New Bedroom PC

[Bogie]

It's a little bitty fanless thing, runs Windows 10 or 11 (currently downloading), and is going to be plugged into a "little" TV and A/V receiver via HDMI cable.
 
https://www.microcenter.com/product/634708/hyundai-mini-pc-desktop-computer

I have an extra 500 gig SSD that is going in it, or I can just stuff in a 500 gig USB 3.x drive.
 
Haven't decided on speakers yet, but will probably build one of the kits from www.partsexpress.com.

[AZRedhawk44]

I've had a couple Gigabyte Brix that were similar.

The first, back in 2016, was a Celeron.  I was using it to run my Plex home theater server, hoping it could tackle transcoding better than my Synology NAS that had a tiny little Intel Atom processor in it.  No dice, so I got a second Brix a little later with an i3 processor in it.  That thing was good to go though.  I used it for several years until I finally upgraded the Synology NAS from a cheap 2-drive unit to a nicer 4-drive unit with a better CPU onboard.

My NAS now is a beast.  SSD read/write cache, oodles of terabytes of storage, CPU powerful enough to transcode multiple simultaneous streams.

[Bogie]

I just want Miles and Trane...

[AZRedhawk44]

I am interested in your UI you end up going with for this project though, Bogie.

In our home, our TV consumption is done through an Nvidia Shield in one room, or an Amazon FireTV in the other, hooked up to large HDTV's.  Both are nominally Android, but both are being overly hijacked by their respective OS vendors with advertisements.

The FireTV environment seems to like to "garden wall" itself to Amazon-approved affiliates.  The Shield ran amok a few months ago and I went down a deep rabbit hole with it.  We started getting ads for RuPaul's transvestite show on the home screen of the Shield.  Just the base OS screen where you choose if you want to watch Youtube/Netflix/Plex/Prime/etc.  Big spangly tranny banner ads.  It was Paramount+ ads, delivered through Google's marketing system embedded in the OS.  Then there was a bunch of Youtube original series ads about some sort of gay/trans show.  Just shoving it down our throats.  With an 8yo in the house, it was more than just distasteful, it was thoroughly inappropriate. 

I found out I could disable the ads by disabling several Google Play Store services in the Shield.  However, this created drama with Netflix.  Netflix relies upon Google API's for DRM protection of their media, and I couldn't watch Netflix after this.  Until I rolled back the version of Netflix installed on the Shield to the oldest version that shipped with it.  Evidently that version uses different DRM management.  But, without the Google Play Services running, my cached credentials in the OS weren't available for auto-sign-in of the app and I have to enter my username and password every time I launch Netflix, which is a royal pain.

I'd like to get some sort of alternate set-top streaming solution where there is NO advertising on the launch screen and user UI.  Nvidia's Shield is no longer a good solution in that regard.  Ideally, one with a multi-user setup so I can give my kid one UI with only permitted apps and the lady and I have a different UI with all pertinent apps.

[Bogie]

Right now, the bedroom box, with fan, is running Linux Mint... No Microsoft/Google BS... Haven't decided if I'm going to play with the partitions, etc., on the toy computer yet...

[lee n. field]

Intel Celeron N4020 1.1GHz Processor; 4GB DDR4 RAM; 64GB eMMC Storage; Intel UHD Graphics 600

"Be still my heart."

[WLJ]

Bet the cards flip real fast while playing solitaire on that power house.

[Bogie]

Hey, it just has to play music. The current bedroom computer is probably 10 years old. I'm not sure how old that is in Linux years tho...
 
Not a gamer, and hey... if I decide to write an email at 0300, hey, I can only type so fast...

[zxcvbob]

Hey, it just has to play music. The current bedroom computer is probably 10 years old. I'm not sure how old that is in Linux years tho...
 
Not a gamer, and hey... if I decide to write an email at 0300, hey, I can only type so fast...

I hadn't heard of that processor and had to look it up.  Two processor cores, two threads.  But those seems pretty fast, and 4GB of RAM is plenty with a 32-bit OS, and okay for a 64-bit that you don't push all that hard.  (I was surprised that it supports Windows 11)  You're probably not going to be multitasking with it where you need multiple cores.  I bet it is about as fast as a 5 or 6 year old business laptop.  The 64GB of storage concerns me, but it looks like it has an empty slot for a M.2 SSD, and a 2.5" drive.

[K Frame]

These minis, can the function like a regular desktop computer or are they specialized and more for dedicated tasks like what's being described here?

[Bogie]

They tend to use them to run kiosks, personal music servers, that sort of thing. Decent little secretary machines. You can only type so fast... Did okay on some youtubing last night, while it was downloading Win11... Likely more than sufficient for APS... They have a clip-thing to hook to the back of a lot of televisions.
 
FWIW, the workstations where I work are similar sized little micros, with a server in the back. Running Linux and some sort of home brew thing for the GUI...
 
The tunes are probably going to go on a 500 gig USB 3 thumb drive. Back slots are USB 2, front are 3...
 
I'm going to give Win11 a shot, see how it behaves. Setting up Mint will likely result in pretty decent performance.

[zxcvbob]

I have a 7 or 8 year old Chromebook with a lot less horsepower than that thing and I still use it; works fine for most things, although Google stopped updating it when it hit 5 years, so it's far enough behind that a few web sites refuse to load because I'm using an "outdated browser"

[WLJ]

so it's far enough behind that a few web sites refuse to load because I'm using an "outdated browser"

And for good reason. Massive security risk. Yes it's real.

[lee n. field]

I hadn't heard of that processor and had to look it up.  Two processor cores, two threads.  But those seems pretty fast, and 4GB of RAM is plenty with a 32-bit OS, and okay for a 64-bit that you don't push all that hard.  (I was surprised that it supports Windows 11)  You're probably not going to be multitasking with it where you need multiple cores.  I bet it is about as fast as a 5 or 6 year old business laptop.  The 64GB of storage concerns me, but it looks like it has an empty slot for a M.2 SSD, and a 2.5" drive.

I've got a lot or experience trying to optimize crap computers for folks.  I'm all the time getting asked "why is my computer slow?".  Answer is usually "because you bought the cheapest thing at Walmart 5+ years ago."  I usually can't do enough to totally overcome the "trifecta of suck" (crap CPU, low RAM, slow hard disk).

Most home users I see end up with 75 to 100GB of usage on their local disk, with their pictures and music and whatnot.  64GB, if you can't replace or expand it, is going to be close.  (Don't even think about setting the compression flag in drive properties.  "No!" <shakes finger in face>.  "No. No. No!")

I can't see using something like this for anything other than a specialized appliance.  At least this one isn't coming with 32 GB storage soldered to the board like the older HP Stream laptops.

[zxcvbob]

I've got a lot or experience trying to optimize crap computers for folks.  I'm all the time getting asked "why is my computer slow?".  Answer is usually "because you bought the cheapest thing at Walmart 5+ years ago."  I usually can't do enough to totally overcome the "trifecta of suck" (crap CPU, low RAM, slow hard disk).

Most home users I see end up with 75 to 100GB of usage on their local disk, with their pictures and music and whatnot.  64GB, if you can't replace or expand it, is going to be close.  (Don't even think about setting the compression flag in drive properties.  "No!" <shakes finger in face>.  "No. No. No!")

I can't see using something like this for anything other than a specialized appliance.  At least this one isn't coming with 32 GB storage soldered to the board like the older HP Stream laptops.

If he adds a 240GB or 250GB SSD I think it will be fine.  As is, I think only 64GB of storage is going to really suck.  Windows itself will quickly use that up.  (I remember when 10MB of storage was a lot  )

[WLJ]

If he adds a 240GB or 250GB SSD I think it will be fine.  As is, I think only 64GB of storage is going to really suck.  Windows itself will quickly use that up.  (I remember when 10MB of storage was a lot  )

My first hard drive was a ST-225R 20mb. Now a single picture is often bigger than that.

[K Frame]

I have a 7 or 8 year old Chromebook with a lot less horsepower than that thing and I still use it; works fine for most things, although Google stopped updating it when it hit 5 years, so it's far enough behind that a few web sites refuse to load because I'm using an "outdated browser"

Put a mask on it! Everyone knows that a mask will stop a virus!

[zxcvbob]

Put a mask on it! Everyone knows that a mask will stop a virus!

Chromebooks don't get viruses; the OS is locked down too tight.  (I wish it wasn't, so I could install Linux) Perhaps they could if you put them in "developer mode", but you have to completely wipe them going in or out of dev mode.  There could be other security risks from using an outdated browser, maybe even on the server side.

[WLJ]

Chromebooks don't get viruses; the OS is locked down too tight.  (I wish it wasn't, so I could install Linux) Perhaps they could if you put them in "developer mode", but you have to completely wipe them going in or out of dev mode.  There could be other security risks from using an outdated browser, maybe even on the server side.

While virus on Cromebooks are rare, yes they exist,  malware on the other hand is not and out of date browsers are a security hole

[Bogie]

The bedroom music/media and office box right now is a Dell 3400 "workstation" tower. Probably close to 10 years old, if not older. Works pretty well, but it tends to be noisy with a fan and spinning rust. It's going into the dining room office, where it really should be. And it won't be doing the music...

[Jim147]

As hard as a Rpi is to find this might be an option for small projects.

[zxcvbob]

I was cleaning in the basement and found an old ASUS netbook.  It's at least 10 years old; has an Atom processor and came preloaded with Windows 7 Starter.  IIRC, last time I used it I upgraded it to Win 10 Home.  It has 1GB of RAM and I'm pretty sure it's not upgradeable.  I'm charging the battery now to see if it still works.  (it looks like the battery is taking a charge but I dunno how much capacity, but it's not recognizing the keyboard.  I see there's an 8GB SD card in the side, probably being used as virtual memory.  I haven't pulled it out to see if there are any files on it.

Before I throw it away, if I can get past the keyboard thing, what is a good Linux distro for something this puny? 

[lee n. field]

I was cleaning in the basement and found an old ASUS netbook.  It's at least 10 years old; has an Atom processor and came preloaded with Windows 7 Starter.  IIRC, last time I used it I upgraded it to Win 10 Home.  It has 1GB of RAM and I'm pretty sure it's not upgradeable.  I'm charging the battery now to see if it still works.  (it looks like the battery is taking a charge but I dunno how much capacity, but it's not recognizing the keyboard.  I see there's an 8GB SD card in the side, probably being used as virtual memory.  I haven't pulled it out to see if there are any files on it.

Before I throw it away, if I can get past the keyboard thing, what is a good Linux distro for something this puny? 

maybe this: https://peppermintos.com/.

There might be some kernel options in the Debian install that would lower the RAM hit.

[AZRedhawk44]

These minis, can the function like a regular desktop computer or are they specialized and more for dedicated tasks like what's being described here?

They absolutely can handle routine desktop computer use.

I wouldn't suggest putting an i7 or an AMD equivalent CPU inside such a small chassis, but up to an i5 or so would be just fine.

Mine has an SSD for its primary drive, 8GB RAM, and a 2-core i3 processor (4 total threads) and it's able to do on the fly video transcoding as a streaming multimedia server for multiple concurrent users.  The media in question was hosted on a NAS and accessed over a network protocol called iSCSI, wasn't on the SSD (SSD was just for OS and temp/swap space).  It was running Linux for this but I'm quite confident that it would work just fine for a casual home PC user who does little more than social media, streaming service consumption, and MS-Office style apps.  Once you're into photo/video editing or gaming it's going to be underpowered.