Comment by mydriasis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mydriasis | Hacker News Reader

For reference, I thought I'd outline the baby PCs I use, since we're chatting about baby PCs. Maybe someone will find this useful. I use thinkcentre M92p SFFs for easy server boxes. Some things I like: - Bountiful - Cheap -- they can be had for under $100 each - Pretty powerful considering what you're paying, too! - Use common desktop parts for the most part - Accepts low-profile PCIe equipment ( network cards for ethernet, wifi; GPUs ) - Repair & replacement parts are CHEAP

Some things I don't: - I've had to do some ridiculous things to get them to behave after installing Linux, like tricking the BIOS to deal with UEFI correctly - It's basically impossible to get a better power supply, so you're limited with how much each one can do. Don't expect anything better than a very low-power, low-profile GPU for example. - There's not a ton of room in the case, so if you want PCIe stuff you will need low-profile. You can definitely stuff lots of hard drives in there if you work at it, though.

And, maybe someone has advice for me...!

> I've had to do some ridiculous things to get them to behave after installing Linux, like tricking the BIOS to deal with UEFI correctly

I would suggest going for a couple of generations newer - the M92p is from an era before UEFI became really stable. For automated testing of my startup's product we have a testlab of tens of older USFF desktops and the M700/M900/M910 machines are some of my favorites. They're also just before the cut-off for Windows 11 support so they're still available dirt cheap.

Two things to watch out for - the M700 lacks a PCI-E M.2 slot - the internal M.2 slot supports only SATA M.2 drives. Second, the front USB ports failing is a really common failure mode.

Ooo that's _gotta_ be what it is. Just the most bizarre UEFI issues. I luckily found an incantation that works in a pretty general way for M92ps, but had I not I'd have some bricks laying around.

Those M900s look REALLY nice!

I have some M910q that I am very happy with. UEFI is well supported, I was able to upgrade them to 32gb of RAM, i7 7700t and both a 512gb SSD and NVMe for mirrored storage. Highly recommended. Sure, it would be nice to get something newer than 7th gen, but it's still highly capable, small, quiet and fairly low power usage.

> I've had to do some ridiculous things to get them to behave after installing Linux, like tricking the BIOS to deal with UEFI correctly

Strange. I use Dell Optiplex Micros which are pretty much the same. I’ve never had a problem installing any Linux distros or hypervisors (Proxmox and XCP-NG)

I’ve bought 3 used Dells, mostly Optiplexes, over the decades for dedicated hardware for Linux based projects. They always seem like a good deal, and I surprisingly never have problems with them. These are fleet computers that get gently used during business hours that have IT departments that replace computers on a time schedule. Outside of one HDD that didn’t last a year of heavy file traffic I haven’t had really good luck with these machines.

>These are fleet computers that get gently used during business hours that have IT departments that replace computers on a time schedule

Yeah these are the ones I'm buying too. Lot of banks have these for example as an all-in-one docked into a monitor. Sometimes they even have a small amount of Dell warranty left, though I've never ever had a problem with them.

> Sometimes they even have a small amount of Dell warranty left, though I've never ever had a problem with them.

Yes, though technically any add-on warranty coverage or service plans are only available to the registered owner. I bought a couple Dell OptiPlex micros last year that were originally owned by a large organization. They were clearly being resold on eBay by someone who had acquired them in some sort of bulk purchase. Dell has a form you can submit to request that the registration be updated, but it requires you to provide contact information for the original owner. I asked the eBay seller if they for this contact information, but they said they did not. I was able to open a support request with Dell and have their records updated to show me as the owner after showing evidence that I had acquired the machines. This included a photo of them showing their asset tags along with a hand-written note that showed my support case number, as well as a copy of the eBay listings. I believe Dell checked with the original owner (a US federal agency) to verify the machines had been sold.

Thanks that's helpful. I still have two with warranty until January so I might try my luck with Dell

Dell ProSupport is exceptional and worth extending. Rapid access to competent technical human in US mainland.

Same experience as you with HP Elitedesks. At work we used to use those for people doing regular office things. I have a few G2s (i5-6500) and they work flawlessly with Linux, including using my own secureboot keys.

It was so bizarre. I'd get a "No Operating System Found" message, and had to go toy with the UEFI config. Eek!

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