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

• Via EPIA CN10000 mainboard with a 1.6 Ghz fanless Via C7 processor
• 1 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.

CN10000 mainboard

I bought the CN10000EG fanless C7 board from Logic Supply.

Mini-review: The CN10000 board works quite well as a server, but it does not have enough juice to run the Java Netbeans IDE and the video drivers are not up to snuff for Ubuntu Hardy Heron.

Maybe the video chip itself WOULD work but the drivers don't support the high end Gnome features. I am not sure. I wish that Via did more work to support their products or at least open them up. They dandy hardware like graphics and media decoder and encryption chips on the board then do not provide up-to-date Linux drivers for them.

I got my EPIA C3 800 Mhz mainboard from Logic Supply, too. It has since died. I abused it, static probably got it.

Some specs:

VIA CN700 north bridge
VIA VT8237R south bridge
LAN: VIA VT6103 10/100
AUDIO: VIA VT1618 8 channel AC'97 codec

File:CN10000.pdf PDF manual

C7 kernels

When I first got the C7 board I had to build a custom kernel because it was not supported by default on Ubuntu. Currently I use the standard Ubuntu kernels but here are my old notes on kernel building for the C7.

http://www.howtoforge.com/kernel_compilation_ubuntu_p2?s=2e4e7db1d3b0009a48132ba132e72f9e&

make-kpkg clean
fakeroot make-kpkg --initrd build kernel_image kernel_headers modules

This builds the packages up one layer, you have to go there and install them.

cd ..
sudo dpkg -i packagename
..and so on