[ILUG] cheap pcs (Was Lindows Based Walmart pcs)

[Liam Bedford]

On Thu, 2002-12-12 at 19:41, Ronan Cunniffe wrote:
> Quoting "Smith, Graham - Computing Technician" <Graham.Smith at it-tallaght.ie>:
> 
> > www.marx-computers.com have been mentioned a few times
> > and are still worth a look. www.komplett.ie and www.pcp.ie
> > are probably worthy of mention also....
> 
> Something really cool from realtimeltd.co.uk (trade only, so get an account...)
> 
> Via EPIA 5000 + GA610 case for about 110 stg ex VAT
> 
> The board is a passively cooled (soldered on!) Via C3 533 with onboard NIC,
> graphics, shite audio, 2 x IDE, -no floppy-, 1 x PCI slot, 2 x SDRAM 100/133
> slots.  Just add memory and drives.  Supposed to be linux compatible out of the
> box....
> 
they are.. just remember the C3 is a 586, not a 686, so if you're
transplanting a redhat install, it's not happy. They have a built in
trident video card, via-rhine networking, and the via86cxxx or something
sound card.

> I'm getting two of them as VPN firewall router things.  If everything works out,
> then I'm getting a shedload more as sub-250-euro *silent* (nearly) xterms... :-)
> 
> Anybody heard anything good/bad about these?
> 
I've run Debian and OpenBSD on mine. The only part that makes noise is
the hard drive.

Oh, and the PSU doesn't require any - voltages, so you should be able to
get a really quiet brick and break out 12V, 5V, and power good signals.
I just grabbed a generic 300W ATX PSU, and put the board into a gutted
Sparcstation IPC.

(It's not a speed daemon, but it's not bad. It's actually not a full C3
processor, it's the eden one, which is slower again).

L.
-- 
Liam Bedford <lbedford at lbedford.org>