Small PCs come cheaper at PC Engines ... but you won't get a lot of RAM
Above: The Alix1b board. Prices are low for both the board and the cases, the power supply is on board (plug in a brick and you're in business ...), but don't think about asking for more than 256 MB of RAM.
Focusing on the embedded market (and seemingly well-liked by users of both Linux and the various BSDs) are the boards from the Zurich, Switzerland-based PC Engines.
The company has some extremely compelling and relatively inexpensive offerings ... if you're willing or able to run your application(s) in 256 MB of RAM.
The Alix1d features a 433 or 500 MHz AMD Geode LX CPU, 128 or 256 MB SDRAM on board, CompactFlash socket, 44 -pin IDE header (fits a 2.5-inch laptop drive), 12V DC, DC-DC converter on board, 1 10/100 Ethernet port, 2 COM, 4 USB, 1 LPT, audio, with VGA support in a 6.7" x 6.7" miniITX-size board with an Award BIOS.
Prices for these kinds of things are generally too high, but a look at the PC Engines pricing page shows the Alix1d selling for $132 with an enclosure for an extra $10 and AC adapter for $5.25.
This looks like a much-cheaper alternative to the likes of Soekris, and I can see assembling a very nice box (for embedded applications at least) to run under either Linux or any of the BSDs for way less than $200.
The only potential stopper for me (aside from the memory issue) is potential shipping charges from Europe. There are distributors of the PC Engines products located around the world, including the U.S., but I'll have to look more closely at both the prices and how to properly configure the OSes to deal with CF cards (or how to mount a 2.5-inch spinning hard drive).
(I should probably keep quiet about this, get a few more CF cards and just run the silent PC I already have, The Self-Reliant Thin Client.)
On second thought: I looked at the 20-page manual, which I've linked to below, and it looks mighty hard to get an OS on these things. Since there's no mention of it, I'm guessing there's no provision for booting from USB and that you have to use the 44-pin IDE header and somehow get it connected to a 40-pin CD drive, with drive power coming ... let's just say my head's starting to hurt. But these boards sure are cheap.
I'm retreating to the friendly confines of Logic Supply, in my opinion the best mini-ITX provider around.
But if you really know what you're doing, know how to generate boot images on CF cards and are thinking of buying lots of boards for some embedded use, PC Engines' products can seemingly save a whole lot of cash.
Related:
The box1C for the Alix1d:
Note how this Alix board (in the box1C case) has what looks like a Wi-Fi card in the mini-PCI slot and a CF card in the provided slot:
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Installing an OS on these devices is pretty simple if you are working in a unix-environment.
I use an Alix-board as an fully-fledged ERP-System for my small business (using lx-office).
The trick is to just use an emulator for installation which uses your real CF-Card as its "emulated" harddrive.
Installing the OS goes like this if you want to install Linux or some flavour of BSD:
1. Download an ISO-Image or create an ISO-Image of the installation CD using dd.
2. Insert your empty CF-Card in the cardreader and attach it to your desktop-pc.
3. Make sure you have installed the QEMU emulator on your system
4. Fire up QEMU like this: qemu -cdrom YOURISO.iso -hda /dev/PUTYOURCARDREADERNAMEHERE -boot d
5. Now go through the installation process of your system of choice.
6 Shutdown the operating system in the emulator. If you know what you are doing you can try to tweak configuration files of your newly installed system already.
7. Take the CF-Card out of the cardreader and put it back on your ALIX-board
Power up the board and be happy!
If you are using a headless system (without VGA-adapter) it might be a VERY good idea to configure the GRUB-bootloader (or whatever system you are using) to stream its and the systems' output on the serial/COM-Port. Otherwise it is almost impossible to know why something is not working.
On headless systems, you absolutely have to configure at least networking in the emulator (DHCP, SSH...) to be able to access you board. while Ubuntu-server is configured to get its IP over DHCP, this is not the case on BSD-Systems. Please take a look at the documentation!
One more hint: at least my headless Alix-Board has no backup-battery for the clock! That means you have to make sure it is using NTP to get its system time on startup if you are using the board for more complex tasks.
After all: have fun with your ALIX-Board. Oh, one personal opinion: using some free unix-flavour, 256MB really is enough...
Want more information? write a mail to chr AT nikazon DOT com
Thanks to your blog (thanks!!!), I bought one of these babies, and happily report it boots just fine from my generic USB external DVD drive.
I installed Debian Lenny, without any problems. A 2nd Alix is on it's way, which will run FreeBSD.
My 2nd Alix came in, and FreeBSD is not a happy camper there. Looks like some issue with vr(4), the NIC driver. OpenBSD ran fine, but cannot reboot (BIOS doesn't recognize CF afterward). To add insult to injury, the 2nd Alix won't boot from USB DVD, whereas the 1st had no trouble with that.
I cloned the Debian CF from my 1st Alix, and now the 2nd Alix runs nicely. Hmmm...
I've heard about Debian running well. I thought that OpenBSD would do equally well and that the BIOS would just see it as a regular hard drive.
I'd hate to drop even $150 and not be able to boot the damn thing. I don't have a USB optical drive, so I wouldn't even have that option unless I managed to find one.
I might have to go with a Mini-ITX or Pico-ITX system to end up with something that runs.