PC Engine APU

[LeFrettchen]

Did anybody ever tried the PC Engines APU ?

Looks like a great machine, really better than the Alix series.
And it's possible to install OpenBSD.

Gigathernet, 2 Gb RAM, mSATA & SATA connectors, 12W consumption...
Seems to be a good idea to buy an APU to use it as a server.


But it would be wonderful to use it as a server, and also as a media center...
Could be a good solution under the TV.
What do you think, is the CPU (AMD G series T40E APU - 1 GHz dual Bobcat core) enough to be a media center ?

[ibara]

IIRC, people are running OpenBSD on it but earlier BIOS versions had issues. Current batches should be OK.

You'll find the thread if you search misc@

[ocicat]

Originally Posted by LeFrettchen

Did anybody ever tried the PC Engines APU ?

I have a apu1c4 purchased a number of months ago for database testing. PC Engines recommends either the black or red cases because of heat issues, & red is what I used as I already had a few. I fully populated the APU with 64GB mSATA & 64GB SD cards, along with an ath(4) wireless card + antennae. Thus far, it has performed as expected.

Of note, there were BIOS issues mentioned on misc@ at the time, but I requested the new BIOS when ordering from PC Engines (at that time, no one else has the 4GB model yet...), & I have had no issue installing -current through PXE:

http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=139676692718065&w=2

It does appear to perform better than the older Alix series, but I haven't pushed it, or performed any benchmarking. As for serving as a media center, I don't know your exact needs, but it should be a worthy alternative.

[TronDD]

Picked one of these up for a home router project. Seems to be working well. Still hacking though all the configuration I want to do and I'll start pushing more data through it to see how it handles.

First time using pf and I haven't set up a *nix-like based router in 12 years or so when the distros were on floppies. I also want it to host some services instead of running a dedicated server. Trying to keep my continuous power requirements down.

Not sure how it would work as a media center unless you have network storage and your tv can read streams off of ethernet. At that point, what's the APU contributing?

Tim.