Bellman

Bellman is a Mini-ITX server / desktop

Bellman functions as a server, but also has an LCD monitor / keyboard / mouse so it can function as a desktop / web browser machine as well. It is on a UPS and lives in my lab. Since it's always on (it's answering my phones for me), it's a handy place to quickly check email or surf the web.

Software

Ubuntu "Intrepid Ibex", the desktop install, with lots of added packages like Asterisk and Apache and MySQL and Samba to give it the full range of server functions.

Phones: Bellman runs Asterisk so it handles my home phones 100% now (no more Packet8 crutch. I reprogrammed by Packet8 DTA and now it is part of the Asterisk system.)

Media server: it hosts my music collection.

File server: I keep my home directory here and NFS mount it on the desktop machine 8track. Bellman also runs Samba so that my laptop can access files on it.

VMWare Workstation: Since it's in my electronics lab, I can run Windows XP on this machine in a virtual machine, so that I can do development work using Microchip's MPLab PIC tools. More and more though the tools available under Ubuntu are making this less necessary.

Wine Actually I am now trying out running MPLab under Wine 1.0.1 instead of using VMWare. More efficient use of resources.

Hardware

• Intel Atom 230 mini-itx main board
• 2 GB of DDR2 RAM
• Case: brand name?? need to look it up. Cost about $50 250W power supply
• "Green" WD Caviar 500 GB drive. It's only 5400 rpm but seems just fine.
• CD RW drive - I am now using this system to RIP my CD collection. Sound Juicer (which comes with Ubuntu) works quite well once you install the libraries to allow it to encode to MP3.

Bellman used to be an Athlon desktop system, I recycled the name because I like it. I no longer use any full-size desktop systems at home.

Mainboard

• Via EPIA CN10000 mainboard with a 1.6 Ghz fanless Via C7 processor
• 1 GB of DDR2 RAM

Intel Atom 230 based Little Falls board.

This board actually has a graphics chip powerful enough to run the latest whizzy Ubuntu Gnome special effects, which I think are lots of fun and quite effective.

It has 2GB of RAM.