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 electronics lab.
History
2011 Dec - Been doing PostGIS experiments so I upgraded it. 2010 Jan - I just started this section but I have had this machine online for at least a couple years now.
Hardware
- ASRock AMX M1 350 MiniITX motherboard + 8GB RAM
- Case: brand name?? need to look it up. Cost about $50 250W power supply
- OCZ 60GB SSD
- "Green" WD Caviar 500 GB drive. WDC WD5000AACS-00ZUB0 s/n WD-WCASU2227103
- CD RW drive - Works well with "Sound Juicer" to rip CD's
The SSD is very snappy. The green hard drive is only 5400 rpm but it's just fine for this application.
Bellman had an Intel Little Falls Atom 230 mini-itx main board + 2GB RAM until Dec 2011.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 upgrade DEC 2011
This is a great set up.
- ASRock E350M1/USB3 AMD E-350 APU (1.6GHz, Dual-Core) AMD A50M Hudson M1 Mini ITX Motherboard $125
- Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Desktop Memory Model KVR1333D3N9K2/8G $35
- OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-60G 2.5" 60GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) $99
Software
Debian 6.0
Media server: it hosts my music collection. I keep the files in MP3 format, having transferred them from my CD's using grip. Music collection
File server: I keep my home directory here and NFS mount it on the desktop machine Raven. 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.
For Python I have Komodo IDE I also have the wxPython stuff loaded. I edit files with emacs23
I use eagle to view and edit schematics and circuit boards.
