[Cialug] Small and quiet Linux box suggestions

[Matthew Nuzum]

Ubuntu has historically ran very well as long as you didn't have the latest hardware. Usually the first Ubuntu release after a new hardware release had things working very well. As a matter of fact, Canonical had sticker packs designed to de-brand Apple hardware for people who presented often and liked the Macs.

That said, Don is right on the money. VMWare Fusion (not free, but very reasonably priced) runs Linux amazingly well. Ubuntu 12.04 desktop[1] ran better in VMWare than it did in dual boot mode due to the fact that VMware interpreted mouse gestures and translated them to the OS. The lack of noticeable performance impact is truly amazing. My non-scientific opinion is that apmd works better in a VM than it does on bare metal.

[1] I never successfully made the jump past 12.04 on the desktop

-- 
Matthew Nuzum
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On Apr 27, 2014, at 9:08 AM, Daniel A. Ramaley <daniel.ramaley at drake.edu> wrote:

> How well do modern Mac Minis run Linux? When i first started thinking 
> about mini PCs, the Mac Mini was the first that came to mind. I've run 
> Linux on Apple hardware before (both PowerPC and Intel) and have been 
> frustrated by the constant little problems though. But if i recall 
> correctly, most of my post-installation issues were related to booting; 
> the boot loader on Apple hardware seemed quite brittle and often broke 
> on kernel upgrades. Maybe it is better now; the last time i ran Linux on 
> Apple hardware was several years ago when EFI was a novelty that was 
> really *only* available on Apple. None of my hardware is new enough to 
> have it, but my understanding is that EFI is a bit more common now.
> 
> On 2014-04-25 at 18:29:03 Rob Cook wrote:
>> My issues with that Brix mini PC is that once you spec it past
>> 'barebones' but not fully loaded with a core i7 you can buy a
>> refurbed Mac Mini with a core i7. There really isn't anything that
>> works better in this form factor than Mini and nothing will be as
>> quiet.
> __
> Daniel A. Ramaley
> Network Engineer 2
> 
> Dial Center 122, Drake University
> 2407 Carpenter Ave / Des Moines IA 50311 USA
> Tel: +1 515 271-4540
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> E-mail: daniel.ramaley at drake.edu
> 
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