VIA EPIA CPUs + MOBOs --- anyone has any experience running linux & java?

[statik213]

Hi,
I've been looking into these ITX boards from VIA with the built-in VIA EDEN cpus. These are x86 based CPUs in the 0.8-1.3 GHz range. These are for embedded systems and feature packed. Take a lookie here (it's the dual processor version):

http://www.viaembedded.com/product/epia_dp_spec.jsp?motherboardId=321

Has anyone had any luck installing linux (any flavor) and running java on it? How do these things perform? They seem pretty sleek and would be perfect for my next project but I'm concerned about availability and support for linux.

 

[znaps]

I ran Slackware Linux and had Java 1.2 installed on it a few years ago. You should have no problems.

 

[statik213]

How did it perform? Was it comparable to an athlon/pentium at similiar clock speeds?
Did you have a lot of difficulties getting applications to compile on it? Most i386 packages should work, but there are always those nasty surprises.

 

[stevf]

I have an older EPIA 800 board, currently running Ubuntu, but also have loaded SUSE 8.0 in the past and I played with FreeBSD for a bit too - all run fine. Performance is indeed equal to a AMD/Intel chip of same speed for most things unless you do lots of floating point. The older ones ran the FPU at 1/4 speed (if I remember correctly) and I can attest to that with mine - When I ran Seti units on it, it performed a bit faster than a PII/233. They have improved the FPU a lot on the newer units but I dont have any experience with those yet.

linitx.org and mini-itx.com are some good sources of info. I think you will be happy with one if you understand what they are.

Steve

 

[imported_Kensai]

I had a mini-itx system that I stuck in a lunchbox for fun and brought it with me. It worked fine.

 

[statik213]

Wow, that sounds pretty good.....

Well, looks like I'll need to get one of these babies and try it out for myself.

BTW do applications packaged as standard i386 rpm binaries install fine on these machine?

 

[stevf]

Forgot to mention that i386 works fine, i486 is safe too and prefered. You can use i586, but there is one or two functions that arent enabled, cant remember which ones they are though

 

[piasabird]

I had an EPIA 800Mhz and it ran quite a bit slower than say a P4 1.8G or an Athlon XP2400.

Most peope do not buy these boards for their stellar processing power or speed. However a lot of Linux people have been using them for different purposes. There is a wide range of Mini-ITX MB's, with different features like dual Ethernet, Flash Card and card bus, and other features. A lot of people are using them for different purposes like MYTH TV boxes, File Servers, Backup Units, General Computing etc.

I used one for a while so I know you have to look for what is available. Some boards have only one IDE port, or possibly SATA. Some have a floppy and some do not. Usually they have only one DDR Memory slot so you have to be selective in the hardware you use. That is the case with all LINUX System.

 

[statik213]

Well, these board should fit our needs. We want to interface a java application to a custom built measurement device thru the COM part. The machine doesn't need to be powerful.

Thanks to all for your input...

 

[thunderroller]

linux would run fine on it

 

[kami333]

Originally posted by: statik213
Well, these board should fit our needs. We want to interface a java application to a custom built measurement device thru the COM part. The machine doesn't need to be powerful.

Thanks to all for your input...

That's what my dad uses them for at work, he has about 10 of them hooked up to various instruments for data collection and interfacing, which he uses for medical simulations.