The Events Box schedule shows that it will be used next for LinuxTag in Berlin at the end of May. We need to do some restocking before then. Our donation/sponsoring hopes for this have fallen through so we’ll probably need to buy. We’ve chosen May 1st as the final decision date.
The PC has taken quite a battering and the hard drive is now dead, so now would be a good time to replace it with something smaller. It was small, but not mac-mini-small. I chose it because we needed a 3MHzGHz PC for GUADEC streaming and 3GHz mini PCs were much more expensive. But now we have dedicated PCs for streaming, and it’s obvious that something lighter could save us on shipping costs.
So what are your suggestions for a good-enough mini PC? Note that I insist on x86 to have the most chance of everything working very easily. I also guess that Intel graphics would give the best chance of working 3D effects.
We need one new flat-panel screen too.
As ever, we are very open to the idea of donations and/or sponsorship from hardware vendors or resellers. This should be a fantastic opportunity to put your product next to GNOME heroes.
Ummm, whats wrong with the Mac Mini’s?
I can send you a 300GB harddrive (new in packaging) if you want. Just drop me your address by email.
Might make sense to consider booting off a thumbdrive or a liveCD by default instead of the HD by default so that (1) you can skimp on HD costs and (2) they are less likely to die in transit.
I suggest the original IBM PC, it is even faster than 3 MHz.
Transtec has some cute mini PC’s. And they are Linux friendly to.
http://www.transtec.co.uk/GB/E/products/personal_computer/pc/mini_pc.html
Luis, yes, we often have the latest LiveCDs, and some people use them for demoing, but they don’t offer responsiveness or access to our latest demo files.
Götz, fixed.
Mac Mini sounds perfect…
Be aware that the Mac Mini HDD is quite slow, I don’t know if it is really suitable for stream unless you’re not recording at the same time maybe.
The Mac Mini, definitely. You can’t get the same sort of hardware as cheap with any other package. The benefits on scale in the manufacturement. The hardware is very Linux friendly, including Beryl running virtually perfectly. Small, virtually silent. The default HDD is 4200rpm, but you can change it if it bothers you.. Changing it yourself doesn’t even void warranties.