[clue-tech] Mini-itx and pico-itx

[Nate Duehr]

On Jan 30, 2008, at 5:57 PM, Sean LeBlanc wrote:

> So, I was reading an article detailing someone putting together a  
> pico-itx
> from a barebones kit, and I got to wondering about these. Right now,  
> it
> looks a tad expensive, so I started casting around for what's up with
> mini-itx systems.

I've built a couple using the early EARLY mini-ITX Via boards, bought  
from vendors I found out later were too high-priced.  Heh heh... so I  
wouldn't recommend them now.

But the Soekris and others seem to really have come along nicely and  
some of the SBC type offerings are cheaper now.  Mini-ITX kinda headed  
off toward the market segment that covered the quiet PC's needed with  
big CPU's and MPEG-hardware capable video cards for things like MythTV  
front-ends, after a while there, and also into the Car PC/Car-puter  
market segment... and routers and firewalls seemed to go more into the  
SBC hardware and smaller.

Typing "tiny linux firewall" into Google found THIS announcement, and  
for $220?  Not bad...

http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS2319765902.html

Do-it-yourself and the desire to do so, I get... but that thing's  
"done and baked" and available for just over $200?  It'd be awfully  
tempting to just get something like that and move on to doing  
something more interesting than building a firewall... especially with  
the feature-set they've already hacked into that thing.

So in the end, it all depends on what you want to do.  I get it if  
you're dead-set against buying something already baked, but even their  
hardware and bootstrapping it up with your own copy of Linux and going  
to town, wouldn't be too bad a deal.

This board only has one LAN port, but a friend bought one, and it's  
working flawlessly for what he's using it for.  Damn cheap too, for  
all that stuff....

http://store.mo-co-so.com/intel-d201gly2-fanelss-mini-itx-motherboard-p-79.html

You could add another Ethernet to it, I assume.  I haven't hunted that  
website for alternatives they might have that would have another  
Ethernet port so it'd make a better firewall.   Just clicked on their  
motherboard offerings, and apparently they have one Intel that's  
cheaper still by $10, and the Jetway line.  I've seen the Jetways  
talked about on some other lists and no serious complaints about them,  
that I've seen, but that could be Googled too... of course!  (GRIN)

--
Nate Duehr
nate at natetech.com