[LAU] Box under £400

[Robin Gareus]

On 05/30/2012 03:09 PM, Sciss wrote:
> hi,
> 
> I don't know if this is the best place to ask, as it's more of a hardware question...
> 
> I will need to get a good + cheap + reliable machine to sound installations. I can invest _max_ £400 (EUR 500) and I need to get hold of the machine latest by August. Unless a miracle happens and a new Mac Mini model is announced, dropping the prices of current models by at least £150, I am looking for something comparable of the i5 2.3 GHz Mac Min, Linux based.
> 
> It can't be desktop size, it really should be a portable thing, size factor/ weight not much larger than first gen Mac Mini.
>
> The nettops seem all underpowered for computation expensive realtime apps. I came across this : http://www.zotacusa.com/zbox-giga-id72-plus.html -- but seems like a new model or so, can't find any retailers or pricing info, at least not in the UK.
> 
> Minimum specs would be i3 2 GHz, 4 GB RAM, 100 GB HD. Will be audio only, so I guess graphics card doesn't matter. And of course, it needs to run Linux audio -- my stuff will use SuperCollider and various things on the Java VM.

ASUS EEEbox comes to mind.

If you like bare-bones: search for "Advantech Single Board Computers".
They come without HDD, w/o power-supply and w/o case (it's not a "box"
per se), but there are powerful models available that meet your specs
and even with PS, HDD and case will be within in your budget.

http://buy.advantech.eu/Embedded+computer+embedded+pc+bo/3+5+Single+Board+Computers/35_Embedded_Board.ps.htm

I'm just setting up an installation using a PCM-9363D-S8A1E (Atom CPU
64bit, 1.8GHz, 2 cores [4 w/hyperthreading], 4 GB RAM) + USB2-Audio
Presonus 1818VSL: 8 channel audio I/O -- jackd runs stable at "-p64
-r48000 -n2"  ~6ms round-trip latency with debian/wheezy's RT-kernel.

> How about audio interfaces? I guess there is no chance I can connect a MOTU 828 Mk II to any of these boxes? 

Firewire is rare these days. Besides: "MOTU is hostile towards Linux"
[http://www.ffado.org/?q=node/63] :)

How many channels do you need?

> The Z-Box looks interesting saying that it has 8-channels digital audio output via HDMI. I have no clue how to get that to 8 analog line signals, but maybe there is a cheap way? Will there be a problem getting Jack to talk to this kind of interface?
> 
> Thanks for your suggestions, I hope it's not off topic!
> 
> Best,
> 
> .h.h.