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

[Nate Duehr]

On Jan 30, 2008, at 6:55 PM, Brian Gibson wrote:

> For solid state drives, there are adapters such that
> you can use compact flash cards.  Many mini-ITX builds
> go this route.  And of course any modern motherboard
> should have USB-boot capability.
>
> Another interesting distribution to look at is Devil
> Linux.  You can set a box up to run off a CD so that
> the entire file system is read-only.

Some systems can also boot from USB sticks and run from them, just fine.

Looks funny, a stick sticking out of the box, and I won't make any  
claims for the longevity of a USB stick subjected to massive amounts  
of read-write cycles, but flash technology has upped the number of  
read-write cycles per transistor so that's not as big a worry as it  
once was, when folks hacked together things like JFFS2 filesystems for  
the old flash-based handheld devices and the early hacking at  
handhelds.org...

> A quicker option may be to simply get an off-the-shelf
> mini-PC and replace the OS, for example the Zonbu
> Desktop Mini. (http://www.zonbu.com/)

I think that machine was in Linux Journal this month, wasn't it?  I  
haven't read my copy yet... they've gotten kinda boring there... too  
much RMS-style politics and bitchin, and very little "technology  
journal" from them these days...

I guess it sells magazines to newbies, but it'll eventually drive me  
off.  I'm still on my 100 issues for $100 deal when they had the 100th  
issue "birthday" and it's HIGHLY unlikely I'll renew.

Linux Format from the UK which isn't even targeted at techies, blows  
LJ out of the water for tech topics and REAL software reviews... but  
the import costs make it a "once in a while I'll treat myself to a  
copy" type of thing... $14 a magazine is ridiculous at the few  
newsstands that carry it.  And it looks better too.  LJ still seems to  
want to look like a trade rag, and not a magazine -- I don't know.

LJ just seems to have lost focus on any one particular thing, and are  
just continually printing Mad Dog's rants about traveling the world  
and telling people about Linux... at this point, I know he does good  
things for other countries, but they can publish that crap in those  
countries magazines... LJ needs to move on and publish stuff here for  
folks who've been using Linux for a decade now, and leave the  
evangelism to the religious nuts.

The best part of LJ these days is the summary of the Linux Kernel  
lists, which no one in their right mind who's not a Kernel coder can  
follow on their own these days.  LOL!

--
Nate Duehr
nate at natetech.com