Hi all,
I picked up this motherboard/CPU combination from Fry's a couple weeks ago and figured I'd post my experiences with it so far since there seems to be very little discussion about these little systems.
I got the model with the 800Mhz C3 chip and stuck it in an old InWin midtower since I haven't been able to decide on a small case yet. I bought this thing to replace a full system that's been sharing my cable modem via Linux for the past few years (ie power bill is too high and I'm trying to cut down on usage 🙂). The motherboard is amazingly small. I only added 128MB of generic PC133 RAM, an old 13GB hard drive, and a Realtek 8139C based NIC that happens to be low profile if you remove the bracket.
I installed Gentoo Linux on it and had some problems getting it to compile as a 686 CPU so had to choose 586 CPU optimizations. The system boots up fast, and so far is acting as an IP Masquerading box, SSH/sftp server, DNS server, time server, and of course as a firewall. This thing has more than enough CPU to do all those things without hurting. I haven't tested sound at all, and the onboard video has been fine but I've only been using it in console/text mode. The onboard NIC works great once you compile the Via Rhine module into the kernel (the Gentoo 1.2 install CD detects it properly).
Basically for $114 + some old hardware I had lying unused I got a system that seems to fit perfectly as a home router and takes very little power. It still uses more than a Dlink, Netgear, or Linksys router would but the customizability of Linux far outweighs the somewhat less power usage imho.
Anyone else have one of these boards? I found www.mini-itx.com and Via Hardware's SFF and Quiet PCs forum to be great sources of info on these systems.
Gaidin
I picked up this motherboard/CPU combination from Fry's a couple weeks ago and figured I'd post my experiences with it so far since there seems to be very little discussion about these little systems.
I got the model with the 800Mhz C3 chip and stuck it in an old InWin midtower since I haven't been able to decide on a small case yet. I bought this thing to replace a full system that's been sharing my cable modem via Linux for the past few years (ie power bill is too high and I'm trying to cut down on usage 🙂). The motherboard is amazingly small. I only added 128MB of generic PC133 RAM, an old 13GB hard drive, and a Realtek 8139C based NIC that happens to be low profile if you remove the bracket.
I installed Gentoo Linux on it and had some problems getting it to compile as a 686 CPU so had to choose 586 CPU optimizations. The system boots up fast, and so far is acting as an IP Masquerading box, SSH/sftp server, DNS server, time server, and of course as a firewall. This thing has more than enough CPU to do all those things without hurting. I haven't tested sound at all, and the onboard video has been fine but I've only been using it in console/text mode. The onboard NIC works great once you compile the Via Rhine module into the kernel (the Gentoo 1.2 install CD detects it properly).
Basically for $114 + some old hardware I had lying unused I got a system that seems to fit perfectly as a home router and takes very little power. It still uses more than a Dlink, Netgear, or Linksys router would but the customizability of Linux far outweighs the somewhat less power usage imho.
Anyone else have one of these boards? I found www.mini-itx.com and Via Hardware's SFF and Quiet PCs forum to be great sources of info on these systems.
Gaidin
