# Recommendations for Mini-PC



## balanga (Nov 22, 2017)

I want to run FreeBSD headless on a Mini-PC. Any recommedations?

I want something which doesn't depend on Windows being installed... A NUC type device comes to mind, but must be low cost.


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## poorandunlucky (Nov 22, 2017)

Apparently it runs great on a Raspberry Pi!

Never tried it, but that's the word on the street...


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## p3rj (Nov 22, 2017)

Depending on how you define low cost, PC Engines has some nice boards. A current APU2 with 4G of ram (no VGA, so really headless) runs for about 140 to 150 EUR (don't know about $ prices). These run pfSense, so FreeBSD should work as well. Keep in mind that for installation, you probably need serial access, which could mean you'd also need a USB to serial adapter.
Of course it comes down to what you want to do with it. These boards have 3 NICs, but only 2 USB ports. Great for a firewall or similar device, possibly not so great for other uses.


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## vermaden (Nov 22, 2017)

FreeBSD 11.0/11.1 runs great on Raspberry Pi 2 'B', everything is supported:
https://wiki.freebsd.org/FreeBSD/arm/Raspberry Pi

I also have Intel Celeron J3355 motherboard which same as Raspberry Pi is fanless and consume less then 10W alone.

FreeBSD 12-CURRENT works quite well on this motherboard but graphics is not yet supported by FreeBSD, even DRM-NEXT does not help yet:
https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=223427

So if You want ARM architecture, then RPI2B is well supported, as for X86/AMD64, J3355 is quite nice without graphics, run something older if You want to use graphics as well.


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## Phishfry (Nov 22, 2017)

I want to second the APU2/3 as a good choice for fanless mini-server. It has no video output so not very good for a htpc but anything else it works well.
I have 4 now and I really gave up on Arm as these these APU's work with standard amd64 installs and no fussing with tier 2 platforms.

They even sell a 2 ethernet port version for rock bottom cheap. Plus their case sell for cheap.

So I have APU2 running pfSense, APU2 running Debian w/Blue Cherry and a APU3 running Debian and tvheadend with a Hauppauge WinTV card HVR-1250. I made a custom case as I special ordered this APU3 with an PCIe slot and PC Engines doesn't have a case for the PCIe slot.

My forth one was my first a APU1D which I use for GPIO. I made a custom case to breakout the GPIO's to external banana jacks.

That was what drew me to APU. GPIO on FreeBSD with an x86 platform. Some GPIO arm things like onewire do not work but it does have some utility.

Now if your looking for a mini box for htpc then look at the following machines
Gigabyte Brix
Asus EEE box
Zotac ZBox
Aopen Digital Engine

And lots of thin clients off lease for cheap like Dells and HP come to mind.
Hospitals and Schools use these alot and they come up on ebay quite cheaply.
Usually very little storage though. Some use DOM of only 2GB.

Please ask questions before you buy. I hate to steer you wrong.
For instance some thin clients are proprietary like the Wyse boxes where as the Devons are not.
Most of these only have VGA as well so depends on your output choices. Are you outputting to a large screen TV?

I guess that should be the first question: What are you using this Mini-PC for?


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## tingo (Nov 23, 2017)

ASRock BeeBox works great; there are fanless versions.


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## balanga (Dec 8, 2017)

I ended up getting a Lenovo IdeaCenter Q180 with 4GB of RAM.... and am thinking of installing FreeNAS on it. I just wanted a compact file server which I could take with me whenever I go anywhere. If I can't install FreeNAS, then maybe just FreeBSD with SAMBA and NFS...


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## gpw928 (Dec 20, 2017)

Just read this on Ars Technica today.  Qotom looks interesting.  You can get them on Amazon.

Cheers,


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## Snurg (Dec 20, 2017)

Probably most of those boards mentioned do not have ECC.
No idea whether this is advisable for ZFS NAS applications etc.

If you want ECC, you could also consider Supermicro Atom/Celeron ITX boards.
There are quite a few nice ones with up to two DIMM slots, and multiple ethernet interfaces onboard.
They can be often bought cheap at ebay.


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## Eric A. Borisch (Dec 20, 2017)

As has been brought up many places, using ECC is always a nice to have, but if you must use a non-ECC system, ZFS is still a good choice - it will at least tell you when something is wrong.


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## Snurg (Dec 20, 2017)

Eric A. Borisch said:


> ...it will at least tell you when something is wrong.


Oh yes!
That's *much* better than bad data   

Just a few hours after the biggest radioactive blowout in Fukushima the Japanese automated radiation measurement network reported, that the data got lost due to error.
What now I feel a bit funny, that in 1979 officially the same mishap happened with the NE US automated radiation measurement network.
Just while the few hours when the radioactive gases from the Harrisburg nuclear plant's molten core escaped unfiltered into the environment.
Thus all radiation release data of the Three Mile Island accident are officially "estimates", in lack of actual measurements...

(Sorry for OT... Murphy's law can be funny    )


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## p3rj (Dec 20, 2017)

Actually the APU2 (at least in the 4G configuration) is supposed to support ECC. It was always advertised as doing so, but early BIOS versions disabled the support, if I understand correctly. I think it's enabled at least in the latest BIOS version (and mine displays 4080 MB ECC DRAM upon booting). Whether 4G of RAM would be enough to use ZFS is of course a different matter.
BTW, that Qotom box sure looks nice, too...


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## chlarsen (Dec 6, 2018)

p3rj said:


> Actually the APU2 (at least in the 4G configuration) is supposed to support ECC. It was always advertised as doing so, but early BIOS versions disabled the support, if I understand correctly. I think it's enabled at least in the latest BIOS version (and mine displays 4080 MB ECC DRAM upon booting). Whether 4G of RAM would be enough to use ZFS is of course a different matter.
> BTW, that Qotom box sure looks nice, too...


Indeed. The Qotom boxes are very nice, and I have deployed them veryu successfully using *nix and OpenBSD.
With FreeBSD, I get the attached error (ugly photo taken off the screen) when using mSATA drives (the standard configuration with Qotom boxes).


Any ideas how to get around those errors?
Any suggestions are hugely appreciated!


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