Hi everybody,

For the need of a potential futur remote work (yeah a lot of conditionnal), I'm looking nowadays for a mini-PC who can run easily Solus and the other main constrain is that this PC must have the lowest possible power consumption.

I don't need a monster, I have to work on code (with some compilations), GIMP, Web interfaces, have a good network (gigabit ethernet) and 2 HDMIs. A friend of mine tells me about Alfawise T1 (on Celeron N4100) :

Does anyone ever test Solus on this kind of machine ? Is it enough ?

Thank you in advance for any feedback and please use this topic about any other hardware, I'm interested 🖖🤓

    DansLeRuSH If it's useful to you, I have been running running Solus Budgie on a laptop with a Core2Duo with 4GB of RAM, shared with its Ati Radeon (which usually takes about 512MB).
    I recently deleted it and reinstalled with the MATE flavour, being a bit nicer and faster overall. No issues so far

    Anywaus, you should be aware of the limited power the N4100 would have for your needs. Not the fastest processor out there.

        EQLucky Yes it's useful (and sorry didn't specify that I'm talking about the Budgie flavor) I'm fully aware that is not the most powerful proc but my current logic is that I don't want the maximum but the sufficient 😉 That being said, I am open to any argument regarding the described use ...

            DansLeRuSH You can find some out there with the ports you need and an i3 or i5 processor, 8GB of ram and a 512 SSD. I have one from AWOW that works great. I paid around $300 for it so it's very cost effective for linux 😀

                v3l0ct Maybe a little bit of a higher spec, but I have a development machine that I build that is based around this guy: https://www.asrock.com/nettop/AMD/DeskMini%20A300%20Series/

                System:    Host: crow Kernel: 5.1.14-121.current x86_64 bits: 64 Console: tty 0 Distro: Solus 4.0 
Machine:   Type: Desktop Mobo: ASRock model: A300M-STX serial: <root required> UEFI: American Megatrends v: P3.40 
           date: 03/27/2019 
CPU:       Topology: Quad Core model: AMD Ryzen 5 2400G with Radeon Vega Graphics bits: 64 type: MT MCP L2 cache: 2048 KiB 
           Speed: 1420 MHz min/max: 1600/3600 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1422 2: 1495 3: 1420 4: 1422 5: 1429 6: 1482 
           7: 1535 8: 1442 
Graphics:  Device-1: AMD Raven Ridge [Radeon Vega Series / Radeon Vega Mobile Series] driver: amdgpu v: kernel 
           Display: server: X.org 1.20.5 driver: amdgpu,ati unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa tty: 127x45 
           Message: Advanced graphics data unavailable in console. Try -G --display 
Audio:     Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Raven/Raven2/Fenghuang HDMI/DP Audio driver: snd_hda_intel 
           Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 17h HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.1.14-121.current 
Network:   Device-1: Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3168NGW [Stone Peak] driver: iwlwifi 
           IF: wlp46s0 state: up mac: a4:c3:f0:f5:4e:ed 
           Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet driver: r8169 
           IF: enp51s0 state: down mac: 70:85:c2:cd:70:9d 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 465.76 GiB used: 401.17 GiB (86.1%) 
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Crucial model: CT500P1SSD8 size: 465.76 GiB 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 453.31 GiB used: 401.03 GiB (88.5%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3 
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 3.73 GiB used: 143.2 MiB (3.8%) fs: swap dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 40.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 31 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): fan-1: 0 fan-2: 2406 fan-3: 0 fan-4: 0 fan-5: 0 
Info:      Processes: 219 Uptime: 55d 20h 38m Memory: 29.44 GiB used: 934.3 MiB (3.1%) Init: systemd runlevel: 5 
           Shell: bash inxi: 3.0.34

                I had the SSD on hand so it set me back ~ 500USD. You can buy it with an SSD and the newer 3400G for about 500$ today. And thanks for the reminder to install updates xD

                    DataDrake That's really good. 512GB SSDs are so damn cheap nowadays, you can get a samsung evo for around $50. How much RAM does it have?

                        I run one of those beasties with a server distro (headless). I've ran Ubuntu on it originally, it's currently FreeBSD as I felt that was even less likely to be a target (server is internet facing and used as firewall, running OpenSense).

                          I am running Solus as a music server using a NUC powered by a Celeron J3455. It's a fun little 10W box, web browsing is servicable, GIMP performance is about what you can expect. No 2 HDMIs though, but HDMI+VGA for that 2nd monitor. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/boards-kits/nuc/kits/nuc6cayh.html Install a nice SATA SSD and some RAM and you are good to go. These things are on sale all the time where I live, you can easily get the barebone for around 120$/€.

                            DataDrake : Pretty good … but pretty "heavy" 😁
                            In all these specs, I can't see any information about consumption. You know ?

                            I may repeat myself perhaps but the consumption criterion is very important, my installation will be led in the near future to run with solar energy.

                            dbarron : Oh you interested me ! Any heating problems with a long time use ? Instability ?

                            broozar : Good point ! I didn't know this reference (and yes HDMI and VGA is OK). I'm taking notes ! 😉

                                    DansLeRuSH About the consumption, how many watts are we talking about, tops? That would be the key to choose a PC. As @broozar said, a 10W would be great, but the Ryzen 2400G @DataDrake posted there has 65W TDP and it's REALLY efficient
                                    I know the N4100 has a ridiculous 6W TDP, but I fear it isn't "futureproof" enough, if you're going to code and play with web interfaces.
                                    Jusy my 2 cents.

                                        No Brent, that was one thing I kept an eye (and a finger) on, I've been pleased. It's a 7 watt I think (if memory serves) and it stays cooler than my old Broadcom wireless router that it somewhat replaced. I still have to have the wireless router for the wireless devices, but neither of them are working hard enough to be warm.
                                        Plus (so far) OpenSense looks more stable than the dd-wrt routing software I was running on the broadcom.
                                        I tried to use Linux initially and just felt like I was making a network mess, though I am now thinking maybe I should have tried IPFire and saw what I thought of that. But maybe diversity (BSD) is good?

                                          DansLeRuSH I guess it depends on how much solar you have available. I don't have power figures, but I doubt mine draws more that 100W at full tilt and probably idles around 15-25W most of the time. And that's with a pretty beefy iGPU too. Usually the biggest problem with solar is not having enough battery capacity to store all the energy you collect. But if you are trying to live off of less than 1kW for anything other than camping, it's not going to be fun.

                                          And I generally avoid any CPUs with less than 3000 points on Passmark. You can make it work, but things aren't nearly as smooth.

                                              EQLucky Ideally I would like to have a machine under 30 watts. I have to add the power consumption of my screen (25 watts) and my XP-PEN (about 19 watts).

                                              dbarron Yes diversity is good ! OK, thank you for your feedback it was informative 😃

                                              DataDrake " Software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware is becoming faster " Wirth's law

                                              I know that but it's because I want to know now how Solus behaves on this type of material (and measure the scope). Note that I will always have my mounted PC next to it for what requires more computing power.

                                              Here it's to write code lines over a whole day (with some mini graphic works) on a separate and economical installation 😊

                                                    22 days later

                                                    I use a HP Chromebox (G1 4GB RAM, 16 GB SSD, Celeron) with Solus Budgie and MrChromebox UEFI, works nice, has hdmi and displayport, do not know if 2 screens work at the same time, these boxes do not get ChromeOS updates anymore, so people might ditch them, so you can get them cheap!

                                                      RaMa In the absolute, it's not a bad idea at all ! Especially since, as you say, there will be stock soon and especially scrapping ... it can even be a good action ! 🖖🤓 And for example, what is the most resource-consuming ?
                                                      With what type of task does the box start to have trouble ?

                                                        Not sure, watching netflix is no problem!

                                                        I did a little compile test on this G1 chromebox, maybe you can try it on your pc too, to compare a little:

                                                        ~ $ git clone https://github.com/nlsandler/write_a_c_compiler.git

                                                        ~ $ cd write_a_c_compiler/

                                                        ~ $ time ./test_compiler.sh /usr/bin/gcc

                                                        ===================TOTAL SUMMARY====================
                                                        59 successes, 115 failures

                                                        real 0m21,468s
                                                        user 0m14,705s
                                                        sys 0m6,256s

                                                        Or do you know something (simple) to "benchmark" better?