New PC and KVM for the Home Office

Recently I made a major change to my home computing platforms with the addition of a PC running Windows 11.

My primary computer was and will remain a 2025 MacBook Air, which works splendidly, and it runs the OS with which I'm most productive. However, as I near retirement and may be taking on some consulting, I wanted access to a powerful PC that could run Windows 11 and an as-yet TBD Linux distribution for running local LLMs.

So, a few weeks ago I bought at MicroCenter a PowerSpec G732 gaming PC. It's a beefy rig that IMO gives you a lot for the money:

• AMD Ryzen 7 7700X (4.5GHz) Processor
• MSI PRO B850M-VC WiFi Motherboard
• 32GB DDR5-6000 RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Graphics Card
• 1TB NVMe SSD
• 5GbE LAN, WiFi 6E (802.11ax), Bluetooth 5.3
• Windows 11 Home

My old monitor was a 27" LG from 2019 which was built to work with the then-new MacBooks that had only Thunderbolt ports. It acted as my docking station proving power, audio and video, Gig-E and a decent built-in webcam. Unfortunately, it only works with Macs, not PCs, so I needed to replace it.

Microcenter had an LG UltraGear 27G640A-B.AUSQ 27" 2K QHD (2560 x 1440) 300Hz Gaming Monitor with built-in speakers but no webcam on sale for $300. While the old unit was 4K-capable I ran it at only 2K because at 4K everything was too small for me to see.

The new monitor lacks a webcam so I added a Logitech Brio 100 1080p Webcam which include a microphone.

I'm using my old Dell keyboard and Logitech mouse, both connected via USB.

My impressions so far:

The PC's build quality is excellent with nice interior cable management. Performance seems very good although the closest thing I've done to taxing it is to run Skyrim at the highest resolution. If I run it faster than 60FPS, though, the video spins which is apparently a known Skyrim bug. Obviously, I need something more modern to really stretch out the graphics, and after I get it setup for local LLMs I expect to put the NVidea card to real work.

The Logitech webcam was only $40 but apparently the video quality is nicer than the one built into my old monitor. I didn't get any complaints about audio from its mic on a Google Meetings call or a Zoom call.

The new monitor is sharp, displaying either text or graphics well. The built-in speakers are inferior to those on my old monitor. I may replace them with USB speakers connected to the KVM.

Windows 11 is DOGSHIT. I had to do a lot of tweaking to disable unwanted features (e.g. Copilot) but it seems to be running OK for now. I did make a USB recovery stick in case a Microsoft update breaks it. (As far as I'm concerned the best version of Windows for end user computing was Windows 7.)

The biggest problem I had with the PC was trying to get a PowerA brand USB XBox controller working with it. This should have been plug and play. Fat chance. I spent HOURS trying to get it to be seen by any applications or the Windows joystick control app, which included a ton of Googling and even troubleshooting with the aid of Google Gemini to no avail. Eventually, I returned the PowerA controller and replaced it with a Bluetooth Microsoft XBox controller that installed and worked with minimal effort.

The PC has two empty slots on its motherboard for NVME SSDs. I plan to populate one in the near future and dual-boot with Linux for running local LLMs. I haven't decided which version. I'm debating between Fedora, Alma, Debian, or Ubuntu. Stay tuned.

However, the new setup left me without the ability to connect the MacBook Air to the new monitor and my mouse and keyboard, so today I went back to Microcenter and got a UGreen HDMI KVM Switch (2 Computers, 1 Monitor, 4K@60Hz) model #15707.

Yes, I have too much crap on my desk. My Xfinity gateway (in bridge mode) is the white tower back left. In front of that is a Yaesu FT-2800R 2M/70cm transceiver. On the right you can see my MacBook Air in a cradle I bought around 10 years ago to use in my old home office, and finally the new PC. The WiFi adapter is connected to the PC but not in use since wired Ethernet > WiFi. Behind the monitor is a three-tier wire rack shelf holding my WiFi router on top, and below that my desktop switch and Intel Nuc, and on the bottom shelf my power strip.

The KVM is behind the Mac, with its remote control below the monitor.

Because the MacBook Air only has the Magsafe power connector, A/V, and two Thunderbolt ports, I have it connected with an older Anker USB-C hub/dock that has an HDMI port, three USB-A ports, and a Gig-E port, which is then connected to my desktop switch. Power to the Mac is provided by the OEM Magsafe charger.

I chose the UGreen KVM switch because of the mostly positive reviews at Microcenter and Amazon, and because it's noted as being compatible with Mac, Linux, and Windows. A couple reviews noted instability when it was run off bus power, so I added a USB-A to USB-C cable for power, which I have plugged into my power strip.

A nice feature of the KVM is that it has a remote button for switching inputs. I need to stick it to the base of the monitor with some double-sided Velcro.

The KVM seems to work with both the Mac and the PC. I tested the webcam and it works on both machines in MS Teams, Zoom, and Google Meet.

The main downside to the new setup is that due to limited desk space I had to give up the ability to use the laptop with the screen open, but I can live with that.

This new setup will allow me to retain the use of my Mac for most productivity and Internet activities while enabling me to run Windows 11 or desktop Linux when needed.

Video: Banner Grabbing with Nmap

 

Video: Nmap Scanning for Specific Open Ports

 

Video: Hardware Troubleshooting on the Linux Commandline

I put up one more video for 2023. I hope you'll find it useful.

Have you ever wondered how to troubleshoot hardware issues in Linux, especially from the commandline? In this video we'll take a look at tools you can employ from a Linux shell session to help identify hardware, diagnose and troubleshoot issues, and work toward solutions to hardware problems.

Thank you for watching my video. If you found it helpful, please give me a Like, Subscribe, and Share. There's more to come!

ALL LOGOS AND DISTRIBUTION NAMES ARE THE PROPERTY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS.

PDF COPIES OF THE SLIDE PRESENTATIONS CAN BE FOUND ON MY GITHUB SITE:

https://github.com/InformationTechWithDave

SOURCES FOR LINUX INSTALLATION MEDIA IF YOU DON'T HAVE RELIABLE BROADBAND INTERNET:

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3R4gu9Y

LinuxDiscOnline: https://www.linuxdisconline.com/

NOTE: AMAZON LINKS ARE AFFILIATE LINKS. IF YOU CLICK ON THE LINK AND THEN BUY SOMETHING I WILL RECEIVE A SMALL COMMISSION AT NO ADDITIONAL COST TO YOU.

Video: Exploring and Scanning with Nmap

 In this video we learn how to explore networks and scan hosts using Nmap, the Network Mapper.

Thank you for watching my video. If you found it helpful, please give me a Like, Subscribe, and Share. There's more to come!

ALL LOGOS AND DISTRIBUTION NAMES ARE THE PROPERTY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS.

PDF COPIES OF THE SLIDE PRESENTATIONS CAN BE FOUND ON MY GITHUB SITE:

https://github.com/InformationTechWithDave

LINKS FOR THE SOFTWARE AND BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO:

Nmap: https://nmap.org/

Nmap Free Online Book: https://nmap.org/Book

Softcover book: https://amzn.to/48a9XS8

Homebrew: https://brew.sh/

VMware Workstation: https://www.vmware.com/products/workstation-pro.html

VMware Fusion: https://www.vmware.com/products/fusion.html

VirtualBox: https://www.virtualbox.org/

UTM: https://mac.getutm.app/

VMware vSphere ESXi: https://customerconnect.vmware.com/en/evalcenter?p=free-esxi8

Metasploitable (Intentionally vulnerable Linux VM): https://sourceforge.net/projects/metasploitable/

CVE Vulnerability Search: https://cve.mitre.org/cve/search_cve_list.html

SOURCES FOR LINUX INSTALLATION MEDIA IF YOU DON'T HAVE RELIABLE BROADBAND INTERNET:

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3R4gu9Y

LinuxDiscOnline: https://www.linuxdisconline.com/

NOTE: AMAZON LINKS ARE AFFILIATE LINKS. IF YOU CLICK ON THE LINK AND THEN BUY SOMETHING I WILL RECEIVE A SMALL COMMISSION AT NO ADDITIONAL COST TO YOU.

Video: Exploring Linux Shell History and HISTCONTROL

In this video we take a look at the Linux shell history function along with HISTCONTROL.

 

ALL LOGOS AND DISTRIBUTION NAMES ARE THE PROPERTY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS.

PDF COPIES OF THE SLIDE PRESENTATIONS CAN BE FOUND ON MY GITHUB SITE:

https://github.com/InformationTechWithDave

SOURCES FOR LINUX INSTALLATION MEDIA IF YOU DON'T HAVE RELIABLE BROADBAND INTERNET:

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3R4gu9Y

LinuxDiscOnline: https://www.linuxdisconline.com/

NOTE: AMAZON LINKS ARE AFFILIATE LINKS. IF YOU CLICK ON THE LINK AND THEN BUY SOMETHING I WILL RECEIVE A SMALL COMMISSION AT NO ADDITIONAL COST TO YOU.

Video: Exploring the Linux Filesystem Hierarchy

 This is the second video on my YouTube Channel, @InformationTechWithDave:

Understanding how the Linux filesystem is crucial for system administrators, enthusiasts, and developers who need to manage and troubleshoot Linux computers.

In this video we''ll learn how to move around the Linux filesystem, display directory contents, and what the different directories or folders are used for.

YouTube Channel: InformationTechWithDave

Earlier this month I started a new YouTube channel to share some of the knowledge I've accumulated since changing careers into IT back in 1999. So far I have uploaded videos on topics related to Linux and cybersecurity. I have plans to expand on that in the future.

My channel's home page is: https://www.youtube.com/@InformationTechWithDave

The first video was this one:

Later videos have better audio because I bought a Fifine K650 USB microphone at Microcenter. I then added this pop filter from Amazon.

Please take a look and if you find the information I'm providing useful, subscribe, hit the notification button, and share my videos.

PDF versions of the presentations for my videos can be found on my GitHub site: https://github.com/InformationTechWithDave

Pi-Top Raspberry Pi Laptop

Earlier this year I learned about the Pi-Top, a kit for turning a Raspberry Pi single board computer into a laptop, from a friend's post on Facebook. A portable RPi-based system is something I've been interested in for awhile, because if it has enough horsepower to run Fldigi, it would make a neat, relatively inexpensive system to run digital modes on ham radio while in the field with low electrical power requirements.

Last weekend I was down at Microcenter in St. David's, PA to return a cell phone car mount that didn't work out for me*, when I wander over into the DIY section. A few years ago, Microcenter decided to cater to the maker movement and has been carrying a lot of neat stuff. Its what Radio Shack should've done instead of trying to be another cell phone hawker.

Anyway, I saw that they had the Pi-Top kits for sale so I decided to get one. The Pi-Top kit does not include an RPi, so I also got a RPi 3 Model B, which included onboard Bluetooth and WiFi.

The Pi-Top was about $265, while the RPi 3 was on sale for $30.

Laptop guts on my dining room table:

The kit was well packaged in a cleverly designed box and came with an 8 GB microSD card pre-loaded with a version of Raspbian customized for the Pi-Top hardware. The instruction booklet that came with it was pretty good but lacked any info about the OS, except a pointer to the Pi-Top website. It didn't even include the default login info.

Closeup of the USB hub (left) and the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B:

The Pi-Top case is molded from plastic and feels about like what you'd expect from a $250 laptop. Assembly was pretty straightforward except that I initially mounted the RPi too far to the right in the case. The cables that link the RPi and the USB hub aren't long enough. This results in the RPi being inset to the left inside the case, which makes using the USB ports inconvenient. The case also blocks access to the Pi's onboard Fast Ethernet port.

Click on any of the pics to embiggen.

Boards mounted in the case:

The Pi-Tops 13.3" screen is decent. It's nothing to write home about, especially after one is used to a MacBook Pro with Retina display, but it ain't bad.

The keyboard is OK. I wouldn't want to do any extended writing or coding on it, however.

The shiny plastic cover at the top of the keyboard slides in and out from the right side of the computer. This helps when trying to connect something to the USB ports.

Side-by-side with my mid-2009 15" MacBook Pro:

Because of the plastic construction and a lot of empty space within the case, it's very lightweight.

The Pi-Top doesn't ship with a speaker, so as it comes there's no audio unless you buy the $20 add-on speaker, or run a cable from the RPi's audio jack to a set of external speakers.

After getting it up and running I naturally ran apt-get update and apt-get upgrade to bring the system up-to-date. Normally this wouldn't cause any issues but something related to dpkg got munged and I had to do about an hour's worth of troubleshooting to fix it and restore the ability to install or upgrade packages. Unfortunately I don't recall the specifics and didn't take notes.

Last weekend was ARRL Field Day, so I dragged my Icom 7200 and the Pi-Top out back on Sunday to see how it would fair as a portable digital mode laptop. It decoded PSK31 well, but the screen wasn't bright enough to use without a lot more shade than I had available, so I kept losing the cursor.

There are buttons on the keyboard to adjust screen brightness but they aren't working. I'm not sure if they would have worked pre-update, but they aren't post-update. Such is desktop Linux. Flakiness like that is why I normally run macOS as my desktop UNIX.

The manufacturer claims a 10+ hour battery life and from my testing so far, it sips power.

So, would I recommend the Pi-Top? It depends. If you're an experienced Linux user in search of a portable machine with low electrical power requirements, it's worth considering. Keep in mind that it's also a low computing power device. Web pages render relatively slowly. The OS includes Libre Office. I have not putzed with it yet but based on prior experience with that suite, it's going to run slowly on this hardware.



* Don't try to use a magnetic mount with an iPhone 7+ in a MagPul Field Case. The first bump in the road that you hit, and the phone will fall.

openSUSE 13.1 Linux

As you may remember, my primary computing platform for the past several years has been a Mac. I've also maintained Windows PCs at home -- one in my office and one out in my workshop. The office PC had been setup as a dual boot Windows 7 Professional / Debian Linux box for awhile, but I hardly ever booted into Debian.

A couple weeks ago I replaced Debian with openSUSE 13.1 and have been using it quite a bit after work. The install went smoothly with all of my hardware recognized. This included my Icom 7200 ham radio that is connected via a USB port, as well as the programming cable I use with my Baofeng UV5RA 2M/70cm ham radio.

The default openSUSE desktop environment is KDE, but Gnome is also available from the openSUSE repositories, as are several other desktops. After using KDE for a few days, then LXDE for a day, I settled on the XFCE desktop and have been pleased with it. It's lightweight but is a complete environment.

The primary applications I've been using:

• Chromium for web browsing, including accessing Gmail via the web.
• Firefox when a web page doesn't behave with Chromium.
• Fldigi for digital mode ham radio operation on HF using the Icom 7200.
• CHIRP for programming my Baofeng UV5RA.
• Leafpad for text editing.

For system administration I've primarily been using YaST, openSUSE's GUI admin tool. I ran SUSE Linux as my home desktop for a few years in the early '00s and YaST is still a good tool.

Another program that I installed was VMware Player, so that I can run a Windows 7 virtual machine if I'm working from home. I'd built the VM at work on my VMware vSphere environment and brought it home on disk, and was using it on the Windows side, to keep my own stuff and my work stuff separate. I copied it to the Linux partition and it works just as well there. Now, if I'm working from home I can use the Windows VM to connect to work's VPN, while I my own stuff can access the Internet without going through the VPN.

Note: VMware Player is proprietary but free (as in beer) software, as opposed to VirtualBox, which is open source software and which would also let me run a VM. However, I've found VMware Player to give me better performance than VirtualBox.

Overall I'd say my experience so far with openSUSE 13.1 has been very positive.  I have my old MacBook Pro from work and I'm considering replacing the spinning hard disk with an SSD, then setting it up to dual boot OS X and openSUSE, for use as a portable ham radio laptop.

Raspberry Pi Light Sensor

Today I brought my Raspberry Pi into the office and got the GPIO connectors working, then followed this tutorial to setup a basic light sensor using a photocell.

One of my goals is to come up with an RPi-based system that measures, logs, and reports temperature. Once I get it prototyped I want to setup several of these systems in our 3100 square foot data center so we have a better idea of how each part of the room is being cooled.

Linux Mint 13 - Not So Fast

Last night after my previous post about Linux Mint 13 I started having problems streaming YouTube videos again. This seems related to the Flash plugin. While Flash seems to work fine on Windows or OS X, it's buggy in Linux.

What a PITA. I'll be glad when Flash dies.

Linux Mint 13 XFCE Edition

Last week in a fit of geekiness, I setup my PC at home to dual boot Linux Mint 13 XFCE Edition alongside Windows 7 Pro 64-bit. Although I've had various Linux distros running inside VirtualBox VMs, I wanted to run Linux natively.

I selected Mint since based on prior experiments, it's easy to install and provides a good selection of apps. I specifically chose the XFCE version because I like it as a desktop environment, being stable and light on resources. (The PC has a Core i5 and 8 gigs of RAM, so it's got plenty of horsepower, but I prefer simpler desktops anyway.) Ubuntu is most commonly suggested when Linux noobs are looking at potential distros to try, but IMO its current desktop is horrid. Unity is an ugly POS better suited to tablets than PCs, and I didn't want to mess with changing it. There are official variants of Ubuntu with other desktops (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, etc.) but I wound up with Mint.

Overall the install went smoothly and everything works, after a little tweaking to fix a problem streaming media. Specifically, the audio would frequently stutter when I streamed YouTube video -- something I do a lot. After doing some googling, I discovered that it's due to a bug in how PulseAudio interacts with some drivers, including the one for my RealTek sound card. I found the fix here.

The fix requires a slight config chance in the file /etc/pulse/default.pa. As root or using the sudo command, open the file in a text editor.

Then, find the line which reads:

load-module module-udev-detect

and modify it to read like this:

load-module module-udev-detect tsched=0

Save and quit the file. You then need to restart the pulseaudio service. You can do this either via a reboot or finding the process via ps ax | grep pulseaudio, killing it, then restarting it.

This was kind of annoying. The sound card I'm using is built into my PC's Intel motherboard, so it is a very common sound card and this sort of thing should be found before software is released.

Aside from the sound issue I haven't run into any other problems, and Linux Mint 13 XFCE Edition has been pleasant to use.

UNetbootin

Unetbootin is a nifty open source utility for creating bootable USB flash drives of various Linux and BSD distributions. Such drives are useful for installing an OS on a machine which doesn't have an optical drive.  I've also found that doing an OS install from a flash drive is usually faster than doing it off a CD or DVD since disk read/write is faster.

Up until recently UNetbootin ran on either Windows or Linux. I noticed this morning that there's now an  OS X version.  I grabbed it and I'm now creating a bootable flash drive with Ubuntu 10.04 Server LTS on it for an upcoming project.

Incidentally, this is a good use for small flash drives you get as promos. The 1 GB unit I'm currently using was used to distribute the course materials for the PBI Intellectual Property Law Institute I attended last month.

It's possible to create a bootable flash drive for installing Windows, but doing so requires different tools. I'll tackle that in another post.

Strange VMware vSphere 4.1 Issue

I ran into a weird issue over the past couple of days while trying to deploy a couple of CentOS 5.5 virtual machines onto my vSphere 4.1 server.

I created a VM to serve as my template for future VMs, then exported it as an OVF template to my laptop.  (I do not yet have a vCenter management server, so I'm stuck running the vSphere Client inside an XP VM running in VirtualBox on my MacBook Pro).  Probably due to our network, the export took a couple of hours.

I then deployed two VMs from the OVF file.  Import went much more quickly than the export, thankfully.  When I ran the "system-config-network" tool to configure the IP address, subnet mask, gateway, hostname, and DNS settings, I noticed there was a duplicate of eth0.  The dupe wasn't present in my original VM.  If the dupe was not removed, running /sbin/ifconfig displayed that eth0 had all the correct info, but the machine could not reach the network.

Through trial and error, I discovered a workaround.  Upon running system-config-network, if a duplicate eth0 is present, select it.  Then blank out all values, save and quit.  Next, reboot the VM and once again run system-config-network, and configure eth0.  After doing all this networking worked properly and I was able to SSH into the VM from my laptop.

Once we get a vCenter Server I shouldn't have jump through these hoops.  vCenter includes the ability to clone a VM without doing an export and import, so setting up new VMs should be much simpler and faster.

Sysadmin Tip: Walk Away

This morning I went down to my gun club to install a Linux box to serve as our new and improved email and web server.  Although I had performed several setup tasks after I built the box here at home, I left many of them until I had it onsite with the correct IP, hostname and domain configuration.

As I was working on it I did something which totally FUBARed Apache to the point where it wouldn't even start.  After pounding on it for about a half hour I got so fed up that it was pointless to continue, as I wasn't making any progress.

So, I walked away.  (Actually, I drove down to the 25 yard range and put some lead downrange.)

Once I got home I logged back into the server and within about ten minutes had Apache up and running.

Sometimes you need to just walk away for awhile.

Dropbox

Dropbox is a cloud-based file backup, storage, and sharing site which uses Amazon's S3 service as the backend.  I've recently started using it as a way to keep certain files and folders automatically synced between my MacBook Pro and Hobbit, my MSI netbook.

You can access a Dropbox account via a web browser or applications which install on Mac OS X, Windows, or Linux.  So far, I'm using the OS X and Ubuntu versions and they work very smoothly.  On a Mac you can access your Dropbox folder just like any other folder in the Finder.  On Ubuntu, I'm using the Nautilus file manager plugin.

If you allow the Dropbox app to run automatically when you login, it will automatically sync the local folder with the one in the cloud.  If you have Dropbox installed on more than one computer it will automatically sync the folder across all of them.

The free, basic Dropbox account gives you 2 GB of storage.  Additional storage is available for a monthly fee.  {shameless plug}Also, if you sign up by clicking the links in this post or in my sidebar to the right, I'll get an additional 250 MB of space (up to 8 GB), and you'll get additional space, too.{/shameless plug}

Sharing Volumes Between Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux

As anyone who's read this blog for awhile knows, I use a couple of different laptops.  My primary machine is a Macbook Pro running Mac OS 10.6.2, while my secondary machine -- Hobbit -- is an MSI Wind netbook, currently running Windows 7 Ultimate.

The Mac is owned by my employer while I own the Hobbit.  Since I use the Mac for personal purposes as well as work-related tasks (which is OK with my employer) I needed to have a reliable means of backup in the event I change jobs.

On my desk at work I have a Lacie Quadra drive which I use for Time Machine backups over FireWire 800 (it also supports FW400, USB, and eSATA).  It would be pretty easy to restore my data from it to a personally-owned Mac.  However, getting that data onto a PC would be a real chore, requiring the use of a Mac as an intermediary.

I also wanted a portable means of backup that would work with either machine and that wasn't dependent on a network which might not be available.  I might also need to access my data using a Linux system.  The cheapest means of doing so is a USB hard disk.

The USB disk I chose is a Western Digital Elements 640 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive WDBAAR6400ABK-NESN.  It's a 2.5" drive in a plastic external case.  It's bus powered, so no external power supply is required. Compared with the FW800 connection on my LaCie, or even a FW400 connection, USB 2.0 is noticeably slower for sustained transfers.  However, this isn't much of an issue once the initial sync is done.

One problem you run into when sharing disks between Windows and either Mac OS X or Linux boxes is the NTFS file system.  Linux has its own filesystems.  Macs use HFS+.  PCs use NTFS.  Mac OS 10.6 includes read-only support for NTFS.  Windows 7 cannot read HFS+ disks without third party software.

Luckily, there are solutions for sharing an NTFS volume between a Windows machine, and a Linux or Mac OS X machine.  Th one I picked is called NTFS-3G and is available in a higher-performance, proprietary version, as well as a free open source version.  As described in Wikipedia, "NTFS-3G is an open source cross-platform implementation of the Microsoft Windows NTFS file system with read-write support."  NTFS-3G is availabele for OS X, Linux,

I installed the open source version of NTFS-3G on my MBP and so far it's worked very well.  I have'n had problems syncing data between the Mac and the WD disk using CronoSync.  Likewise, I am able to sync the WD disk to Hobbit, using Microsoft's free SyncToy.

Now I have a backup which I can share between my Macs, Windows and Linux boxes.  That's pretty handy.

My New Home Server

Back on January 24th I mentioned that I'd ordered the components for a new home server.  I received the parts from Tiger Direct in a timely manner and the box has been up and running for around a week now.  The server consists of the following components:

• Intel D945GCLF2 Atom motherboard, with a 1.6 GHz dual-core Atom 330 CPU
• Apex MI-100 ITX case
• Kingston 2048MB PC5400 DDR2 667MHz RAM
• Western Digital 320 GB hard disk

After putting it together I first installed 64 bit CentOS 5.4.  I found it to be a bit unstable when running X11, so I blew away the disk and installed 32 bit Debian Lenny.  I figured that with only 2 GB of RAM, having a 64 bit OS wasn't going to offer any significant advantages.  I'm pleased with Debian.  So far it's been stable and its package management is top shelf.

To get the OS installed I used an LG USB DVD burner.  You could also make a bootable Linux USB stick for the install on similar hardware.  See Unetbootin for an easy way to do that.

I named the new machine shoebox.davemarkowitz.net, due to its size and shape.  Compared with the MSI Wind barebones system I was also considering it's a little noisier, but not what I'd call, "noisy."

Currently, shoebox is setup as a LAMP box hosting The Shooters' Bar, my list of pro-RKBA attorneys, as well as a "parking" page for Flintlock.org.  I've also used it as an SFTP site for a project at my gun club.  It's handy having an Internet-accessible server at home again.

Shoebox's small ITX format is great for my needs.  I currently have it on a separate IP space from the rest of my home network, but a similar box, maybe with two hard disks in it, would be a good choice for a SOHO file server/NAS box.

Home Network Changes

For the past few months I've been using an SMC-D3G DOCSIS 3.0 cable gateway for my Internet service at home.  It's a solid box but unlike my SMC8014 DOCSIS 2.0 cable gateway, I wasn't able to get it provisioned with a static IP.  The bottleneck in my Internet access isn't the gateway so much as my WiFi LAN, so I decided to go back to the 8014 with its static IP.  Which leads me to my second change ...

Today I placed an order with Tiger Direct for an Intel 945GCLF2 barebones kit.  This is a Mini-ITX format system on which I'll be installing Linux to run as a headless web and email server.  The dual core Atom should provide more than enough horsepower for my needs, and the 2 GB of RAM will also be plenty.

To round out the box I also ordered a 320 GB Western Digital SATA drive.  I won't be installing an optical drive.  To install Linux I'll use an LG USB DVD burner I picked up last Fall from NewEgg, and I'll temporarily connect the box to a monitor and keyboard.

When looking at hardware I wanted something small, cheap, quiet and with low power consumption.  The other main contender was an MSI Wind nettop barebones system from NewEgg.  Based on experience with a similar machine I built for my MIL towards the end of 2008 it would have worked just fine.  However, but after adding 2 GB of RAM and a hard disk the combo deal at Tiger Direct was cheaper.

My intended use for the new system will be to host a couple of low traffic web sites, email, and general experimentation.  For the distro I'm leaning towards 64 bit CentOS, which from what I've read runs well on this hardware.

For security, the new machine will get assigned a routable public IP (it'll still be firewalled), while the rest of my home LAN will run on a private, RFC-1918 compliant IP space.

I haven't run a server at home for a few years, this should be fun.