[ale] small/book pc's for linux lan

[Stephan Uphoff]

Preston Boyington wrote:
> i am in the market for a couple of relatively inexpensive book sized pc's (want small/unobtrusive).  i would like onboard sound, nic, and decent video (and usb interface of course).  i won't need an internal cdrom/floppy/whatever and am debating on even having an internal hard drive.
> 
> when i looked at the thinknic offerings (admittedly, a while ago) they seemed a bit... dated.  with no real upgrade path (fixed processors?).  i understand that the server is doing most/all the work, but it would be nice to have options.
> 
> basically i want to network boot and setup some dumb terminals.  music, webpages, email, and openoffice.org will all be piped to each box (100 mip network).  my server is a dual PIII 800 with 1/2 gig memory (currently) and hdd's to be determined.  this will only be for a max of 10 people with an average 3 at any given time.
> 
> i am looking into LTSP and other distro's, but would appreciate any feedback i can get.
> 
> anyone using similar?
 

Take a look at the Mini-ITX motherboards from VIA.
Some of the motherboards are fanless and you can buy fanless cases.
If you net boot with PXE (or add some flash) you can omit the hard disk.
No moving parts will make the solution totally quiet.

They are definitely on my list of things to play with ;-)


	Stephan