[Cialug] Small and quiet Linux box suggestions

[Daniel A. Ramaley]

On 2014-04-23 at 10:40:30 David Champion wrote:
> I've got one of the Asus / Atom mini PC's. It's OK but the CPU is just
> too slow for me.
> I think any of the Shuttle / Asus / Intel mini PC's with a Core i5 or
> better would work well for you.
> -dc

This sounds like a good possibility for something that is small and 
quiet, but still has good performance when needed:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/02/a-turbo-charged-quad-core-mini-desktop-gigabytes-brix-pro-reviewed/

It has "Intel Iris Pro 5200" graphics. I don't know what graphics are 
like today, but last time i checked, Intel was slow but compatible (open 
source drivers!), nVidia was fast but required proprietary drivers, and 
ATI was fast but the proprietary drivers were unstable. That was at 
least 5-6 years ago though; far enough in the past that ATI wasn't yet 
called AMD. Does Intel still have open source drivers? My current 
machine has an nVidia card, and while i've not had any problems with it, 
i would be quite happy if i could get back to a fully open-source system 
again.

__
Daniel A. Ramaley
Network Engineer 2

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E-mail: daniel.ramaley at drake.edu