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New Tiny Silent Linux PC

automatedhome.co.uk — the Linutop is a new completely silent, low-power, disk-less PC that runs Xubuntu from a USB stick...

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  • schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -45/+25To put things in perspective, a full-sized PC with better specs is available for less money. The Linutop would make a great desktop for users who do very rudimentary stuff... or thin clients where space is a concern.
    • Schitzmepantz, on 10/12/2007, -20/+69Thanks Captain Obvious!
    • glasgowm, on 10/12/2007, -35/+6For an extra $200 you could get a Mac Mini,

      Which has...Bluetooth,Wifi, 1.6Ghz Processor, 60GB Hard-Drive, 512MB Memory and a CD-RW. Ability to run Windows, Linux, or Mac OSX

      Not to mention a bunch of other stuff. Marked as lame.
    • habbofresh, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13@jbarnett

      you're looking for edgeaccess :http://www.edgeaccess.net/products.html

      @glasgowm

      don't be a mac douche.
    • atbrask, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0@jbarnett

      Here you go: http://www.soekris.com/net4801.htm
    • UnstableMind, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5www.mini-box.com is where I get alot of my Mini-ITX/Nano-ITX stuff from.

      Sure you could get a better machine for the same price, but what you pay for here is the small footprint. I can stick this where you can't stick a "regular" machine. Not to mention the fanless ones that make NO sound. Makes a great frontend as a HTPC for MythTV.

      @jbarnett
      Jetway makes a cheap mini-itx board with an expansion card of 3 NICs, giving a total of 4 for a good firwall/router for MonoWall. Also some VIA EPIA boards have dual NICs.
    • Schatzowitz, on 10/12/2007, -9/+0Schestowitz got my digg account closed. Can't handle criticism I suppose. I guess we can add delusions of grandeur to your current paranoia.

      http://www.digg.com/software/Microsoft_hires_standards_expert_to_work_on_Wikipedia_entry_on_ODF_OOXML#c4871909
    • fmaxwell, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6@schestowitz
      > To put things in perspective, a full-sized PC with better specs is available for less money.

      In other news, desktop computers cost less than laptop computers of equivalent performance.

      Is the full-sized PC silent? Is it low-power? Can you easily slip it into a book bag? Can you

      > The Linutop would make a great desktop for users who do very rudimentary stuff...

      You seem to be mistaking playing video games and ripping DVDs with doing sophisticated things. Some of the greatest scientific studies ever undertaken were done on mainframes that didn't have even 1/10th of the computing power of this little box. The Apollo engineers would have killed for a box like this rather than the 70lb. Apollo Guidance Computer that weighed 70lbs, had 2K of RAM, 36K of ROM, and no disk drive. Want to tell them that what they accomplished was "rudimentary"?

      > or thin clients where space is a concern.

      Or embedded systems (e.g. GPS navigation and tracking, automated test and measurement, battery charging, conditioning, and maintenance, etc.). Or it might be ideal for use as a low-volume web or FTP server. Since 4 and 8GB USB memory sticks are available, there is more than enough storage on one of them for the OS and a substantial web site or file repository.

      You need to consider what a device like this can do rather than comparing it to a desktop PC.
    • JimV, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6If you follow the blogspam trail, you can find Linutop's website:

      http://www.linutop.com/

    • mlwarrior, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@ naysayers
      combine this with google docs and ssh (for when you need POWAH!), and you have yourself the wave of the future.

    • jadenguy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1don't forget silent hard drive enclosures can be connected via usb. that way you can also make it an nas or ftp fileserver and maintain the silence, or even just capture more video as a mythbox.
    • Darkkish, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Haha you're all digging up the same guy you dug down.
  • bestadvocate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8 I was going to buy one for my kitchen, but I would need to buy an external wireless device and more importantly, no sales to the United States. Here is the sales link for those in the EU http://www.linutop.com/
  • chingy1788, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3how about a budget laptop?
    • RedLion, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5yes, 230£ seems a bit too much
      you can buy an used laptop on ebay for all that money
    • geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18$370 dollars for a machine that is basically the Children's Machine (or whatever the hell they're calling it these days) without a monitor. It doesn't even have an integrated Flash chip for the OS, it has to ship with a USB key. It also doesn't have WiFi, or Bluetooth, or hardly any other features I was hoping it might ship with.

      I had high hopes for this company but this pretty much dashes them. Unless they can get the costs down quick, they're not going anywhere.
    • tomarocco, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1If you want to play with small form factor stuff there are plenty of boards available for a lot less money...sans the sleek plastic case.

      If you just want a network appliance platform, you can do it real cheap:

      The LinkSys NSLU2 comes to mind: http://www.nslu2-linux.org/

      If you are on a real tight budget you can use a LinkSys WRT54G.
  • marnaq, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3I'd rather buy a 3 year old laptop for same price.
    • arpad, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Or another $130 (about 70 Euros?) to get a current, if low-end, laptop with Wifi, monitor, speakers, a DVD burner, pointing device and WinXP (it came with it, I didn't ask for it).

      It's probably aimed mostly at commercial customers who have to look at support costs pretty closely. The total cost might rationalize the decision to purchase the gadget.

      At $150 I'd be interested. At $370, good luck.
  • DoodlesMcPooh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8This looks like a brilliant piece of kit to put in my car and use for customized engine management.

    Could be used for very discrete war driving at the same time.
    • jadenguy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5and car media machine. still not worth the price though.
    • bsdfree, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Are you going to bring your 17" LCD with you (this box doesn't even have a monitor)? How are you going to power that?
  • Quadcore, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1where can I put my torrents then?
    • habbofresh, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2ever hear of usb storage?
    • rocktorrentz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Yeah get a massive external hard disk; I assume it's got USB 2.0 so it'll be no problem to set up as a nice torrentflux box.
  • lcaller, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1and ?????
  • tonton2012, on 10/12/2007, -8/+4Buried as lame. You can build something better for half the price if your only goal is to surf the internet.

    • sroberson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10In my research, a mini-itx board with cpu (i.e. EPIA 5000 Fanless Motherboard) will run ~$110 (http://mini-itx.com/store/?c=2#epiaen), plus another $100 for 512 MB RAM, plus $30 for the CompactFlash/ide module, plus $35 for a 1 gig CF Card, plus a case, plus the time to build it. So, that's $275, plus case and time. It has everything the Linutop has, plus on board storage and double the memory.
    • doodlebumm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@sroberson

      Like you, I'd much rather have compactflash for the OS. Why make the box have a protruding thumb drive to run???? You really would benefit from the 512MB of memory, too. I'd add wireless and bluetooth so that I would only need to plug in the power adapter and display. This type of mini system would be great as a Mythtv frontend box. Just plug it into what ever tv you have in your house (family room, bedroom, whatever) and you'd have all the machine you need that is quiet and few connections.
    • akira117, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Anyone know of a cheap laptop with a good battery life?
  • jonesin, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14Not 2 weeks ago I submitted a link to a silent linux pc that's half that price and twice as powerful. Yet this one gets to the front page? Go figure.
  • zedr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11The Kurobox is much, MUCH sexier, not to mention cheaper ($149.00). It has also been around for a lot longer.

    http://www.kurobox.com/revolution/what.html
    • Binarydemon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4That Kurobox looks great although I would worry about being limited in software selection due to the PowerPC cpu.
    • sirdaz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have the buffalo linkstation that this is based on. Great machine, really wished it was tbase1000 though. And the fan starts getting a bit wonky and sounds more like a car after a while.
    • rocktorrentz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0This one looks amazing; and to the comment above it says it can do 1000mbit:
      "The current incarnation of the KuroBox, the KuroBox/HG, sports a 266Mhz PowerPC processor, 128MB of RAM, 2 USB 2.0 Ports, and a 10/100/1000Mbit network interface."
    • tomarocco, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Have fun plugging in your LCD.
  • bri3fcas3, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1Don't tell me when I boot it up, it only shows firefox browser.
  • ironyboy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4It's 230 Euros, not £230, so actually more like £157 (not inc VAT or shipping), still its not cheap.

    I'll stick with my nslu2, which I got for £20, even if it doesn't have out for monitor.

    http://www.nslu2-linux.org/
    • jbond, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1+1 for the Slug.
      Now if only Linksys made a Slug that took a 3.5" (or even 2.5") disk(s) inside the case and with 1000-BaseT
  • diggduggjoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Looks like a neat device. It may seem pricey for the performance. For the same price I made an Athlon 64 3400, 2gig RAM with Flash Hard disk adapter. It is diskless, but it not quiet (PS Fan) nor as efficient as this one. My unit is huge compared to this tiny PC. This could be a great PC for the kitchen where you fully intend to hide the thing. You may not wish to do video encoding on it, but that is not the goal in the first place.
  • laserdog, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Yeah, big "Meh" on this one.

    A v1-5 WRT54G seems to qualify for all the "linux", "low power", "silent" and "boots off flash" bullet points, and runs ~$50 (on ebay).

    And just adding a monitor out doesn't seem worth $250 to me.

    Buried.
    • sroberson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1no vga out, though, so can't use it to surf/email.
    • laserdog, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Heh, that's what I get for not RTFA. =)

      Seems disingenuous to declare something a "PC" without a vga out.
  • HyperionPrime, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1I'm on ubuntu myself, but I think this is just silly, a diskless computer? Ya, flash drives do alot these days, but it's still hard to neglect a simple cd drive..

    This is more of a gimmick than anything. I guess if you wanted a computer you weren't afraid to use as body armor, this might be nice..
  • gatekillr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4How long does it take for one of these to boot?
    • r00tus3r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1flash memory, so probably not very long at all.
  • kingmoffa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I want a SILENT computer as a mythfrontend. I'm getting there with a low watt PSU and laptop HDD. Still always looking for more.

    I know i could go diskless, but that is pretty nasty to configure and you need lots of ram for decent performance. Something like this would be good - add a serial port (for my IR) and maybe a tv out then Im interested.
  • aolshove, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Too expensive... NEXT!
  • Zeitblom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4question is: why run fatty *Ubuntu on this? If you are into fast, fanless clients,look at DamnSmallLinux or Puppy Linux. With "toram" option this stuff runs like a realtime-OS. And at least DSL offers a fanless machine - preconfigured.
  • mweels, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3
    I still cant believe there is a simple set-top box out there made for linux. Couldn't someone put together the specs of the old xbox, and sell it for $100 bucks?
  • har0ld, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Dugg because we need more and more silent PC... I've had enough of these MF fans into this MF case.
  • scooterk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"Its hand purpose is to surfing the Internet."

    Huh? All your base are belong to us for 2007?
  • scabbers, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1For the market it's aimed at, it's probably quite good. For a digg nerd, it's not very impressive.
    • atbnet, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1Who uses linux besides nerds?
    • Spaceomega, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@atbnet: Schools and government are using it a lot now, including French Parliament, I believe.
  • atbnet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Cool concept, just not very practical without wireless. Plus for the price you could get a cheap Dell desktop which is what I'm doing for a test linux server so I can try things out locally and screw up before I attempt to do things over SSH and NOT screw up my server.
  • samsara1981, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It has Mo RAM? How much Mo RAM? 256 Mo RAM? That's a lot Mo RAM... than other computers have...
  • shredswithpiks, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think it would be much better if the USB stick was mounted inside of the case... seems like if you set that up at a hotel (per article recommendation) someone would try to take the USB stick or something.

    Kind of a novel idea, either way.
  • djsamsel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0check out norhtec. http://norhtec.com/ they have a lot of different offerings
  • myshoeshurt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Not bad if you want to pay too much for something that you need to lug a monitor around with to the "library" and "coffee shop".

    If only someone would design a foldable one with a monitor, keyboard and some sort of "touch-sensitive" input device built in.
  • superdoug, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1In Soviet Russia... But... Will it blend? I for one welcome our __ overlords l337 http://personales.ya.com/casitasoler/james/diggimages/ceilingcat.jpg Pwned
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