fit-PC Slim Linux

by CompuLab

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• ASIN: B001L18ED2
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,267 in Computers & Accessories (See Top 100 in Computers & Accessories)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: March 21, 2010

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great for specific uses, February 8, 2009

By 

ABK (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: fit-PC Slim Linux (Personal Computers)

Great little product. I basically wiped the default install and installed Ubuntu server on this to use as a home server / external server for various projects I work on. It is more than adequate for this purpose. Also works great as a internet radio server, and as an endpoint for a SOCKS firewall (for, say, getting around work firewalls). From my experiments, it does not appear to have enough power to stream video from sites like Hulu and display them (though you can stream THROUGH it to another computer just fine), nor is it able to stream Pandora (mainly because Pandora's flash player uses a ridiculous amount of system resources). I haven't really used it to server locally stored media, but I suspect it would work quite a bit better. If you actually want to sit at a screen and use it, you won't be blown away by the speed by any means, but it is adequate for simple tasks (simple web browsing, document editing, etc..) . Love that it is absolutely silent, and literally peaks out at 7 watts power consumption even under *heavy* load (code compilation).

I've read a lot of reviews on other sites for this that compare to systems like the EeeBox and note that it is underpowered. I think this is absolutely true, depending on what you want to use this for. The *real* benefit of this system, in my viewpoint, is that it gives you a great always on computer for a headless home server or for simple online tasks for less power than your regular computer probably uses when it is completely off. Systems like the Eeebox, by contrast, use about as much power as a laptop, which isn't huge by any means, but also isn't anything special.

So, in summary, if you want a little machine you can leave running in the corner for home automation, home server, or very simple quick document writing or web browsing type of tasks that makes no noise at all and uses practically no power, this may be good for you. By contrast, if you want to do anything that is even remotely processor intensive (like *displaying* streaming video as opposed to just serving as a pass-through for the data or a storage point for the data), then you probably should look into something more powerful.

Note, as of this writing, only the Windows XP wireless network card driver allows you to run this device as a wireless access point. I'm sure the linux side is working on it.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a great little linux box, January 3, 2009

By 

Michelle Stone "litebkt" (Mariposa, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: fit-PC Slim Linux (Personal Computers)

I use it to manage my webcam, weather data, and upload the two to remote servers.

It came with a very nice selection of installed packages. I am using it headless and it works with very low power consumption. That's all that matters to me.

I may go in and uninstall some of the installed packages that I won't use to free up more disk space.

I set it up with a fixed IP on my home network. Don't bother with the installed network packages. Readup on ifconfig and edit the /etc/network/interfaces file directly.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great computer for specific applications, May 25, 2009

By 

R. Lublinerman (PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: fit-PC Slim Linux (Personal Computers)

This is the ideal computer to use for server-like applications, i.e. mail, http, pbx, etc.

Let me describe my setup. I use Elastix, which is a pbx Linux distribution based on Asterisk+FreePBX in a SOHO environment, 8 extensions, 1 telco like line, and 2 voip termination providers. It works beautifully and I seem to be underusing it. Processor has been always below 10%. It has replaced my "old" pbx that was running out of a wrt45gs Linksys router (which served its purpose but I had to have a very lean asterisk installation, there was no way to install FreePBX and all its prereqs with 8MB flash, 32Mb ram)

Advantages:
- Noiseless.
- Low power.
- x86 processor. Lots of options on what you can run on it.

Disadvantages:
- None so far.

Caveat: the GEODE LX800 processor has an i586 instruction set (actually is has all i686 instructions minus a couple) and that means that some Linux distributions (like Centos) may fail to install in it without tweaking.