In 2018 I bought a mini-PC from Chinese on-line supplier Banggood
It has an Intel i7 2core CPU ,8GB RAM and sits in a ribbed fanless enclosure ,requiring 12V-DC .
It has a USB3 and a USB2 port ; HDMI and VGA ports for monitor .It came with a Chinese version of Windows 7.
With Gparted I cleared the internal 256GB SSD and installed Linux Mint …currently with version Victoria which runs smoothly.
I am still very happy with the device .
Interesting points 1) Completely silent , 2)Can run on a 12V battery (charged by a solar panel) ,also in a car ,boat.
My older Desktop PC with similar spec but with first gen i7 CPU (4core) from 2010 also running Mint , a 2013 Dell E6330 laptop running Zorin 17 and an Apple MacBook Pro with 14inch screen from 2011 (but with recently installed SSD)running LM Victoria , all work very well , showing that for Linux older equipment is still perfectly applicable.
Recently my younger son gave me his 2011 Apple MacBook Pro A1297 with 17 inch screen having Windows 10. This unit will be equipped with an 256GB SSD followed by the installation of LM.
Hence for me no future requirement for new equipment.
PS: I prefer LM over Ubuntu because when creating text files (I often do) is easier and making a bootable flash drive is just a right mouse click on an downloaded .iso file
Does it have ethernet port(s)? Is so it would make a
reasonable server or router.
That i7 cpu is probably a bigger power consumer than
some others, but it is a good box for leaving on continuously
with no spinning disk.
Hello Neville , The miniPC is in my radio-shack ;I forgot some of the connections ,so here is an update .
On the front : 4 USB2 ports , mic. , speaker, on/off switch.
At the back : 4 USB3 ports , 6 9pin com ports , 1 HDMI ,1VGA , 2LAN ports ,2 Wifi antenna connections , 12V Pwr supply connection.
It is a very complete industrial miniPC .
I intend making an intermediate pwr supply cable to be able to measure the 12V DC current.
With all the kit I have it is highly unlikely that I ever need to buy another PC/laptop …but if necessary it would definitely be this type of miniPC.
Hello Neville , following my earlier message re the industrial miniPC , the ribbed enclosure measures 210 x 135 x 50 mm and has a back plate for wall mounting.
This is a question I asked Copilot. I haven’t tested yet, but it sure seems like it’s possible and easy. Option 2 is the right click method you mentioned.
Can I configure a right click menu option in Ubuntu to write an ISO image to USB?
Certainly! To create a bootable USB stick from an ISO image in Ubuntu, you can follow these steps:
Using the Default Tool (Startup Disk Creator):
Insert your USB stick (select ‘Do nothing’ if prompted by Ubuntu).
On Ubuntu 18.04 and later, use the bottom left icon to open ‘Show Applications’.
Search for ‘Startup Disk Creator’ and launch it.
In the application, select the ISO image you want to write to the USB stick.
Choose the destination USB drive from the dropdown.
Click ‘Start Restoring’ and provide your root password when prompted.
There is nothing about a mini PC that makes it inferior for running Linux. We have two older Asus VM60 VivoPC minis running Debian 12 KDE Plasma, and they work just fine, thank you very much.
Mine has an i5 and both have 8GB RAM. Intel integrated graphics. Originally, they came with Windows 8. I just switched from the original HDD to a Samsung 870 1 TB SSD, and of course it’s faster now.
I know what you’re likely thinking: after running much bigger desktop computers for decades, I was a little hesitant also. But my next PC will likely be a mini.
I know you’re looking for a new one, but I thought I would share my experience.
I have a small form factor desktop with those specs.
It is adequate for Linux. I run Debian and Gentoo on it, both with Xfce. It compiles Gentoo installs OK. It certainly has enough compute power. It might be a bit short of ram
if you tried to use a VM, but it handles the DE well. The
ssd certainly helps.
Would make an ideal PFSense (or dare I say it “m0nowall”) machine…
I have a tiny Gigabyte Brix - dual core Celeron - 16 GB DDR3 and 512 GB mSATA Hynix SSD… Runs Red Hat 8… 'cause I need something that runs Red Hat…
I’m keep to grab a couple of SFF PCs like those from MinisForum or Geekom - prefer to buy barebones with the biggest core/thread count possible, and add RAM and storage later - but even so - not sure I can justify the expense. But I have a hankering for a home lab - probably use ProxMox given how Broadcom have ENSHITTIFIED VMware.
Recently watched a few videos comparing XCP-NG and ESX and ProxMox and ESX. At least with the alternatives (to VMware) you get the features of vSphere by default…
And going ProxMox - shouldn’t be issues using AMD Ryzen (vs Intel) - not too fussed on performance, just core/thread count and max RAM - and you can get more core/threads per $$$ on AMD than you can on Intel (historically - running ESX on AMD could be problematic).
But as mentioned above - this is a pipe dream… probably won’t get around to it.
In my use case - I’m not bothered too much about speed - no plan running a full desktop load - essentially just headless servers running Linux, FreeBSD or Solaris (x86) - so for me core / thread count would be the main focus…
IS / was it “Maxtang” :
This thing has a heatsink on the chassis and dual ethernet ports - looks like an ideal firewall / router for the likes of pFsense…
Their Ryzen and Intel devices are considerably cheaper than similar devices from Geekom and Minisforum (and wouldn’t suprise me if at least Geekom, are just rebadged version of these Chinese devices).
$308 USD for a barebones Ryzen mini PC (i.e. no RAM or storage or O/S) seems pretty reasonable - I’d source RAM and storage locally ('cause I’d want o max out to 64 GB RAM - storage not important - as I’d probably store VM images on my NAS via NFS (like I used to do with VMware ESX, and Oracle VM for x86 [not to be confused with Oracle VirtualBox]).
Ryzen 7 with 8 cores and 16 threads (will show as 16 vCPU).
It has all the features of anything Asus offers and can be built and delivered with Ubuntu instead of Windows. The price this morning was 252 USD. For another $70, you get 16G RAM and a 1T HDD.
It’s all in the hardware, Paul. Linux is the perfect companion to most of the mini pc’s; the first thing I’d do with the mac mini is flush the os. I was impressed by the large amount of RAM included with most of the minis. Graphics? Unless one is a dedicated gamer or a photo pro, nobody needs Nvidia or any of the other bloated, overpriced GPUs.
Newegg has a variety of Mac minis, refurbished, for under 100 USD. And I’m pretty sure they can ship overseas.
Thats why i woukd choose a mac mini second-hand they ard a give away at that price. Plus a quality build. With the typical mac 5 year systems life older ones as you show are just so cheap.
Not suitable for me now as I lack desk space to set up, so tend to use my tablet during the day for quick things then my lmde laptop or better still my netbook evenings to reduce space.
I have the Asus MiniPC PN-50 for about €300. It functions quite well. However, it’s low power (got a Ryzen 3 4300U under the hood), but it doesn’t consume much power.
