Review MiniPC with Ubuntu pre-installed – DinoPC Nanosaur 330

About the mini PC computer

This is a review of a Mini PC which I got some time ago. I’ve had it a few months now so it’s had a good run through for this review. The same model is still available to buy, although I’m guessing comes with a newer version of Ubuntu.

The mini PC was purchased from DinoPC.com and came with Ubuntu Linux installed. It was purchased as a low power computer to replace my ageing desktop machine. It is being used for the following:

• Email server
• Test / development server
• Streaming server for DLNA (Blue-Ray player)
• Samba server for access within my home
• Always on PC for instant web access (including writing this blog post)
• Plus a few other things like a proxy server to access UK only websites whilst travelling etc.

The main features I was looking for is low power (as it is always-on then power cost is significant) and low noise, both of which are outstanding. It also had to run Linux, but having Ubuntu pre-installed was a bonus.

Tiny PC – What’s included?

The PC is small. I lie it on it’s side and it takes up about the same space as my Amazon Kindle ebook reader, but quite a bit deeper. Looking at it another way it’s about the same size as a home ADSL router / modem. It can lay flat, stand up vertically or even be mounted out-of-sight at the rear of a monitor.

I originally ordered a black Nanosaur 330 as shown on the DinoPC website, but I was contacted by the supplier asking if white would be acceptable instead as the black ones were on back order. The colour wasn’t an issue so I got the white model, although the black model may be better if you were looking for something to use in as a home media centre (it has HDMI built-in so would be suitable for use with a HD-TV).

As well as the HDMI output there is a DVI digital video port, but no analogue VGA port (which is what most monitors still use), but it does include a DVI to VGA adapter, although it does stick out some way from the back of the computer. There are 4 USB ports and an SD slot.

There is built in wireless networking 802.11n as well as an ethernet port for wired networks. I found the wireless to be unreliable in my house, but I believe that to be partly due to interference. I get similar problems with my netbook, but my Dell laptop works better (although my laptop still has speed issues rather than drop-outs that the miniPC and netbook suffer).
The miniPC has the same Atom processor as used in Netbooks (eg. Asus EeePC netbook), so it is not a particularly fast processor. It can handle everything I do quite easily although I run Xfce rather than Unity (see later). It runs web based games quite well, and can even handle photo editing, but would not be able to run any processor intensive games or video editing etc.

As far as power usage is concerned the DinoPC is very low powered. I estimate that compared with the PC I was running before it will pay for itself within 2 years or so in electricity savings. It is also very quiet. After my noisy PC I thought that the computer was turned off at first, is really is that quiet. Much of the time there is no active cooling, but there is an internal fan which comes on sometimes. It is noticeable, but not too loud to be a distraction (a little quieter than most laptop fans).
It includes a built-in speaker, but also has speaker / microphone jacks to improve on the sound quality.

Software

The Mini PC comes with Linux pre-installed. It uses a standard Ubuntu Linux. Mine originally arrived about a week after Ubuntu 11.04 was released and was installed with the very latest version which was impressive. It was a standard install, but they had made the effort of using my own name as the default login which it went into straight away. The only problem was that they didn’t tell me the password. I expect that if I’d emailed them then they would have provided it, but it was a weekend and so I just reinstalled Ubuntu Linux.
Ubuntu Linux is an easy to use operating system which is free* and comes with lots of free software. This includes just about everything you would want to do including office suite, web browsers, photo editors and video editors, so you don’t normally need to buy any more software. It doesn’t however run Windows software (although there’s usually an alternative), but some can be used by using WINE or paying for Crossover WINE software.
The only thing I found was that Ubuntu is a little slow on such a low powered machine. It is usable, but not as responsive as I would like. I therefore installed xubuntu which has all of the same software as Ubuntu, but uses less memory and runs faster.
*Free can mean that you don’t need to pay to use it, but for open source software it also means you have the freedom to use and modify the programs as you wish. It does includes some proprietary drivers, but most of Ubuntu Linux is completely FREE in both respects.

Summary

The DinoPC is small, low power and very quiet. It can handle most computing functions, but is based on a low power processor so is not up to particularly intensive programs.
It comes pre-installed with Ubuntu Linux which is easy to use and saves a lot on having to buy Windows and additional software. You just may need to ask what the password is as they forgot to include it when they sent mine.
To make it run faster you may also want to consider replacing Ubuntu Linux with Xubuntu Linux which is free and runs a bit faster.

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Getting wireless to work on Xubuntu / Ubuntu linux with broadcom based firmware

In the past I have had problems with getting wireless working on Linux laptops. I thought this had been fixed with more recent distributions, but in some rare circumstances there can be problems.

In this case I have an old laptop that I have set-up for my son to use. It’s ancient compared with current hardware, but is still able to run a less demanding distribution such as Xubuntu. It installed OK with and older version of Xubuntu, but with 11.10 it said “Requires Firmware”.

Checking it’s a Broadcom mini-wireless card

The first step is to identify what wireless chipset is installed. In my case a Dell mini-pci wireless card, which uses the Broadcom chipset. To check this run the lspci command from a terminal:

$lspci | grep Network
02:03.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)

Note you still use lspci for a pcmcia card.

Assuming this says Broadcom BCM43??? we can proceed, if not then you may have to look at configuring the card manually using ndiswrapper and the Windows drivers, but that’s beyond the scope of this.

Install the drivers

To install the drivers run the following from a terminal. You need to be connected to the Internet when this is run using the onboard Ethernet card and a cable direct to your router.

sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer

This will download the firmware from the Internet and install the appropriate driver. You should then be able to select the appropriate wireless network from the normal network list.

Conflicts with other wireless packages

If you have the broadcom-sta-common package installed it blacklists the b43 driver which is required for wireless.

To fix – edit the file /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf
delete (or comment out with a #) the line. If this file does not exist then move on to the next step.

blacklist b43

Then to force the module to load during boot edit /etc/modules
add a line with


b43

It should now still work after a reboot.

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Computer Benefits and Disadvantages

Computer is widely used now-a-days all over the world for various purposes. Computer has many benefits as well as many drawbacks.

The main benefits of using computer is it helps for education purpose, scientific research, medical purpose, entertainment, internet marketing & e-commerce, communication etc.

Computer helps to study us in more convenient  and interactive way. In most of the Universities and Colleges, using computer and computer education is compulsory.  Students study various subjects of computer such as Information Technology(IT), Engineering, Programming, Graphics, Animation, and so on.

Scientists also use computer for their different research purpose such as space exploration, planet study, constellation study, atomic and molecular study of matters.

Advancement of computer technology has also helped in medical field. Modern surgery, and radiation treatment  for cancer and tumor is done more safely and accurately.

One of the main benefit/advantage of computer is for entertainment purpose. Entertainment is also the main reason for rapid development of computer field. People rather watch movies online on youtube and other site in their convenient time than watching movie in cinema hall. Children play games on computers. People also use computer to communicate and interact with each other through social networking sites such as facebook, and twitter. Computer animation is also widely used in film industry.

Information Technology  is considered as the heart of every organization. Information Technology has helped every organization for internet marketing and e-commerce business either for organization or customer. Success of any organization depends upon IT. For example, people use internet to know detail information of any organization about their status in share market.

Although computer has many advantages but there as few drawbacks/disadvantages as well. Research has shown that the blood pressure of people using computer regularly is higher than normal people. Excessive use of computer also leads to the addiction of it. Information of people can be easily found on different social networking sites and it leads to insecurity for their digital information.

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