on 1/9/02 15:19, Graham/Aniartia at linux.i386@genasis.freeserve.co.uk
wrote:

> On Wednesday 09 January 2002 7:28 pm, kml@selresearch.net wrote:
>> In message <B81AA27B.5084%ssartor@bellatlantic.net>Steven Sartorius writes
>> 
>>> Shuttle has a nifty, cheap 'cube' system available
>>> (http://www.shuttleonline.com/sv24.htm) which looks like it would be
>>> perfect for a small firewall/router.  Everything on the spec sheet seems
>>> to be OK with NetBSD but I'm wondering whether anyone has any firsthand
>>> experience with one of these?
>> 
>> Did anybody ever try one of these out?  I've been hearing that the
>> VIA chipsets can be problematic, but other than that it sounds
>> like it might be an interesting option for setting up demos in limited
>> space...
>> 
>> Thanks,
> 
> I've had a SV4, got a Asus Terminator (intel).
> 
> I find the SV24 suffers from major lacency problems, it's expansion is
> limmited at best & firewire was next to useless (using a firewire to SCSI
> device with a cd burner on the end & getting buffer underruns @ 2x, Sony VAIO
> FX201 fine at 16x) & is the only machine I've had heat problems with a maxtor
> HD (the HD gets all the air from the CPU draged over it). system performence
> wasn't even that good & feels like it's just been thrown together with the
> 'well everything fits in according to the spec sheet' type attatude.
> 
> Asus Terminator is a much better buy though it is bigger & doesn't look a
> good, but effectifly has double the expansion (2x 5.25" & 2xPCI), system
> performence is startling compared to the SV24 (I guess it's due to the
> latency problems) & I'm, yet to have a problem with it.
> 
> Ani

I actually got an SV24 about a month ago but have had a much better
experience with it than Graham.  The system is designed to have limited
expandability -- there's one PCI slot and room for a floppy drive, CDROM/DVD
and a hard drive.  It all fits in -- barely.  The upside to this is that the
footprint is tiny, about the size of a (small) toaster.  I outfitted mine
with a 1.1GHz Celeron, a 20G drive from Western Digital, a 3Com Ethernet
card and a cheap no-name CD-RW.  I installed NetBSD 1.5.2 (since upgraded to
1.5.3_ALPHA) with no problems and the system has been running flawlessly
24/7 since as a firewall/router and file and MP3 server for my home network.
My only (minor) quibble was that neither the Firewire interface nor the
TV-out was recognized by NetBSD.

I bought the SV24 because I wanted something small and utilitarian and to
date have been quite happy with my purchase....


Steve