(See history below) It's the cpu on the (very) new VIA motherboard that is about 17cm square corresponding to the new mini-ITX form factor (which is smaller that micro-ITX!). The nice thing about it is that it requires no fans, since the cpu consumes 5W at 1.2V, so all you here is the hard disk. You can put a box together (30cm x 27cm x 6cm) for about 250.00 pounds sterling which includes the 533MHz (1064 bogomips) CPU, 20GB 3.5 hard disk, slimline CD (a bit more for the DVD), onboard NIC etc. Note that for another 10 quid you can get the same board with an 833MHz chip, but this required a small fan.
LinuxFormat reviewed it in their August 2002 issue and scored it 10/10. They also noted that they thought the TV out might be configurable through 'X' and that VIA did release a driver for X that does support this mode "but it is not currently available". Does anyone know if this made it into 9.0? The full spec is: VIA Eden ESP 5000 Processor (533MHz) VIA Apollo PLE133 North Bridge VIA 82C100A Ethernet (Rhine 10/100) Integrated 2xAGP Trident Cyberblade 2 x USB TV-out PS/2 keyboard/mouse connectors 1 parallel port 1 9-pin serial Line in/out/mic 1 x PCI slot 2 x ATA 100/66/33 headers 2 x DRAM PC133/100 Award BIOS As to my problem with 9.0 Beta 3, 8.2 installs fine on this machine but 9 gives the bad package error mentioned below. If I switch to console 2 and try to manually install the package, it starts ok but then gives the error: '/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb cpio rename failed, is a directory' This just seems so bizarre. Can anyone help? Chris Stevens >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Original Message <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< On 17/08/02, 00:01:48, Pixel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote regarding Re: [Cooker] Re: Beta 3 install on EPIA-mini-ITX, XFree bad package: > Chris Stevens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Can anyone help with this. > > > > Expert install of 9.0 beta 3 (and beta 1 & 2) starts the install of > > packages then comes up with: > > > > 'bad package Xfree86-4.2.0-21mdk.i586 unable to be installed' > > > > This is not a cd read error or an MD5 problem of any sort: it really > > can't install this package. > > > > The hardware is one of these new VIA mini-ITX boards with an Eden 500 > > cpu, Trident Cyberblade video, tested recently in LinuxFormat Mag. > > Mandrake 8.2 installs ok. > > > > Any ideas? > well not much. What's this Eden CPU?
