex · 2015-01-17 03:05 · Score: 1
  
  "Times" does only indicate simple multiplication. It's the comparative element: "bigger than" that is the source of the confusion. "Times bigger than" does not represent the proportion of the size of object A to object B, it represents the proportion of object A to the difference between object A and object B.
5. Re:Three times smaller!!! by preflex · 2015-01-17 03:44 · Score: 1
  
  "If I type this sentence two more times, how many times will I have typed it when I am finished?"
  Well, so far, I've typed it once.
  "If I type this sentence two more times, how many times will I have typed it when I am finished?"
  Well I typed it one more time! I have typed it twice!
  "If I type this sentence two more times, how many times will I have typed it when I am finished?"
  Now i have typed it two more times! I have typed it three times!
  Get it?
6. Re:Three times smaller!!! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2015-01-17 04:09 · Score: 1
  
  As I said, the historical development of the language disagrees with your artificial constructs.
  
  --
  Ezekiel 23:20
7. Re:Three times smaller!!! by preflex · 2015-01-17 04:19 · Score: 1
  
  My dog is 150 cm long. Your dog is 50 cm long.
  The length of my dog is three times the length of your dog.
  My dog is 100 cm longer than your dog.
  My dog is (2 x 50) cm longer than your dog.
  My dog is two times [your dog's length] longer than your dog [is long].
8. Re:Three times smaller!!! by preflex · 2015-01-17 11:36 · Score: 1
  
  Nope. You're also wrong about the development of the language. Care to cite something?
  "He who bestows his goods upon the poor shall have as much again, and ten times more."
  John Bunyan (1626-1688).
  Goods + 10 x Goods = 11 x Goods
  This has not changed in the last 350 years.
  This document, titled "Common Errors in Forming Arithmetic Comparisons" might help. See "Seven Common Errors" number 6.
  
  Confusing ‘times as much’ with ‘times more than’: If B is three times as much as A, then B is two times more than A – not three times more than A. The essential feature is the difference is between ‘as much as’ and ‘more than.’ ‘As much as’ indicates a ratio; ‘more than’ indicates a difference. ‘More than’ means ‘added onto the base’. This essential difference is ignored by those who say that ‘times’ is dominant so that ‘three times as much’ is really the same as ‘three times more than.’
  Or how about this one, from The Economist magazine's style guide:
  
  Take care. Three times more than x means four times as much as x."
  Perhaps you might be interested in the style gude from the Institute of Physics.
  
  "Five times as much" does not mean the same as "five times more than" (i.e. six times as much) –the first is multiplicative, the second additive.
  English speakers really only started getting sloppy with this in the last 100 years or so.
  If you're wrong once, and then you're wrong two more times, how many total times are you wrong?
  At this point, it's pretty obvious that you are the troll.
9. Re:Three times smaller!!! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2015-01-18 01:12 · Score: 1
  
  "He who bestows his goods upon the poor shall have as much again, and ten times more." John Bunyan (1626-1688).
  Did you miss the "and" part in this particular quote? It's obvious that x + 10x = 11x. But since you're claiming that the "ten times more" part implies 11x, by your logic, the sentence actually should have meant x + (1 + 10)x = 12x, which for some reason you've declined to argue here. So apparently you don't believe that yourself.
  There's no "and" in Michael Faraday's [~1860]
  
  Aluminium is 2 1/2 times heavier than water
  and you won't be able to argue that aluminium actually has a density of ~3.5 g/cm^3. Neither will you be able to argue that Gregory's Handbook of inorganic chemistry claiming
  
  1 atom of oxygen will be eight times heavier than 1 atom of hydrogen
  actually talks about a weight ratio of 9:1. (There's an obvious mistake in this passage that actually refers to stoichiometric mass ratios, but this has no bearing on the issue at hand.)
  
  English speakers really only started getting sloppy with this in the last 100 years or so.
  Which could easily be a neat explanation of your recent quotes. Hypercorrection and all that jazz. Especially considering that, as I said, you won't find this in related IE languages.
  
  --
  Ezekiel 23:20
10. Re:Three times smaller!!! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2015-01-18 01:18 · Score: 1
  
  I pity you for not understanding just how much this is unrelated. But then again, most people have a poor grasp of how language works and evolves, even in my country.
  
  --
  Ezekiel 23:20
11. Re:Three times smaller!!! by preflex · 2015-01-18 08:10 · Score: 1
  
  ... as I said, you won't find this in related IE languages.
  Bullshit.
  Here is someone explaining exactly the same thing in German.
  Here is the same idea in Russian.
12. Re:Three times smaller!!! by RandomAdam · 2015-01-19 15:27 · Score: 1
  
  Well since I read TFA the volumes in question were 0.66 l and 0.22 l; clearly 0.22 is 1/3 as much as 0.66. Obviously the authors of the original article equate "times smaller" to "divided by". Hence my issue with the whole way "times smaller" is used; instead of "is a third of the size".
  
  Gah, I'm over it now.
  
  --
  @Random_Adam
  
  Sometimes a sig doesn't have to be funny!!
Crappy site by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 10:19 · Score: 0

They don't even provide an obvious link to the actual manufacturer, instead stuffing the page with embedded links to their own site.
http://www.fit-pc.com/web/products/fitlet/
Eh. I'll wait for the numbers. by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 10:21 · Score: 0

Show me prices and benchmarks, less fluff.
Intel's latest offerings are disgustingly efficient and that's what maters in an ultra-compact machine. Your ultimate constraint is the thermal budget and performance-per-watt is the king.
Intel's baytrail enabled fanless tablet computers that run full fat windows 8.1. (No bullshit tablets either. USB charging, touch screen, completely fanless. Literal tablets)
Braswell is around the corner and will push the power requirements down even further. I seriously doubt AMD or even ARM based solutions will be able to touch a Braswell based mini PC.
3 Times Smaller by sexconker · 2015-01-14 10:26 · Score: 1

It takes up negative 2 times as much space as the Intel NUC?!
1. Re:3 Times Smaller by aardvarkjoe · 2015-01-14 10:31 · Score: 1
  
  Nah, you're doing the marketing math wrong.
  If product A is 99% the size of product B, then A is smaller than B.
  Therefore, if product C is 97% the size of product B, C is "three times smaller" than B.
  
  --
  
  How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
2. Re:3 Times Smaller by Blaskowicz · 2015-01-14 14:49 · Score: 1
  
  I like that "three times smaller" assumes multiplication is the operation we're talking about, and having "smaller" instead of "bigger" means we should use the inverse operation of multiplication, not the inverse operation of addition. So, casual language is geekier than you.
  If people understood that more often, they would multiply percentages together when appropriate instead of mistakenly (and nonsensically) adding them.
3. Re:3 Times Smaller by sexconker · 2015-01-15 06:40 · Score: 1
  
  There's no assuming - it's directly stated with the word "times".
  You use multiplication for the magnitude of the difference because the given measurement ("times") is relative to some other thing.
  "A is 3 cubic inches bigger than B" means you use 3 cubic inches.
  "A is 3 times B bigger than B" means you use 3 times the size of B.
  "A is 3 times bigger than B" also means you use 3 times the size of B.
  You do nothing if the comparison is equality:
  A is Y times as big as B.
  A is as big as (Y) Bs.
  A is Y times as small as B.
  A is as small as (Y) Bs.
  Big and small are relative terms, but within any given context big > small, and bigger represents an increase while smaller represents a decrease.
  You use addition or subtraction for the direction (sign) of the difference otherwise.
  A is Y times bigger than B.
  A is as big as B plus Y Bs.
  A is as big as (1+Y) Bs.
  A is Y times smaller than B.
  A is as small as B minus Y Bs.
  A is as small as (1-Y) Bs.
A very sexy router-NAS by Dr.+Spork · 2015-01-14 10:36 · Score: 1

I'm sure the lowest-spec version with the four extra gig-E ports would be more than adequate. Consumer routers sometimes cost more, but they don't have SATA and their USB throughput suuucks.
The competition by Ceriel+Nosforit · 2015-01-14 10:38 · Score: 1

"1.7GHz Exynos4412 Prime Cortex-A9 Quad-core processor with PoP (Package on Package) 2Gbyte LPDDR2 880Mega Data Rate"
$65.00
- http://www.hardkernel.com/main...

--
All rites reversed 2010
1. Re:The competition by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 10:49 · Score: 0
  
  That doesn't have Gbit Ethernet.
2. Re:The competition by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 11:09 · Score: 0
  
  Bad/closed/non-existant driver support pretty much nixes the usefulness of these mystery-meat ARM based SoC mini-computers.
  They pretty much only work well with the mystery build of Android or linux distro they ship with. And even then "well" is subjective.
  The nice thing about x64 based AMD and Intel offerings is that they will run windows and all of the most popular distros right out of the box. And will continue to do so in to the future, updates and all.
3. Re:The competition by Sowelu · 2015-01-14 11:11 · Score: 1
  
  Lack of a case makes it a poor comparison. Sure, if you're in the mood to DIY things, maybe even trivially, it works. But the Fitlet is "buy and then place on a shelf". When prices are this low, the time and effort and money to find or make a case that'll fit this other thing is actually pretty significant relative to the final cost.
4. Re:The competition by quenda · 2015-01-14 12:06 · Score: 1
  
  ASUS Chromebox $160, has been $120 complete.
  Fanless, 2GB (+ vacant slot), 16GB SSD, 4xusb3, Gig-E, display-port, wifi, BT ...
  Only thing missing is s/pdif.
  Might be a subsidy from Google. Sells with Chrome-OS but freely unlockable.
5. Re:The competition by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-15 04:12 · Score: 0
  
  Yep. Just bought one off newegg for $140. Unlocking means removing a "write-protect screw" on the motherboard and flashing a new SeaBIOS, a bit annoying but mostly painless. Using it for a music server and so far it has performed flawlessly.
6. Re:The competition by quenda · 2015-01-15 13:22 · Score: 1
  
  Just enabling "developer mode" is enough to get root access and install a full linux environment.
7. Re:The competition by bensch128 · 2015-01-18 21:43 · Score: 1
  
  Hardkernel.com (or ameridroid.com) sell cases for it.
  Its a awesome little piece of hardware.
  And the xu3-lite is $79 + $25 for the eMMC module.
I;m buying a dozen by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 10:41 · Score: 0

I'm going to buy a dozen as soon as they reach 4
million sold.
Equally tiny UPS? by Sowelu · 2015-01-14 10:49 · Score: 1

I really want one of these things, or something similar sized, for a tiny home server. The only issue I have with running a home server is that, with home renovations, we need to kill the power for a couple minutes now and then and I'd love to not have to shut down the server every single time...same with relocating it to a different shelf. Could someone recommend a tiny UPS suitable for these mini-servers, with lifetime in the neighborhood of an hour?
1. Re:Equally tiny UPS? by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-14 11:11 · Score: 0
  
  Not really. There was a kickstarter called PiUPS which was basically 3 rechargeable batteries connected to the Pi or similar low-TPD device, but I'm not sure where it's at with production.
  Maybe just get a cart with wheels that you can put an actual UPS on (and hidden on the lower shelf or something) so that when you need to move stuff around or cut power, you're devices aren't impacted. Lots of nice-looking options and styles out there.
2. Re:Equally tiny UPS? by Sowelu · 2015-01-14 11:30 · Score: 1
  
  My feelings towards big UPSes is that the battery only lasts a couple years, and costs a ton to replace. PiUPS looks pretty cool aside from the part where it only supplies enough power to run a Pi, so we'll see... ..."Input range — 10 to 15V DC"
  Worth a look to see if I can get that out of it. Running on AAs is fine, especially given that I'm not actually too concerned about power surges or neighborhood outages. It's really just for planned outages in my use case, so "put a couple batteries in, unplug from wall, move, plug back in" is pretty darn close to ideal. I'll investigate if this'll do the job, thanks!
3. Re:Equally tiny UPS? by mrchaotica · 2015-01-14 11:45 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sure somebody could recommend a normal-size UPS with uptime much greater than an hour (even when running this as a server, plus your router, plus your cable/dsl modem), which seems better to me.
  
  --
  "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
4. Re:Equally tiny UPS? by Sowelu · 2015-01-14 11:57 · Score: 1
  
  Way overkill. UPSes are expensive to maintain if you need to replace a car battery every few years, they're very bulky which ruins the point of a tiny server that sits on a bookshelf, and they don't solve my problem of "I'd like to move it to a different shelf without losing power" unless I want to get a few people to carry around the UPS + everything attached to it. From my experience with large UPSes, just replacing batteries will cost more over the life of this machine than the computer would. I don't need to keep my internet online either--it'll come back up on its own when the power comes back on; for a home server I need to gently shut it down and bring it back online. I guess what I really want is a laptop...only with no keyboard or monitor. Surely there is a small portable laptop-battery kind of thing for machines without one, that you can put inline with the power cord...
5. Re:Equally tiny UPS? by kamapuaa · 2015-01-14 12:13 · Score: 2
  
  Get a tiny $200 fanless laptop.
  
  --
  Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
6. Re:Equally tiny UPS? by aXis100 · 2015-01-14 12:50 · Score: 1
  
  These low power PC's are opening up new opportunities for UPS's, namely that they all run off low voltage DC (nominally 12V) and open up the possability of a 12V UPS. It saves on the inverter required in the UPS, and increases the overall efficiency.
  For a device like this with a variable input voltage you can run it directly from a 12V SLA battery, and then keep the battery topped up with a decent mains charger rated to higher power than the PC. You can generally do the same thing with access points and 12V network switches, and any 5V devices can be run from a $5 step down DC-DC converter.
  The only problem I've had with this method is 3.5inch USB Hard Drives, as they usually require a well regulated 12V supply. For those I bought a fancier buck-boost DC-DC converter, they were a little pricier and harder for find than, but still quite reasonable.
  In the end you may have 30W worth of devices hanging from the SLA batteries, then just buy a multistage charger rated to the next higher power - eg 30W = approx 2.5A @ 12V, so get a 3 or 4amp charger. You can expand to as many parallel as you like, all it does is slow down the recharge time.
7. Re:Equally tiny UPS? by aaarrrgggh · 2015-01-14 16:44 · Score: 1
  
  Closest product I have seen is a href="http://www.mini-box.com/picoUPS-100-12V-DC-micro-UPS-system-battery-backup-system">PicoUPS. Takes a 12v battery and maintains a constant DX output. With a standard 9Ah battery you could run most small devices for at least 8 hours.
  Personally surprised that there aren't any 12V power supplies that can provide 3-4 regulted 2A outputs. Eliminate multiple wall warts and give yourself battery backup as well. I would love to have all the home networking gear and a NAS in one box with backup power. If you really want to get fancy, you could even have adjustable outputs.
8. Re:Equally tiny UPS? by DNS-and-BIND · 2015-01-14 19:21 · Score: 1
  
  UPS isn't really supposed to be a battery backup for long outages. For that you'd want a generator. The purpose of a UPS is to give you enough time to shut the system down in an orderly fashion. Also to gloss over momentary outages.
  
  --
  Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
9. Re:Equally tiny UPS? by Neil+Boekend · 2015-01-14 20:26 · Score: 1
  
  I haven't got an advice on what to buy. I do have an advice on what not to buy.
  Don't trust a Trust
  I have one. It is too slow. If I use it as an UPS and pull the wall plug the computer first shuts down due to power loss and then the UPS comes up and I can immediately restart my PC without putting the plug back in the wall.
  It drops the power long enough to kill the PC. How can they not have detected that during testing?
  It is useful for some other use cases, but not as an UPS. Just as an easy 240V power supply.
  
  --
  Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
10. Re:Equally tiny UPS? by goarilla · 2015-01-15 00:39 · Score: 1
  
  I second this Trust is not to be trusted. All their gear is defective and low quality.
11. Re:Equally tiny UPS? by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · 2015-01-15 02:11 · Score: 1
  
  Look into using a voltage regulator like these. I power my two RPis using them and since they have such a large input voltage range I can use lots of things to power them. I frequently use an old car battery to power one as a base station and an old laptop battery pack to power a mobile roving one (I do this when mapping trails). These regulator a fairly efficient and seem to be dead on accurate in their voltage.
  
  --
  Time to offend someone
12. Re:Equally tiny UPS? by denis-The-menace · 2015-01-16 06:48 · Score: 1
  
  this links might work better in some places:
  http://www.mini-box.com.au/sea...
  IMHO: All computer power supplies should offer a battery connection. Google does it for their custom in-house servers.
  https://www.google.ca/search?q...
  
  --
  Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Goddamnit ... by thomst · 2015-01-14 10:54 · Score: 3, Interesting

<RANT=ON>
... I simply DESPISE the locultion "(x) times smaller than." It's lazy, stupid writing, and it needs to die in a fire.
The proper way to phrase the concept would be "(suitable fraction) of the size of", as in "one third the size of".
<RANT=OFF>

--
Check out my novel.
1. Re:Goddamnit ... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-16 01:41 · Score: 0
  
  You understand fractions but have trouble with reciprocals? Weird.
With name like "MintBox" by chispito · 2015-01-14 11:40 · Score: 4, Funny

It if doesn't fit in an Altoids tin, I'm suing for false advertising.

--
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Network appliance by pak9rabid · 2015-01-14 11:51 · Score: 1

These make nice network applicances. I just set one of these up as my new router/firewall/AP. They're pretty solid. Load your OS of choice and start having fun. For me that's Voyage Linux.
How to choose a UPS by steveha · 2015-01-14 11:58 · Score: 1

My feelings towards big UPSes is that the battery only lasts a couple years, and costs a ton to replace.
Just make sure to buy a UPS that takes a standard battery. All my UPSes will accept a standard 12V 9ah battery (search for "UB1290") which you can get for $20 or less. I bought a six-pack from Amazon for $100 or so.
It pays to buy a decent UPS with decent status reporting. I have some old ones that I bought cheaper, and they don't report how loaded they are (they have a single "overloaded" light that lights and another single "battery problem" light). My better ones have a little bar graph for how loaded the UPS is, and another bar graph for how charged it is, plus various status lights.
My old UPSes can report status through a serial port, but my newer ones can report through USB. Again, do your homework: some UPSes use a wacky undocumented proprietary protocol, while others are just plug-and-work under Linux. (But I haven't spent any time messing with this yet.)
Also, when your UPS goes into battery fail, replace the battery right away. If you leave the battery too long, it can cook, swell up (from expanding gases I guess) and be difficult to remove from the UPS. <shifty_eyes>Not that I am speaking from experience..</shifty_eyes>

--
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
1. Re:How to choose a UPS by WuphonsReach · 2015-01-14 14:17 · Score: 1
  
  Any suggestions - ideally for models that let you lower the alert volume or disable the audible alert entirely? And have USB port protocols that work with Linux?
  
  --
  Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
2. Re:How to choose a UPS by ihtoit · 2015-01-14 18:04 · Score: 1
  
  sidecutters for the piezo sounder takes care of that annoying beep that wakes you up in the middle of the night when a tree takes the entire neighbourhood down.
  
  --
  Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Not really by drinkypoo · 2015-01-14 15:14 · Score: 1

the competition. costs $100, but it's a complete product and not a bare board. it's going to be superior in every other way, too.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
can I kill my Epia first, please? by ihtoit · 2015-01-14 18:00 · Score: 1

still got that thing, it's still trucking even after its third power supply and nth set of capacitors (why the fuck is it going through so many capacitors??), that titchy little fan is gone (finally burned out) so I chucked a 120mm on the back of the Shuttle XPC box it's in (had to take the hacksaw and the dremel to that to make the board fit), it's now practically silent.

--
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Support by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-15 00:14 · Score: 0

Before you dive in, check out the support on the user forums. It may or may not be as thorough as you'd like.