[conspire] Reminder: CABAL this Saturday, Oct. 21st

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Daniel Gimpelevich (daniel at gimpelevich.san-francisco.ca.us):

> On Thu, 19 Oct 2017 01:37:19 -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
> 
> > I also have a new little Linux box to play with, a mini-PC Zotac.
> 
> This was of particular interest to me as a possible alternative gigabit
> gateway.[0] What I hoped to compare it to is the PCEngines APU series.[1]
> At first, it[2] seemed like a contender. Disappointing:

Nice work with that comparison.  For a _router_, I would totally trust
and prefer PC Engines's apu2 series.  The parts selection is extremely
sound as you point out (e.g., the AMD Jaguar core APU, and the Intel NICs
as opposed to Realtek), and you even get Coreboot.  For general
computing purposes, I liked the fact that I can cheaply upgrade the
Zotac to 16GB RAM for $114 off Ebay[1] ('buy it now' price).  For now,
that RAM (2 x 8GB 1600MHz 204pin dimm DDR3 SODIMM) does not yet appear
to be a speciality item.  

Being able to max out to a high amount of RAM seems like good
future-proofing and permitting interesting tricks with hypervisors, 
or at least that's my hunch.  I've looked over the PC Engines apu2
boards & kits before and respect them highly, but 4GB of DDR3-1333 is
all they support -- which is totally fine for a router.

Zotac's price was low because it was for a refurbished unit (and, I have
no doubt, a model no longer otherwise offered).  I jumped on that
because $125 was below my impulse threshold for this class of box.  ;->
(I'm pretty sure they had only one refurb unit.)

At the time of order, I could not determine from online information what
NIC type they had.  I figured if I were lucky, it would be Intel.  If
not and Zotec was predictably cheap, it'd be Realtek.  ;->  (I knew they
weren't _totally_ Linux-hostile with NIC selection, because they offer
preloaded Linux Mint 17.)  As I said, I really respect PC Engines's
parts selection.

One _pleasant_ surprise with the Zotac.  Online information about the
RAM said only that it had 4GB.  My assumption was that would be in the
form of a pair of 2GB sticks occupying both of the SODIMM slots (because
people tend to be stupid and use low-density RAM, which later ends up in
a drawer when they remove it and swich to higher-density.  But to my
surprise, this is a 4GB stick, ergo I can upgrade the unit to 12GB total
RAM for $59 if I wish ('buy it now' price)[2].

Anyway, Zotac has interesting _current_ production, too, but I wouldn't
expect that $125 price mark for new-in-box units.  And never PC Engine's 
superb quality.


[1] https://www.ebay.com/itm/16GB-2X8GB-Memory-RAM-4-ZOTAC-ZBOX-CI321NANO-P-ZBOX-CI523-P-ZBOX-CI543-A7-/282381213290?hash=item41bf3b5e6a:g:E~sAAOSwXYtYuLdL

[2] https://www.ebay.com/itm/8GB-1X8GB-Memory-RAM-4-ZOTAC-ZBOX-CI321NANO-P-ZBOX-CI523-P-ZBOX-CI543-A8-/282381212818?hash=item41bf3b5c92:g:XL8AAOSwXYtYuLI~