*BSD Category - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

December 19, 2023December 20, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

iKOOLCORE R2 (Core i3-N300) system review – Part2: Proxmox VE, Ubuntu 22.04, pfSense

iKOOLCORE R2 Ubuntu Promox VE dual display

In the first part of iKOOLCORE R2 mini PC & router review, I had a look at the hardware with an unboxing and a teardown of the Intel Core i3-N300 Alder Lake-N computer and also noticed the device booted to a UEFI shell. So for the second part of the review, I will report my experience installing Proxmox VE on the iKOOLCORE R2 and setting up and using Ubuntu 22.04, pfSense 2.7.2, and OpenWrt 23.05 virtual machines, making sure I can still use a physical display, keyboard, and mouse with Ubuntu while pfSense firewall is running. As a side note, the previous generation iKOOLCORE R1 mini PC that was sent to Ian for review with Proxmox VE and various virtual machines preinstalled OpenWrt, Debian 11, and Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC set to Chinese language by default. As I understand it, iKOOLCORE still does that for the Chinese market, but not […]

December 17, 2023December 17, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

How to use a monitor and USB mouse/keyboard in Promox VE on an Intel Alder Lake-N mini PC

Intel Core i3-N300 Alder Lake-N Ubuntu 22.04 Promox VE passthrough

We’ve started to see several Alder Lake-N platforms acting both as a mini PC and a router or network appliance with products such as iKOOLCORE R2 or CWWK x86-P5 which features not only the usual HDMI, USB, and single Ethernet port, but come with multiple Ethernet ports making them ideal to run Proxmox VE to simultaneous run a desktop OS such as Ubuntu 22.04 or Windows 11 and a headless network OS such as pfSense or OpenWrt. I’m currently reviewing iKOOLCORE R2 mini PC that comes with four 2.5GbE ports and I could install Ubuntu 22.04 Desktop, pfSense 2.7.1, and OpenWrt 23.05 relatively easily, but the Ubuntu desktop is only visible in the Proxmox VE dashboard and the HDMI display physically connected to the mini PC only shows Proxmox VE login prompt. So at this point, I learned that I had to enable PCIe passthrough for the GPU in Proxmox […]

November 6, 2023November 24, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

ZimaCube 6+1-bay NAS offers 2.5GbE, PCIe slots, with either Intel Processor N100 or Core i5-1235U SoC (Crowdfunding)

IceWhale Technology, the company behind the line of ZimaBoard x86 SBCs, has now introduced the ZimaCube (Pro) 6+1-bay NAS equipped with either an Intel Processor N100 Alder Lake-N processor or a more powerful Intel Core i5-1235U Alder Lake-P CPU with additional 2.5GbE ports, PCIe expansion slots, and M.2 sockets. Both models support up to six 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch SATA drives, support for M.2 NVMe SSDs, offer 2.5GbE networking, six USB ports, and one or more PCIe expansion with either PCIe Gen3 (Processor N100) or PCIe Gen4 (Core i5-1235U) enabling the addition of a graphics card, high-speed network cards, and more. ZimaCube (Pro) specifications: SoC ZimaCube – Intel Processor N100 quad-core Alder Lake-N processor @ up to 3.4 GHz (Turbo) with 6MB cache, 24EU Intel HD graphics @ up to 750 MHz; TDP: 6W ZimaCube Pro – Intel Core i5-1235U 10-core/12-thread Alder Lake U-Series processor with 2x Performance cores @ 1.3/4.4GHz, […]

October 6, 2023December 5, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Barebone M4 fanless mini PC features Intel Processor N100 for $106 and up

I thought it would be hard to beat the price of the Processor N100 ZX05 mini PC, but the Topton M4 fanless mini PC does just that for just $106.53 plus shipping. The trick for that price is that the M4 is a barebone mini PC without any RAM, storage, or wireless module, but some may see it as an advantage preferring to purchase RAM, storage, and/or a WiFi module separately, or simply having the ability to replace or upgrade them when needed. M4 mini PC specifications: SoC – Intel Processor N100 Alder Lake-N quad-core/quad-thread processor @ up to 3.4 GHz (Turbo) with 6MB cache, 24EU Intel HD graphics @ up to 750 MHz; TDP: 6W System Memory – Up to 32GB (TBC) DDR4-3200 via SO-DIMM socket Storage 1x M.2 2280 socket for NVMe (PCIE3.0 x2) or SATA III SSD 1x mSATA socket SATA III port for up to 7mm […]

June 26, 2023June 26, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Intel soft router offers up to eight 2.5GbE ports, Comet Lake or Whiskey Lake Core processor

Topton is offering a soft router powered by an Intel Whiskey Lake or Comet Lake processor up to the Core i7-10510U quad-core/octa-thread processor with either eight 2.5GbE RJ45 ports or four 2.5GbE RJ45 ports and two 10GbE SFP+ cages. We’ve previously written about the low-cost InuoMicro G4305L8-S2 fanless industrial PC box with eight 2.5GbE interfaces, but it is powered by an Intel Celeron 4305UE dual-core Whiskey Lake processor, and the Topton model should offer more performance with a choice of 8th or 10th generation Intel Core i3/i5/i7 Whiskey Lake or Comet Lake SoC. Specifications: SoC (one or the other) Intel Core i3-8145UE dual-core Whiskey Lake processor up to 3.90 GHz with Intel UHD Graphics 620; 15W TDP Intel Core i5-10210U quad-core/eight-thread Comet Lake processor @ 1.6 GHz / 3.9 GHz (turbo all cores) / 4.2 GHz (turbo one core), 24EU Intel UHD graphics; 6MB Cache; 15W TDP Intel Core i7-10510U […]

May 16, 2023July 8, 2023 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 56 Comments

Beelink EQ12 Review – An Intel Processor N100 mini PC tested with Windows 11, TrueNAS, pfSense, Ubuntu, and more

Beelink’s new EQ series of mini PCs form their base product range and feature low-powered Jasper Lake and Alder Lake-N processors with relatively basic port and memory/storage configurations. Perhaps more importantly, they are also the cheapest mini PCs they offer. Having recently announced the EQ12 mini PC featuring an Intel Processor N100 ‘Alder Lake-N’ CPU with up to 16GB RAM, Beelink have now sent one for review. Whilst I’ll cover the basic Windows operation and performance, I’ll also explore how this new mini PC performs when used as an integrated router and NAS. Beelink EQ12 specifications Beelink list the EQ12 specifications as: It is worth noting that the Processor N100 processor only supports a single memory channel and that according to Intel’s specification for the processor, the maximum memory supported is only 16 GB. Intel’s specification for the number of graphical execution units (EUs) also states 24 however software such […]

April 27, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 17 Comments

Use Kea DHCP server as ISC DHCP server (dhcpd) is being phased out

The ISC DHCP server (dhcpd) was traditionally used to set up a DHCP server in Linux, but the software is reaching end-of-life, and the Internet Systems Consortium is now recommending their own Kea DHCP server or alternatives such as Dnsmasq or udhcpd (as found in Busybox) as a replacement. I was unaware of this having just used the isc-dhcp-server package to set up a DHCP server in NanoPi R6C router/mini PC earlier this month. But a blog post on Ubuntu informed us dhcpd was going away, and Canonical plans to switch over the Kea DHCP server instead. The main difference from the user perspective is that Kea relies on JSON configuration files so all your dhcpd files will have to be rewritten. Other highlights for the Kea DHCP server include: Modular component design, extensible with hooks modules. Kea includes daemons for a DHCPv4 server, a DHCPv6 server, and a dynamic […]

April 24, 2023April 25, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

ASUSTOR FLASHSTOR NAS supports up to 12 M.2 SSDs, 10GbE networking

ASUSTOR FLASHSTOR 6 and FLASHSTOR 12 are network access storage (NAS) devices powered by a quad-core Intel Celeron N5095 Jasper Lake processor and designed for respectively 4K audio and video content consumption for the former and 4K video editing for the latter. Both models come with 4 GB of DDR4-2933, two USB 3.2 Gen 2×1 ports, and HDMI 2.0b video output, but the FLASHSTOR 6 supports up to 6 M.2 NVMe SSDs and 2.5GbE networking, while the FLASHSTOR 12 can take up to 12 M.2 NVMe SSDs and handles 10GbE networking. ASUSTOR FLASHSTOR specifications: SoC – Intel Celeron N5105 quad-core Jasper Lake processor @ 2.0 GHz / 2.9 GHz (Turbo) System Memory – 4GB SO-DIMM DDR4, expandable up to 16GB via 2x SO-DIMM slots Storage 8GB eMMC flash for the OS FLASHSTOR 6 (FS6706T) – 6x M.2 2280 NVMe drive slots, up to 14x drives with AS6004U expansion unit for […]