Linux and PC cubes

Last Updated on April 16, 2017 by Dave Farquhar

PC cubes! Yes, I want a cube-shaped computer, because it’s small. No, I don’t want one made by Apple, or an obsolete NeXT (I used those in college when I couldn’t get time on an SGI). I want something small and cheap, and if it’s reasonably good looking, that’s a bonus.
Enter the Shuttle SV24.

Unlike Apple’s cube, it has a brushed-alumninum case, so it won’t crack. Just like Apple’s cube, it generates extreme reactions, and not everyone who likes Apple’s cube likes Shuttle’s.

I admit, it doesn’t have Apple’s styling. But I like Lian-Li’s styling a lot better. I wouldn’t put this in Lian-Li’s league either. But it’s certainly no uglier than any of the PCs I own now, and it’s small and light. So yeah, it has me thinking.

Where can you get one? Two of my favorite vendors have it, at a price of $250: Newegg.com and Mwave.com.

I also saw on Ars’ forums that MSI makes a slimline PC called the 6215. Newegg has it (search for “6215”) for $210. It’s tiny, but has two PCI slots and is more conventional-looking. I’m thinking the 6215 would be great for a server appliance, seeing as it has two PCI slots so you could put a SCSI card in it. You could also disable the onboard Realtek NIC and replace it with a card like an Intel EtherExpress Pro that uses less CPU time.

More Linux. The biggest thing holding me back from migrating to SupaSite is its requirement of the Apache, MySQL and PHP trio. I’ve tried to get those three to work together before, and the setup wasn’t exactly trivial, especially when trying to do it from RPMs. It looks like it’d be a whole lot easier to just compile it yourself. But this past week I found Apache Toolbox, which downloads the source for those three, plus bunches of Apache modules and compiles them for you. It sounds like it even helps out with configuration. I’ve gotta give this one a shot.

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3 thoughts on “Linux and PC cubes

  • October 27, 2001 at 2:03 pm
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    Whoa! Nice!

    I would love to have one! I would stack it up with a large, silent harddrive, a processor that doesn’t require a fan and 256 megs of memory, to use it as a small, silent, cheap home server. Its small size as well as the possibility of running it silent would make it great to run as a file, web etc server.

    I did a quick search and found that they didn’t have it in my neck of the woods. I hope they will.

    The PC Cube is more appealing than the 6215 but at $190 for the cheaper model it is pretty hard to argue against it….

  • October 27, 2001 at 7:58 pm
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    Apache toolbox is a great product – I’ve started using it this week for my Mandrake 8.1 setup. Latest revision of everything. It makes compling and settting up a ssl-capable, php apache a matter of answering a few questions. Highly recommended.

  • March 21, 2002 at 7:19 am
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    The Shuttle SV24 has onboard "AC97"
    sound. What are the chances that Redhat will see the sound and configure it correctly?

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