[conspire] Re: conspire Digest, Vol 19, Issue 11

[Ross Bernheim]

On Saturday, December 18, 2004, at 05:35 PM, 
conspire-request at linuxmafia.com wrote:

> People,
>
> Is anyone here into the Mini-ITX game?
>
> o   Some Cabalists or linux-consultants folks seem to like Leadman. 
> Why?
>     For what? For their cases or for their motherboards? Their prices
>     don't seem exceptionally good, at first glance.
>
> o   Is any one VIA motherboard preferred over another, for Linux?
>         I envision using a couple of these as mobile development plat-
>     forms, perhaps taking and leaving one overnight at a client site
>     (rather than schlep to and from work every day) where I can use it
>     as an X terminal and as personal file storage and possibly also as
>     emulation host, using VMware.
>         I also like the idea of having a couple of small (not too 
> power-
>     hungry) boxes on hand that don't take up much space that I can e.g.
>     try out Solaris 10 or NetBSD 2.0 or some other flavor of Linux on.
>
> o   Are there any preferred cube-style case manufacturers?
>     I like the cube-style cases such as Leadman's:
>         Casetronic 2215 Mini-ITX Aluminum Cube Case
>         http://www.leadman.com/products/item.cfm?prodcd=HMICC2215S
>     because I needn't use half-height cards, slim CD/DVD-ROM drives, or
>     other than full-size hard disks. Also, I hold a bit of skepticism
>     about the really low-profile boxes, worrying that there's not 
> enough
>     clearance and air circulation to keep the components cool enough,
>     over their lifetime.
>
> Cheers,
> Eric

I just put together a Shuttle based system with one of their 
case/motherboard
  combinations and an Ahtelon 64 3000+. I added a half gig of ram and an
inexpensive video card, ATI, as well as a DVD ROM reader/CD writer and a
hard disk drive. I was quite impressed with the attention to detail in 
this system.
The cpu cooling uses a heat pipe to bring the heat up off the 
motherboard on the
bottom of the case to a large finned heat sink and a large temperature 
controlled
quiet fan. Boots Knotix from the CD fine. I am going to install Kanotix 
on a series
of partitions beyond the main Windows XP partition using Grub as the 
bootloader.

I assembled the system at home and took it in to work the other day and 
then
brought it home the other night to install linux. It is very small and 
convenient to
transport. I could get a travel case for it if I were moving it around 
on a regular
basis.

Ross