Thinking about doing an Atom desktop build

[TeamRocket1233c]

Hiya! I'm thinking about doing a mini-ITX build centered around an Atom D2700 desktop board, and then maybe attempting an Arch or Gentoo install on it. Good idea or no? Also, definitely doing a mini-ITX build centered around the Celeron G530 Sandy Bridge.

[sffvba[e0rt]

I guess it would all depend on what you want to use it for. My only experience with Atom is my Samsung N150 and sadly I found it to be way under powered for the little I need it to do :(


404

[TeamRocket1233c]

It would be mainly for playing with Arch or Gentoo on. And hey, if your Arch or Gentoo build is light enough, you could get a fully functional desktop on an Atom that performs really well, you'd just have to work for it. :lol:

Also, the Pandaboard is another possible consideration should I give ARM a shot.

[drawkcab]

I run Ubuntu + Gnome Shell on an atom ion so I'm sure you'll be fine.

[rg4w]

I made a build for a friend with a D2700 running Ubuntu 12.04. Rather nice, much better than I expected.

Let us know how the Celeron works out. I've been considering it for some things here, and your opinion on performance with Ubuntu would be helpful. Thanks.

[szymon_g]

personally- i wouldn't touch the Atom stuff even with 10 feet long stick.
wanna get something reasonably cheap, small yet powerful? get the APU from AMD. beats the poo out of Atom

[TeamRocket1233c]

I dunno, you could get decent performance out of an Atom if you do an Arch, Gentoo, or LFS build tailored to the hardware's requirements.

[szymon_g]

nope, you couldn't. why? because that CPU isn't really powerful.
and no, apart from few applications (mostly- media oriented) compiling "for hardware" doesn't make any sense.
and why do you think that Arch would run on that faster than, let say, debian (with similar software)?

[TeamRocket1233c]

Well, 'cause you have complete control over what goes into Arch, Gentoo, or LFS. And an Arch or Gentoo build with Openbox and Tint2, and mostly lightweight apps, could work pretty well on low-end hardware like that.

Although I guess you could set Debian or Ubuntu up in a similar way and have similar results, I mean Ubuntu minimal or Debian minimal gives you similar control over what you put into your system to what Arch or Gentoo offers.

And I might try Debian minimal on the Celeron build.

[szymon_g]

as you wrote- in every "normal" distribution you have got a control over installed applications.
And only distribution where you have got a clear, total control is LFS. good luck with updating/caring for that system 'thou- it's a pain in the lower back- that's why the rpm and deb were invented.

[TeamRocket1233c]

But really though, you can have a lot of control over installed apps in Ubuntu or Debian too, especially if you go the minimal route.

[szymon_g]

not as much as on LFS.
you cannot control what versions of libraries would your applications use, what would they be compiled with etc etc.
you can have control like that in Slackware. When you start using pre-compiled packages (rpm, deb, etc etc) you loose some way of controlling it- but, well, you gain a lot more. And since all popular distributions are using some sort of packaging systems (usually- mentioned rpm or dpkg), it wasn't only me who prefers usability over configurability.

[mamamia88]

Running arch with xfce on a netbook upgraded to 2gb ram and added an ssd today. Thing absolutely flies i can't believe it. but i wouldn't want to do anything heavy on it of course

[Warpnow]

Atoms are good for size, but they arent really that cost effective. I got my quad core athlon chip for $80 a few months back on sale. Paired it with a $40 motherboard, and have a quad core mb/cpu.

Assuming you spend the same on other components, and the atom costs about $70-$90 depending on model, you've got a $30-$50 price difference. But for that difference you get a huge amount. $30-$50 for your computer being usable for 5 years, as opposed to an atom which after 2-3 years will definitely not be up to modern software.

If you're after a low powered computer, look into an arm machine. MK802 costs $75 all in and you can carry the whole machine on your keychain.

[TeamRocket1233c]

Running arch with xfce on a netbook upgraded to 2gb ram and added an ssd today. Thing absolutely flies i can't believe it. but i wouldn't want to do anything heavy on it of course

Try running Arch with Openbox or Fluxbox on that netbook and see what happens. Seriously, you'd have an even faster system with Fluxbox or Openbox than with Xfce. :)

[TeamRocket1233c]

Atoms are good for size, but they arent really that cost effective. I got my dual core athlon chip for $80 a few months back on sale. Paired it with a $40 motherboard, and have a quad core mb/cpu.

Assuming you spend the same on other components, and the atom costs about $70-$90 depending on model, you've got a $30-$50 price difference. But for that difference you get a huge amount. $30-$50 for your computer being usable for 5 years, as opposed to an atom which after 2-3 years will definitely not be up to modern software.

If you're after a low powered computer, look into an arm machine. MK802 costs $75 all in and you can carry the whole machine on your keychain.
I crunched the numbers on the parts for a potential mini-ITX build I was looking at in class the other day, centered around the Celeron G530, the price of all the hardware combined totaled out to almost $700. Of course I didn't actually buy it due to not having that much cash. And I think the parts that took up the biggest chunk of that were the board, the hard drive, and the video card.

[szymon_g]

@up
after buying APU you won't need an extra graphic card (as long you are not making gaming machine- but doing that on Atom would be foolish anyway).

[sffvba[e0rt]

I crunched the numbers on the parts for a potential mini-ITX build I was looking at in class the other day, centered around the Celeron G530, the price of all the hardware combined totaled out to almost $700. Of course I didn't actually buy it due to not having that much cash. And I think the parts that took up the biggest chunk of that were the board, the hard drive, and the video card.

For that kind of money you should be thinking I7 IMO or something close to it.


404

[TeamRocket1233c]

That would bump it up even more. What about a Pentium G630 to up the ante a little bit?