Review of the LINI PC [LWN.net]

Around the end of 2005, the LWN chief editor suggested that it might be a good time to invest in some new computing hardware for the development and distributions editors. Your development editor was assigned the task of finding this new hardware. Being a hardware guy at heart, I did not find this to be an especially odious task.

Requirements

The new machines needed to be reasonably fast, yet inexpensive. Their use was mainly for desktop work. The machines that were being replaced, Athlon 1700 XP systems with Asus A7V333 motherboards, were noisy to the point of being annoying. Silence is golden. The new machines were destined to run only Linux, so there was no need to pay extra for Microsoft operating system licenses. This requirement narrowed the field of available desktop machines considerably.

Several weeks were spent searching through ads in Linux magazines and searching around the net. The possibility of assembling machines from individual parts was considered, but the array of available motherboards, CPUs, cases and graphics cards made the task difficult. Success with that approach was unpredictable.

Next, some Linux-specific PC vendors were investigated. Penguin Computing was considered, but their hardware was more aligned with the server market than the desktop market. The fun was beginning to wear off of the project when your author stumbled across Open Sense Solutions and their LINI PC line. The LINI PC was advertised as being small, quiet, and fast. It came with a pre-installed version of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, so Linux compatibility was guaranteed. A 1 year warranty was also part of the deal.

Features

The configuration of the LINI machines, with some additional options, included: [the LINI PC]

Asus K8V-MX Micro-ATX motherboard with built-in:
- S3 2D Graphics card
- AC97 sound chip
- Serial port
- Parallel port
- 8 USB 2.0 ports
- 10/100 mbit/sec ethernet
- SATA hard drive interface
- PATA CDROM interface
AMD Athlon 64 2800+ CPU
1 GB of PC3200 RAM
200 GB SATA disk drive (250GB on one box)
DVD +-R/RW drive with CDR capabilities
Antec Aria case
front panel USB ports
front panel Compact Flash and Memory Stick sockets
front panel audio ports

The front-panel Compact Flash slot is a very useful feature if you frequently use a digital camera (without USB), it allows for fast and easy downloads of images. All of the various ports have been tried out, and no problems have been encountered.

The box has 3 fans, one for the power supply, one for the CPU, and a vertical slot-fan. While not totally silent, the box is reasonably quiet, and is a huge improvement over the previous system. The cooling is also quite effective, this should give the hardware a long life.

The Antec Aria case (reviewed here) is well designed. Access to the inside is achieved by unscrewing a single thumb screw on the back of the box. The top and side panels just slide out and the innards are revealed. The contents of the box are packed together fairly tightly, but sufficient air flow is available for cooling of all of the internal components.

There is space (not much) for a second and third hard drive, but both have to be mounted vertically, and they would add a lot more heat to the inside of the box. Fortunately, disk space is not a big problem with the current generation of hard drives, and a single drive will work for most users.

The Asus motherboard's Micro-ATX form factor allows the box to be quite small. The box measures in at 10-1/2" wide by 8" tall by 13" deep. It is roughly one third the size of the full-size tower case that it replaced. Here are some large format images of the outside and inside of the LINI PC.

Nothing's Perfect

The worst feature of the LINI box is the location of the power switch. Space on the front panel is limited, and the large square power button is located just below the CDROM eject button. This is especially a problem when the CDROM tray is in the out position and the buttons are not easily seen. It only takes one instance of pressing the wrong button before one becomes extremely cautious when using the CDROM. A rear panel power switch would be an improvement, although space is very limited there as well.

The power supply in the Antec cube box is in an L-shaped box. This is not a huge problem, but it is a non-standard form factor and could prove to be difficult to find a replacement in the event of a failure. The odd power supply shape was required due to the small box size.

The only other mis-feature of the LINI that your editor found is the placement of the two blindingly bright Blue LEDs on the front of the case. The LEDs are directly visible When the box is viewed from the side, a fogged diffuser lens would be a nice addition.

Conclusion

Most computer reviews are written within a short period after the hardware is received. The problem with that approach is that it takes some time to become familiar with the hardware, and subtle problems may take a while to show up. The LINI machine has been running reliably for almost four months, it is safe to call it a good piece of hardware. Compile times are blazingly fast, and GUI response is quite zippy.

We are lucky to live in an era when computer hardware is improving at a rate that is on a par with the slowing effects of software bloat. The best way to discover that your current computer has made the gradual transition from cheetah to snail is to upgrade to a faster box, then return to the old machine. The author's previous machine once seemed like it had more processor power than one could ever use. After using the LINI, the older machine just doesn't seem very responsive anymore.

(Log in to post comments)

N Series Dell

Posted Apr 13, 2006 20:17 UTC (Thu) by bshotts (subscriber, #2597) [Link]

I second that. You have to search the site (I believe it's in Small Business) for them (they're called "N Series") machines and they ship with blank hard drives and a FreeDOS CD. I bought a Dimension about a year and a half ago for about $100 less than the same machine with Windows. Been very pleased with it.

Review of the LINI PC

Posted Apr 14, 2006 3:51 UTC (Fri) by kapheine (subscriber, #26127) [Link]

I just recently bought the Dimension E510 'Open Source' machine from Dell. While I am happy with it overall, there are a few things that bother me.

Software: When running in on a 64-bit mode, the drivers for the video card are in a state of flux. The open source driver causes my machine to crash, and the proprietary ATI one isn't up to date. So I am stuck using the VESA drive for now.

Hardware:
* There are no serial or parallel ports. I use these often for embedded systems development, so I'll have to get PCI-card versions.
* The video card seems to be attached to the motherboard by a thin wire. It can probably be snipped without consequence, but I'd rather not risk that right now.
* The hard-drive makes a fairly high pitched noise that really bothered me for a few days. I'm used to it now though. It's high pitched enough that not everyone will be able to hear it.

It probably sounds like I am unhappy with this machine, but I'm really not. There are just some things that bug me. It might partially be my fault, though. When I read 'Open Source' I think of a machine for a developer when it doesn't necessarily mean that.

Review of the LINI PC

Posted Apr 15, 2006 17:29 UTC (Sat) by jamesm (guest, #2273) [Link]

Mine has a serial & parallel port -- it's just a standard pc, and doesn't make any unusual noise.

Review of the LINI PC

Posted Apr 13, 2006 17:28 UTC (Thu) by guinan (subscriber, #4644) [Link]

Corbet made the right choice getting this particular unit pre-built.

I got an Aria case for my living room media PC, and I had numerous problems with it. I originally bought a cheap Soyo+Duron system board, with a substantial heatsink topped with an 80mm fan to keep things quiet. But I didn't anticipate that because the Aria is so compact, the power supply hangs over enough of the motherboard area that it didn't leave room for the heatsink+fan with the Soyo's board layout. So it was either a smaller much noisier fan (which defeated the whole purpose), or another motherboard. I ended up getting ahold of a surplus Intel board with 1.6GHz P4 and a relatively low profile fan, and things fit that time around, but its still noisier than I like.

The other problem I had while trying to put this thing together was that it would randomly shut down. No warning, just "click" and the pretty blue lights were out. I suspected the Soyo motherboard, but then it happened with the Intel. It wasn't worth replacing the power supply, so I was afraid I was stuck with a brick. But on a whim I tried connecting the smaller reset switch as power switch, leaving the big button disconnected, and that made the problem go away! And its harder to accidentally hit the power switch now.

Review of the LINI PC

Posted Apr 13, 2006 17:48 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

"Corbet made the right choice getting this particular unit pre-built."

...except that it wasn't me. This article was written by Forrest Cook, the Development Page editor.

Review of the LINI PC

Posted Apr 13, 2006 19:01 UTC (Thu) by guinan (subscriber, #4644) [Link]

Ah, thanks for pointing that out. I'm a little embarassed to admit that I sometimes forget that there are other members of LWN. Your writing styles are very similar to my eyes, and the attribution tags are so subtle that I tend to skim over them. Laziness on my part, perhaps.

Anyway, nice choice Mr. Cook, and I enjoyed the article.

Writing style

Posted Apr 13, 2006 21:25 UTC (Thu) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link]

I'm an outsider, but I'm pretty sure that a lot of aspects of the writing
style are intentional "house policy". The easiest aspect to pick out is
the newspaper-like style of referring to the writer in the third person.

At one time there was a page editor who didn't seem to try to follow
Jon's LWN style at all, and it was painful for me to read.

(As a former small-newspaper copy editor with an old copy of the AP Style
Guide sitting on the shelf, I notice these things.)

Confusion About Authors

Posted Apr 14, 2006 18:50 UTC (Fri) by marr (subscriber, #5675) [Link]

I think this confusion points out the need to better identify the author(s) of the various sections' content.

I've actually been thinking this for a long time -- I often have trouble identifying which of the LWN editors/contributors are responsible for a particular passage.

Other than that, I'm very happy with the LWN layout and content. Keep up the good work, gang!

Antec 'Aria' Case Problems/Work-Arounds

Posted Apr 14, 2006 18:48 UTC (Fri) by marr (subscriber, #5675) [Link]

(Article author) Forrest Cook wrote:
> the large square power button is located just above
> the CDROM eject button.

I have this Antec Aria case as well. I think Forrest meant to say "just _below_ the CDROM eject button".

I've had this problem with the Antec Aria case too. It stems from the fact that the "eject" button for the optical media is _much_ smaller (and less obvious, especially with a black optical media drive after having removed the Aria's [cosmetic] drive cover) than the case "power" button (which is silver against a black background). And, as Forrest mentioned, the media eject button is especially hard to see/press when the tray is ejected.

I somewhat disagree that a "rear panel power switch would be an improvement". I've got my main PC (Slackware 10.2) configured to enter ACPI 'S3' sleep state (aka 'STR' -- 'Suspend To RAM') whenever the case power button is pressed for less than 4 seconds. I need access to that power button to suspend/resume the PC.

In fact, the BIOS setting (available on most ATX-era motherboards?) that allows entering an ACPI sleep state is the one that changes the "power off" pushbutton action from "instantaneous" to "hold for 4 or more seconds". This might serve as a crude work-around to avert the problem of accidentally shutting off the PC when all you wanted to do was toggle the position of the optical media tray.

As for the (annoying, I agree, and superfluous) blue LEDs, they're powered by a single (PC standard, 4-pin) Molex connector and can be easily disabled by unplugging them, without affecting anything else (e.g. front-panel card reader).

My biggest gripe with the Antec Aria case was the fact that it does not include a 'Power On' LED. Normally, I wouldn't care but I routinely put this box into ACPI "sleep" mode, where the blinking power LED is the only way to know that it's in "sleep" mode and not truly "off". I hacked a little wire+LED, plugged it into the motherboard connector, and routed it crudely through a slot in the side of the case, sticking out next to the power switch. That works acceptably. This LED should have been provided with the Antec Aria case -- a big oversight, IMHO. This is the first PC case I've owned since my self-built (circa 1986) IBM-compatible PC-XT that did NOT come with a power LED, so I never even thought to look for that as a "feature"!

Mostly, I like the Antec Aria case, but it could have been better by addressing those shortcomings.

Antec 'Aria' Case Problems/Work-Arounds

Posted Apr 15, 2006 20:13 UTC (Sat) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link]

Would it be a silly question to ask why you didn't make a 2-pin to Molex adapter, and use the blue lights as the motherboard power light?

Antec 'Aria' Case Problems/Work-Arounds

Posted Apr 15, 2006 20:59 UTC (Sat) by marr (subscriber, #5675) [Link]

Not a silly question at all. For some folks, that might be a good option. However, there are 2 reasons I didn't do as you suggest (or 3, if you count the fact that your idea never crossed my mind ;^} ):

(1) I already had the Berg strip (for the motherboard end) attached to a pair of wires, so all I had to do was solder a spare red LED onto the end and route it through the front of the case.

(2) The blue Aria case LEDs are large, bright, annoying (IMHO), and totally superfluous (they shine up on either side of the front faceplate). I wanted a usable, understated 'Power On' LED, not something bright and gaudy.

Furthermore, even assuming I'd thought to do as you suggest, I don't know how much current those large, bright, blue LEDs draw or how much current the motherboard's 'Power On' connector can source.