# Recommendation for Mini PC hardware for FreeBSD



## dbuff (Jul 11, 2014)

I've posted similar question, but I would like to rephrase it. I'm looking to build a very small, very cheap, very basic PC with FreeBSD as an OS. I think I would use external DVD, Monitor, etc. I would like to be able to do some simple stuff like watching Netflix, etc, but I don't need a super quality. So again: small, cheap, just functional (mini ITX?)
Thanks


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## bsdkeith (Jul 12, 2014)

*Re: Reccomendation for Mini PC hardware for FreeBSD*

Various netbooks will run FreeBSD OK, but you may/will have to use the vesa driver, to use X. I have PC-BSD10 running on a (Foxconn) mini ITX mobo, an Acer Aspire One 722 netbook, (changed the wifi card to an Atheros), & also on an old Core2 intel laptop, should you want to consider pre-used. Hope that helps.


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## dbuff (Jul 12, 2014)

*Re: Reccomendation for Mini PC hardware for FreeBSD*

Thanks a lot. I don't know that much, but as far as I could figure, the problem with some systems was Radeon integrated graphics which I understand you have (?) with connection to running 
 X. So it seems to me that vesa driver should be an answer. Thank you for reminding me of a PC-BSD option. How do you like it? My plan is to build mini PC. I was thinking of low voltage CPU.


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## bsdkeith (Jul 14, 2014)

*Re: Reccomendation for Mini PC hardware for FreeBSD*

Please note that PC-BSD10 is only available for 64bit systems, I don't know why they no longer support 32bit systems.
The new version PC-BSD10.0.2 is what I tried recently & it runs well. I hadn't tried PC-BSD for a long time as I didn't like the PBI system of packages when I tried it out. This new version uses pkg2ng as its primary source for installing packages.
My Acer netbook has a AMD C50 dual core 1GHz processor & uses ATI graphics & worked perfectly with PC-BSD after changing the Broadcomm wifi to an Atheros.
I think you should probably be looking for a Celeron based mobo with Intel graphics & wifi, as that combination seems to work with just about any OS.


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