I would like to ask you some suggestions about a Linux compatible mini PC to buy (Slackware compatible would be perfect, if possible).

I have a budget of max 200 euros. The mini PC will be mainly used to render google maps / street view on a web browser window and for some other basic tasks.

Please, could you give me any suggestions?

Thank you all in advance,
Cristiano.

Do you want a desktop or a laptop?
For desktop i can recommend a low end intel NUC, they sell for as cheap as 180 euros with a celeron cpu that should be enough for light browsing, and they usually play very well with every linux flavour (my personal experience has been with a high end one in university running fedora).

1 members found this post helpful.

Thank you for your suggestion giomat. What model of Intel NUC did you use?

A desktop mini PC. It has to be placed behind a big screen.

I don't remember the exact model, it had an i7 and 32GB of ram, high end indeed.
But apart from the cpu and ram they have usually all the same components (that is motherboard, modules, wifi if included etc.). You can also upgrade ram and storage as you wish

Ok, I think I've found something that could fit the requirements:

1) Intel NUC7CJYH: 144,42 €
2) RAM Crucial SODIMM DDR4, 4GB: 24,99 €
3) SSD Kingston 240 GB, 2.5": 31,35 €

What do you think?

I use a MSI Cubi-N, it's running MX Linux, (Debian based).

This is its update/replacement.
https://www.novatech.co.uk/pc/range/...ithdnpi39.html

I've got a Zotac ZBOX CI327 running Slackware64 14.2. Depending on local price the full system with RAM and SSD will be slightly over your budget, but maybe you can snatch an "old" 128GB SSD or similar from a friend for free.

Installation is tricky because the CI327 doesn't work with a 4.4.x kernel - this is a problem you'll encounter on many more recent sytems. With 4.19.x from -current rebuilt for 14.2 everything is fine.

My CI327 won't work at all (not even boot up) with a monitor connected to DP. I didn't investigate any further and simply used HDMI instead.

Performance of the Celeron N3450 is very decent and a lot better than the older N3150. Google Maps and Street View are resource hugs, though, and will feel slow on such a tiny system. But the experience might be improved with using -current rather than 14.2 and Chrome rather than Firefox.

I have a similar one, the BI325. It is definitely not fast, but it runs 14.2 fine. I did have some issues with the 4.4 kernels (actually 4.4 all the way up through something like 4.15), but now I have been building my own kernel from the 4.19 series, and that works fine.

I am passionate by the small and low powered PCs too, and I had a NUC in the past. They are basically useful for nothing overpriced toys. You pay for a Intel label, just like for the signed wears.

That experience made me to wonder: how small is too small?

Then I noticed that a mini-ITX case costs FOUR times the price of a micro-ATX one, even it is half on dimensions.

And I started to ask myself IF I want very small dimensions to tinker with (then better I will go to an ARM mini-PC or SBC) or, IF I want just a functional but low powered PC.

That's WHY I arrived to buy this micro-ATX motherboard for AMD AM1 sockets:

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AM1MA/

Together with an AMD Athlon x4 5350

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Jaguar...50JAH44HM.html

and 8GB DDR3 RAM at 1600Mhz, everything is put in a case like this:

https://www.aerocool.com.tw/au/chssis/pgs-c/cs101

Yep, it is way bigger than a NUC, BUT it does a fine job for the usual tasks, sporting a 240GB SSD and 1TB Western Digital for storage and swap. And the graphics offers OpenGL 4.5

Yet, it is silent and consumes around 30W for typical usage, for example while watching movies and/or browsing. I use this PC as a "master" where I build my squashfs images for the compressed /usr including Plasma5, to be put on my other computers, with a really smaller storage size.

Still, it is not good enough to build Plasma5 from scratch, BUT it is much much more performant than a Intel Celeron driven NUC or similar, where if you open in browser a rich media news site, your CPU hits the 100% usage and everything slows at snails speed.

In few words, my suggestion to OP: stay away of Intel NUCs and similar - they are just overpriced craps worth for nothing.

2 members found this post helpful.

Your justification for saying that Intel NUCS and similar are "overpriced craps" is that you built a completely different type of machine that is much larger and more power hungry? That makes zero sense. What if someone actually wants something small that uses 5 Watts instead of 30?

You arrive to my initial question: how small is too small? Probably depends on needs and taste. I wanted a relative functional PC, but less power hungry.

However, my machine is "much larger" just because I refused to pay four times for an even smaller mini-ITX case, even I found motherboards of this type.

In other hand, a 30W consumption is similar with the consumption of my own LED monitor used with this PC, and it is just an 20 inch one.

And considering that about 5W are consumed by the two pieces of RAM, the other 5W are eat by SSD and around 10W are get by my mechanical hard drive, the motherboard and CPU consumes around 10W in medium load.

Probably I will go down to 20W if I will renounce to my 1TB hard drive. Which I do not intend to do, from convenience reasons.

BUT, it is hard to believe that a NUC will consume just 5W in medium load, because at least 10W will be consumed probably by memories and SSD only, excluding the SOC and motherboard.

According with https://www.raspberrypi.org/products...-model-b-plus/

apparently even a SBC like the Raspberry Pi 3 model B+ needs 12.5W power at least: 5V/2.5A . And it sports no SSDs, even no one SATA slot for them, just 1GB memories soldered on board and so on...

Did you really believe that the 5W x86 computers exists, or was just nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking? Or maybe you have a share at Intel?

EDIT:

I'd just remembered that the former forum member Darth Vader somewhere told that he use with satisfaction two Fujitsu Esprimo Q5030, one as a "glorified router" and one as HTPC.

https://www.alphr.com/fujitsu/fujits...o-q5030-review

Looks like those older mini-PC consumes 16W idle and 35W max and they are driven by laptop CPUs like a 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo and 2 or 4GB DDR2 800MHz and probably there are new variants.

So, maybe there's a way to go even smaller than mini-ITX.

I think it's going to be fine, i used a similar cpu for a while with a chromebook and it was perfect for light browsing

My zbox idles at around 5W. Even my laptop, which has a much faster processor, idles at 7W. So apparently the Pi is not very efficient, if your numbers are correct.

Its a little unfair to compare your zbox's idle power usage with the maximum power rating of the Pis power supply adapter. Power usage varies widely with cpu usage and idle usage doesn't say much. If you want to compare power supplies then the Pi is rated for a maximum of 12.5W and the zbox BI325 is rated at 65W, around 5 times larger.