[plug] Think client hardware - was server failing with bizarre disk errors

[Kai]

Craig Ringer wrote:
>>> Speaking of hardware, I read an article on page 62 of APCMag about 
>>> the VIA EPIA M9000 Minit-ITX mobo.
>>>
>>> Everything on board, apparently works with Linux, sure you can't load 
>>> it  up to the eyeballs but that's not the idea of it.
>>>
>>> $349 AUD for the mobo, buy a well ventialted case and the other usual 
>>> parts and it'd be a good little server !
>>>
>>>
>> Maybe for home use, but I'd laugh if I saw someone seriously using one 
>> of those for business purposes....
> 
> 
> For business /servers/ . Think thin client. Get something like that or a 
> Shuttle (small, no disk, quiet/no fan, etc), add a bootrom or 2mb of ATA 
> flash, and off you go. Given that a P100 on 10M half duplex makes an 
> adequte thin client (a bit slow at 1024x768 16bit though) a bunch of 
> those would be a dream. When I netboot my P900 laptop, its easy to 
> forget that I'm not sitting at the dual xeon server - even when booted 
> with mem=24M (of 384).
> 
> Craig Ringer

That was my first thought when I saw it, perfect for a think client 
because it comes with a built-in boot ROM.
Mobo size is only 17cm * 17cm and although the boss intially liked the 
idea his main concern was how long VIA would be supporting the board - 
RAM is the only thing no built into/onto it and there's a single DDR 
slot for that.