Hey All,
It took some time but I finally got hold of a couple Eee Box PC's. I had
some problems, but got Linux up and configured to run as a light-duty
File/Subversion/VPN server. I'm using Fedora 8, which is what my primary
customer uses, so it's what I use.
The installation didn't recognize the video card at all, and though it
saw the Realtek ethernet card, it got the version wrong and loaded a
non-working driver. I was able to get the Ethernet going by downloading
a driver from the Realtek web site, copying the sources onto the
machine, building, and forcing the kernel to load it instead of it's own
driver. I haven't addresses the video, issue, since I just need it for a
headless server anyway. The machine also has a built-in wireless
connection which wasn't recognized by the installer, but I don't need
it, so I let that slide, too.
Out of the box, it was smaller and lighter than I expected. It's totally
silent, even though it has a grate on the "top" and occasionally pushes
hot air out. It demands to be mounted vertically (and comes with a stand
and mounting bracket to do so), which I assume is to promote passive air
flow. I plugged it into a battery pack with a power meter which has a 10
watt resolution. At full activity, with the disk spinning, it stayed
under 20 watts. Sitting idle it's under 10 watts. That's awesome!
The lack of a CD/DVD is the biggest problem. Ironically, it comes with a
rescue CD. You could boot from an SD Card slot on front, or you could
boot from a thumb drive, but having a USB CD/DVD is probably essential.
I thought I had one in the closet, couldn't find it, and wound up going
out and tossing another $100+ bucks for a Sony DXR-S70U-R Slim DVD RW
drive. (BTW, that thing is pretty good, too).
Some annoyances... There are only 2 USB slots on the back which are
taken by the keyboard and mouse. There are two more under a flip-up
cover on the front, along with the SD Card slot and headphone/mic jacks.
But with the cover open, the bright blue disk-activity LED is exposed
which is really annoying flashing in your face if you have the machine
sitting next to your monitor. The mouse is of the "micro" variety, and
the keyboard is rather small, though it has a reasonably solid feel.
All in all, it looks like it will do the job I need it to. I'm really
impressed by the power consumption. An average-size UPS could keep it
running for a day or two through a power outage.
-----
Frank Pagliughi
Software & Systems Engineer
SoRo Systems, Inc
www.sorosys.com
