Customer Reviews

fit-PC Slim Linux

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Bought the winxp version of this as it was cheaper than the linux version at the time, then one of these too.

I've run it with both O/S'es.

My application is an office pc, and streaming video server as well.

It is a good low wattage pc, though it gets quite warm in use.

What they don't tell you:

It falls short on support for the intel video driver. Compulab only ships the pc with the windows video acceleration driver if you buy the windows version, but won't sell you a copy for a blank machine, or if your hard drive crashes.

So, if you are depending on windows video acceleration, tough cookies - and it's needed to get decent streaming performance under windows.

On the linux side, it's been hamstrung too.

Although it runs Ubuntu linux, the fitpc as delivered has to update from compulab's own repositories. This keeps you a version or two behind the rest of the Ubuntu community. If you install Ubuntu yourself, you need to either tie into their repositories, or lose - you guessed it - the video acceleration drivers. If compulab goes away, so does your repository.... check their forums for more info...

You can buy a version of this thing that goes on with power on, btw - but that's a choice you have to make up front. Amazon's version doesn't do that, if the power goes off and then on again, the pc is going to remain off - and that modification can't be made in the field.

Oh - if it does get too warm, it slows itself down - can be frustrating if you don't know what's happening, the pc just gets slower and slower, dropping video frames and audio until you cool it a little bit....

The video out is only hdmi - but it does NOT include audio in the hdmi cable, that comes on a pc audio cable instead. Your TV, monitor, or home theater receiver might not be able to handle that.

So - if you NEED a super low wattage pc - and can live with the peculiarities - here it is. Otherwise, there are better choices for a few more watts and a little bigger footprint.

I received my Linux-based unit, and the wireless card was not present. After rebooting several times, it suddenly appeared and I was able to receive the names of several local wireless access points (including mine). I was unable to connect to any of them, and the link quality remained at 0/100. After a couple of days of trying to configure the wireless, the wireless card disappeared again.

On the plus side, customer service responded to my forum post in a day and the build quality of the machine was obviously excellent. I'm going to try to purchase again.

My profession in Information Technology demands tools that need to be at finger tipes reach. It's nice to have a device with such low power consumption to be there when you need it 24 x 7 for whatever task you have at hand.

It's great to have a machine on the internet that you can Secure Shell (SSH) tunnel and then open RDP to test various network issues or external facing web applications.

This device also provides a great repository as a home file server to save importants documents.

I will probably purchase the newer model in the near future to sit next to this current model I chose to purchase as an experiment.

Great Product!

I was looking for a nice low power unit to act as meteohub server, added 8GB SSD, booted from flash drive and installed meteohub to SSD after I changed the BIOS settings. Restarted, tried to get into BIOS to change settings back except VGA display output is no longer working. Try to find support? Good luck. It appears it's mostly an online forum which is sporadically monitored, and email contact for RMA support which takes days to respond. Then the RMA response is to go online and submit a form and wait for a response. Telephone contact? Ha!

I'm told RMA will take 4 weeks. I guess everything has to go back to Israel.

Amazon will not replace the unit.

I gave 2 stars, because I believe the fit-PC Slim will meet my purpose. It's just that the support is so poor. Maybe I should give it only one star. Not a happy camper.

This product has zero support from the manufacturer. The chipset is from 2004 and it is extremely difficult to find updated drivers. It runs very slowly under Ubuntu. I love the size and it's noiseless but not very useful.

Nice product. I was able to install ubuntu on it and configure it to use our secure wireless network. I connected it to both a monitor and a TV screen, and it looked good on both. I like how small and quiet the unit is, and the fact that it's a green product.

I purchased this computer to attach to our TV to use as a multi-media computer. The computer is a very nice little computer pre-loaded with Linux (a powerful operating system). The computer was not quite up to the task as a multi-media entertainment computer however, as any other purpose, the computer has excelled. I am currently listening to music streamed from San Francisco (living in Naples). I am interested in purchasing the newer and updated version as a car computer, after doing plenty of research I realize that the lack of its ability was more due to selecting a computer that was meant more as a mini-workhorse, not for heavy graphic output (CPU type). If I came across another like this I would gladly buy it for other side projects.