Viglen MPC-L with AMD Geode processor

chris667 · 2017-01-03 12:44:00

I moved house about eighteen months ago. Just today, in a box, I found my old Viglen MPC-l. This was for its time a very energy efficient computer, drawing about 8 watts at 12v if memory serves. It has an AMD Geode LX processor running at 400mhz, 128mb RAM and a 40GB hard disk. One of those things I read about, thought "Wow, how cool is that?", bought and realised I had no use for. Until now!

Recently, I was thinking that I might make up a little server at home that I can connect to when I'm travelling so I can store a couple of important, but well encrypted files (my Keepass database, my personal journal and a book I'm writing in my spare time, all in a Veracrypt container). The plan is to get my router to place it in a DMZ, then connect to it via SSH, download the container, work on it and put them back when I'm done. I had looked at OwnCloud, but it's really overkill for my needs, and I can't see it working on such low powered equipment.

Is anyone using Bunsenlabs and an AMD Geode PC for anything? I don't need any sort of desktop, so I'm assuming the memory will be adequate. Or will I need to find an older kernel?

I have to go to the tip later this week, so it could go along with my garden waste and old mattress. :-(

Head_on_a_Stick · 2017-01-03 12:57:27

chris667 wrote:

128mb RAM

That's not really enough for BunsenLabs, our minimum recommendation is 256MiB

I would recommend 4MLinux for a simple desktop:

https://4mlinux.com/index.php?page=home

Or Alpine Linux for a server:

https://alpinelinux.org/

OpenBSD will also work very well with those resources and would probably be my personal choice, mainly because it is so simple to configure.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2017-01-03 13:04:49

Missed this bit:

chris667 wrote:

I don't need any sort of desktop

If you don't want a desktop then there is probably no point installing BL, use a Debian jessie netinstall instead and uncheck all the desktop boxes in the tasksel section.

For pure server usage, Debian jessie with 128MiB would probably work (I have no personal experience of this though).

Sector11 · 2017-01-03 16:39:33

I'm just curious but would yours be a smaller (internals) version of this: Viglen MPC-L. Well worth £79.

Welcome to Bunsenlabs.

chris667 · 2017-01-03 18:00:51

Sector11 wrote:

I'm just curious but would yours be a smaller (internals) version of this: Viglen MPC-L. Well worth £79.
Welcome to Bunsenlabs.

I remember that post, although I couldn't find it earlier. That's the machine!

It was a very odd installation of Ubuntu. At the time, I installed Windows XP, then Puppy. At present it has Damn Small Linux 4.0 installed on its hard disk. At least for now, I'm downloading the latest Bunsenlabs Non-PAE.

Last edited by chris667 (2017-01-03 18:02:51)

Sector11 · 2017-01-03 19:02:08

Very nice ... yes, the blog said Xubuntu, Puppy was fun never tried DSL.

But don't dust-bin it, give it to some kid!

nobody · 2017-01-03 19:14:44

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Missed this bit:
chris667 wrote:
I don't need any sort of desktop
If you don't want a desktop then there is probably no point installing BL, use a Debian jessie netinstall instead and uncheck all the desktop boxes in the tasksel section.
For pure server usage, Debian jessie with 128MiB would probably work (I have no personal experience of this though).

I'd say you should choose between one of these, each of course run headless, installed using a minimal disk or netinstall: Ubuntu Server 16.04, Debian 8, CentOS 7. I listed them in my personal order of preference; I'm more used to the Debian/Ubuntu system config style than the RHEL one, but either one is going to be rock solid.

Currently, as it is with Debian, I'd strongly prefer 16.04 over Jessie because Debian 9 is just under the horizon, and 16.04 has a more up-to-date userland with a long LTS life cycle that will save you from having to upgrade the release after you just installed.

chris667 · 2017-01-09 05:54:29

Well, I finally had a chance to play with this before bed last night. I left it doing an install, and this morning, it's running Bunsenlabs.

There is a desktop, and while it is slow I've used i7 desktops with Windows that were slower. It has 256MB ram, which is more than I remember; if memory serves I had this and another one with even less RAM. It seems that's enough, just.

Now time for a play around. I will report back.

#1 2017-01-03 12:44:00

Viglen MPC-L with AMD Geode processor

#2 2017-01-03 12:57:27

Re: Viglen MPC-L with AMD Geode processor

#3 2017-01-03 13:04:49

Re: Viglen MPC-L with AMD Geode processor

#4 2017-01-03 16:39:33

Re: Viglen MPC-L with AMD Geode processor

#5 2017-01-03 18:00:51

Re: Viglen MPC-L with AMD Geode processor

#6 2017-01-03 19:02:08

Re: Viglen MPC-L with AMD Geode processor

#7 2017-01-03 19:14:44

Re: Viglen MPC-L with AMD Geode processor

#8 2017-01-09 05:54:29

Re: Viglen MPC-L with AMD Geode processor

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