[TriLUG] prowling for a small form-factor Linux box

P. L. Charles Fischer PLCFischer at nc.rr.com
Thu Feb 5 10:13:39 EST 2004


I have been using a mini-itx box at work, and am going to order one very 
soon (like this afternoon).  I have searched the web and found the 
following prices:

                         EPIA 10000      C137            Dual PCI Riser + 
extension      Motherboard+Case+Dual PCI
Mini-box                $169.00
Logicsupply             $169.00
essencompu              $168.89         $149.00
Lillicomouters.net      $158.00         $156.00         $29.99
monarchcomputer $157.00         $155.00
Shentech                $174.00         $154.00
bytewizecomputers                       $150.87
CaseOutlet                              $149.50         $25.00+$5.00 
             $398.00
Logic Plus              $167.00         $160.00
Directron               $152.00
Axiontech               $169.95         $157.95
ewiz                    $157.50


The tabs look OK on my system, but who knows if they line up on another.

This C137 is case and power supply.  It has room for one disk, and one slim 
line CD/DVD, plus room for a CF card.  If you need two PCI slots you need 
the Dual PCI Riser and extension, if you need zero or one PCI slots do not 
order the Dual PCI Riser, the system will work just fine without it.

The EPIA 10000 does have a CPU fan, the slower boards (800MHz?) do not even 
have a CPU fan.

Low power, quite, cheap (well sort of), and I had no problem getting it to 
run RedHat 9.0.  I have not tried Fedora yet.

-Charles Fischer

At 08:46 AM 2/5/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>Hey all.  I'm starting to search for a small form-factor linux box.
>The purpose of this server is going to be the front-end of my home audio 
>system.  I've been ordered to get the 400 or so CDs digitized, organized, 
>categorized, etc.  So, my thoughts here are to rip everything to MP3 (to 
>allow for portability between the Macs) and place all the files on my 
>upstairs disk server.
>
>I'm looking for a small form factor *with excellent audio* (as I'd like to 
>plug this into my existing home audio system via RCA jacks) and an 
>PHP/Apache web server to sit downstairs on a 100 meg link.  All the CDs 
>and tracks will be organized in a MySQL database residing on the disk 
>server.  The user interface will be the PHP/Apache interface on the small 
>form factor box.  The idea here is the little, and hopefully quiet, box 
>will pull songs off the disk server and cache them on the audio server to 
>be played over the stereo.
>
>Does anyone have any idea what might fit this bill?  Audio quality and 
>noise are the highest factors followed by appearance and power draw.
>I'm hoping to find something that sounds great, looks great, and uses 
>little power.   Heh.. if only it were that easy!
>
>Greg
>
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