I have a number of computers running in my home, and we have the habit of leaving them on 24/7.

That is partly convenience, and partly because my wife want to see if someone messages her on Gaim, and I use the machine about 12 hours/day for recording radio programs and playback after a time shift. Turning of the computers when we really don't use them would only yield 8 hours a day or so. The file server of course is another one.

Anyway, with the current energy prices, this habit costs a considerable part of our family budget. (It can be considered extremely lazy to leave the computers on all day long, but I consider the Wintel industry quite careless just hunting after clock speed instead of serious energy saving)

If you are still with me... I am considering to buy some mini-itx systems with VIA 1.5 GHz processor. Would such a system make any sense as a desktop system?

We use the computers mainly for Internet, chatting, Skype, ooffice. In addition I do some CAD, graphic work (Inkscape, Wings3D, Gimp), photo processing (ufraw, gthumb), music recording/playback and some programming (bash, C). No gaming at all, and hardly ever a video.

I have a number of opinions on this forum about mini-itx, but not really as a desktop system with the restriction that no games are being played.

Any useful information here? Thanks.

jlinkels

I built similar system for my wife years ago. Via Samuel ~800 MHz, 256 MB of RAM. Currently running Gentoo with modular X and modular KDE, meaning the system is quite lean. Also I used some KDE-specific optimizations when compiling. Works like charm.

That sounds encouraging. Thanks.