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Open Source Upgrades Linux Hardware

Linux Mint Unveils New 'Mintbox Mini Pro' Desktop (linuxmint.com) 70

Posted by EditorDavid from the little-Linux dept.
It's been 18 months since the original Mintbox Mini launched, and this week saw the release of the new Mintbox Mini Pro (which costs just $100 more). BrianFagioli quotes BetaNews: That extra money gets you a faster processor, more powerful graphics, double the storage, twice the RAM, improved Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and an additional Ethernet port... This diminutive desktop is the same size as the previously-released Mintbox... Thankfully, it retains the same cute appearance and Linux Mint branding.
Their article calls it a "beautiful little computer that comes pre-loaded with Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon (64-bit)," and the Linux Mint blog promises this fanless device offers "better passive cooling thanks to an all-metal black housing" -- and comes with six different USB ports.
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Linux Mint Unveils New 'Mintbox Mini Pro' Desktop More

Linux Mint Unveils New 'Mintbox Mini Pro' Desktop

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  • But ... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Why so expensive?

    • Re:But ... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BarbaraHudson ( 3785311 ) <barbara.jane.hud ... minus physicist> on Saturday October 01, 2016 @10:47AM (#52994219) Journal

      Why so expensive?

      Can you find a comparative one cheaper? Link, please.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I like these by Qotom [amazon.com]. I've followed this Chinese company for quite a while now and would buy one if they wouldn't cost additional import tax where I Iive.

        • They're selling it with a bootleg version of Windows. Not too swift.

          Operating System: Unactivated Windows 7 without license preinstalled for Test. Or wanna other OS, pls leave us a message.

          So add another $100 or so if you want Windows. Or make sure you buy an external CD-rom to install Linux or FreeBSD - they don't install too well from a usb key.

          • I've never had any problems with installing Linux from a USB stick. Qotom will even preinstall a Linux for you if you ask them (or at least they used to), though usually Ubuntu rather than Mint. As for your Windows remark, well, what should I say. The Linux Mint PC also does not come with Windows.

          • Or make sure you buy an external CD-rom to install Linux or FreeBSD - they don't install too well from a usb key.

            Seriously, has anybody used a CD to install Linux in the last 10 years? USB has been the standard method for a very long time.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by pnutjam ( 523990 )
              No love for PXE?

              • Been in a situation where PXE was great. 10x or so mark-up on CD-R / DVD-R in this country because of a tax from a RIAA equivalent, and buying USB drives was an expense. But there was a network to install things from.
                Alas, Linux Mint doesn't support PXE. That put an end to most of it.
                For other messing, I tried to make a 2.88MB floppy image to get a DOS PXE floppy with more funny stuff on it but that didn't work. Shouldn't that work? lol.

            • Unfortunately I recently had to go through 5 distros to find one that would properly install on a usb key and boot. Kind of sucks. Many of them claim to support uefi boot, but don't.

              • There are those where unetbootin doesn't work (good easy to use software that doesn't delete all your flash drive). Instead you have to use dd or a program that mimics dd, which deletes all data on the drive and leaves you with a read-only one. Bummers. That's for debian on BIOS machines.

      • A chromebox is under $200. You will need to install Linux yourself. A friend and I have done so for some Linux boxes in quasi-industrial setting, we just needed a box to monitor other equipment. For the brief period we used it as a "desktop" it seemed very capable and was a nice surprise.
  • I hadn't seen the original mini, and I'm looking at this and wow, it is SMALL. Of course, this is a SoC device, and definitely not for even older games [notebookcheck.net]. Still, it's only a bit more than a laptop with the same specs, so if you don't need a built-in screen, why not?

  • Nice little box (Score:4, Insightful)

    by somenickname ( 1270442 ) on Saturday October 01, 2016 @11:15AM (#52994299)

    It seems a bit pricey at first but, you're getting a nice 4 core CPU, a pretty remarkable 8GB of RAM, a sizable SSD, a decent GPU, dual gigabit ethernet, etc. I imagine this would work well as a desktop or as a media player. It would be interesting to see this benchmarked next to a NUC configured to be in the same price range.

    • You're obviously paying a premium for small and fanless. If those two things are important to you it's a solid deal, if they aren't then it looks under-powered for the price.

  • Okay, gotta admit... (Score:3)

    by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 ) on Saturday October 01, 2016 @11:29AM (#52994339) Journal

    Okay, I gotta admit...that looks like a cool little PC.

    No, it's not for gaming (duh) but for 99% of what most people do this would probably work beautifully. Browsing, email, youtube, cranking out a letter....this is all they'd need.

    Very slick, now I want one. But I'd want one with a wee bit more RAM, say 12 or 16 gigs, then I'd probably buy one.

    • Re:Okay, gotta admit... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Mousit ( 646085 ) on Saturday October 01, 2016 @02:26PM (#52995045)
      You can. The Mintbox is just a branded version of the Fitlet micro PC. The summary doesn't mention this, but on the Mintbox blog entry itself they do point this out, and provide links to Fit PC which makes the Fitlets. You can buy unbranded barebones Fitlets. Fit PC sells them from their Amazon store. I have a Fitlet myself, they are awesome little machines, and so I'm totally gonna reply here and evangelize for 'em. :)

      The model that Mintbox uses is the new fitlet-RM-iA10 [fit-pc.com]. If you want more RAM, look at the fitlet-H [fit-pc.com] model. It uses the same AMD SoC, same GPU, same audio, same LAN chipset, etc. etc. etc. The only differences are that it comes in a slightly larger case (about the size of the average consumer AP/internet gateway like a Netgear or something), and that larger case allows it to fit a full 2.5" SATA drive, have a couple more USB ports, has one extra mini-PCIe slot inside, and--the reason I mention it to you--lets it fit two SO-DIMMs for a total of 16GB.

      Here's a link [fit-pc.com] that will show you a side-by-side comparison of the fitlet-H and the Mintbox Pro.

      • Awesome, thank you!

        Damn, now I'm seriously considering dropping a few hundred bucks on one of the fitlets, maybe the fitlet-H. I could replace my (comparatively) giant Gateway box with one of these and get basically the same performance, if not better. Hmmmm...

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Mousit ( 646085 )
          Just keep in mind the Mintbox is sold as a complete unit, ready to turn on straight out of the box. The unbranded barebones Fitlets you have to buy/supply your own drive and RAM, so costs can add up. RAM's not that bad, but depending on how big of an SSD you want, that can get pricey. I'd estimate $500 for a complete fitlet-H. Basically what I spent for my Fitlet-iA10.

          However I don't think that's an unreasonable price for a machine that is home-server-grade powerful. I've currently got my Fitlet runn

          • RAM's not that bad, but depending on how big of an SSD you want, that can get pricey. I'd estimate $500 for a complete fitlet-H.

            That's about what I spec'd a unit at, outfitted with 16Gb and a 250 to 500Gb SSD. All in all, that's not bad- that's about what I paid for my multi-year old Gateway way back when. It's got 12Gb of RAM and a 1.4TB hard drive but I've only used ~450G out of it in 4 or 5 years. A lot of that could go away or be replaced with an external USB drive. The Fitlet would be an upgrade in almost every respect and it would be cool to have the big box replaced with a router-sized unit.

            -

            And being x86 it runs Windows just fine too, if you.. uh.. really want that. I guess. ;)

            I'm using Linux Mint for the most

            • Liking some storage options, so I would very much like a longer one that can take two 2.5" rotational hard drives, as well as the M.2 slot on motherboard.
              There'd be a large spectrum of options, from booting a slow Micro SD with debian and LXDE ; using two hard drives from dead laptops ; get a 500GB or less SSD and two 3TB hard drives, the latter for mirrored ZFS or BTRFS.

              Now that'd be crazy high end desktop class storage. No need for a home NAS, let this computer powered on permanently. (the network doesn't

    • No, it's not for gaming (duh) but for 99% of what most people do this would probably work beautifully. Browsing, email, youtube, cranking out a letter....this is all they'd need.

      A chromebox with Linux installed would satisfy such a user for less than $200. I'm not slamming this device, its a cool project. Just pointing out the obvious.

  • looking at the links , seems a bit of confusion: the mini 2 seems to list dual rj-45 ports, but the pro only lists one LAN port. summary lists dual LAN.
    Believe summary or the seller page?

  • Not including shipping and duties and taxes I can build an AMD centric box for much cheaper

    AMD A10 7860K W/ AMD Quiet Cooler Quad Core APU 3.6/4.0GHZ Processor FM2+ 4MB Cache 65W Retail Box $138.99
    EVGA 500W 80 PLUS CERTIFIED ACTIVE PFC 12V 34A POWER SUPPLY 120MM FAN 3 YEAR WARRANTY $53.99
    Cooler Master N200 mATX / mITX Tower Case Black 1X5.25 3X3.5 4X2.5 USB3.0 *No PSU* $59.99
    GIGABYTE F2A68HM-H A68H FM2+ FM2 DDR3 SATA3 HDMI VGA USB3 mATX Motherboard $57.99
    Kingston HyperX Fury Memory Black 8GB 2X4GB DDR3-1866

  • I'd have rather have six identical USB ports (Score:4, Interesting)

    by wonkey_monkey ( 2592601 ) on Saturday October 01, 2016 @12:45PM (#52994627) Homepage

    comes with six different USB ports.

    Six different USB ports? What, type-A, type-B, type-C, mini, micro, and... jumbo?

  • You can buy faster, more powerful, more upgradeable machines for the same amount of money.

    I think the point of this machine is that it is small and fanless, and that it also guaranteed to be Linux-compatible.

  • It's been 18 months since the original Mintbox Mini launched, and this week saw the release of the new Mintbox Mini Pro (which costs just $100 more). BrianFagioli quotes BetaNews:

    What the actual fuck, Slashdot? Someone paid for this shitty slashvertisement and you can't even just tell us what it costs? It costs $100 more than something else we've never heard of? Poor fuckers wasting their advertising dollars.

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