The Linutop 2 gets green on your desktop

If you're after a really, really low power, small footprint, generally inoffensive desktop solution, you probably can't do better than the new Linutop 2. This miniscule, Xubuntu-based system runs on top of a 500MHz AMD Geode CPU, packs in 512MB of RAM, and 1GB of flash memory, you know, for applications and stuff. Of course, the draw here isn't massive specs, but rather a tiny drain on energy, and a simple, cheap solution for people with basic computing needs. Amazingly, the Linutop 2 uses only 8 watts of power, and weighs a feather-light 20 ounces. The miniature box also has four USB ports, an ethernet jack, audio outs, and comes bundled with open source gems like AbiWord, Open Office, and your good buddy, Firefox. The little guy starts shipping on February 26th for €280, or about $412.

[Via LinuxDevices]

[Mark Teitelbaum @ Feb 21st 2008 8:31AM]

Wow at first I thought that the 280 Euro -> 412 USD was a typo, but then I checked the exchange rate. Is the Euro really worth that much compared to the USD? If I remember correctly just a couple years ago it was nearly 1:1.

[bartoron @ Feb 21st 2008 8:35AM]

Well Mark, with the current state of the US dollar, the exchange rate has become somewhat unfavorable for us Americans. :(

[Carbonize @ Feb 21st 2008 8:35AM]

Or £210 ;)

We use real money here in the UK not the play money America uses.







FLAME ON!

[Michael @ Feb 21st 2008 9:07AM]

When the Euro was being introduced and only used in electronic transactions (i.e. the paper money wasn't released yet)...the exchange rate was 1 USD = 2 Euro. Those were the days!

[ScooterDe @ Feb 21st 2008 9:53AM]

@Michael, what rubbish. It launched around 1:1 and the Euro fell to around US$0.80. But that didn't last long. It has been stronger than the USD for quite a while now.

[Michael @ Feb 21st 2008 10:03AM]

@ScooterDe: Sorry, I misspoke (it's 6am over here)...You're right, I was remembering it wrong. When I traveled though Europe in the summer of 2000, they were posting the prices of everything in the local currency and Euro (preparatory to the conversion). Anyways, I do remember now that I could use the Euro amount as a rough estimate of how many USD the item was (because of the near 1:1 exchange), in my cloudy mind I was confusing the Euro with the Deutsche Mark which was at the 1:2 ratio back then.

(weird...someone on the Internet can admit when they are wrong ;) )

[emailtabs @ Feb 21st 2008 10:53AM]

Micheal... you feelin ok mate?. you better have a little lie down!

[Jesse S @ Feb 21st 2008 11:30AM]

Carbonize, I'm sure having a stronger currency is worth having cameras every 10ft in major cities, and probably having the least civil rights out of any first-world country.

The US is sadly heading there, too...It's only a matter of time.

But, I have to ask, has _no one_ in Britain read 1984 or V for Vendetta? I mean, _seriously_?

[emailtabs @ Feb 21st 2008 12:51PM]

Jesse s

Read both, live in uk, can't wait... they've given me some wonderful pointers in how to gain power and corrupt mankind.

Give me 5 more years and when i'm done over here i'll give you a call and come sort out america too.

Just to get the record straight... I am a rather nice dictator who will bring you many shoe shops! (D.A. long may he roam)


(Dammit why does the reply button fail on me.. first things first though. gotta go find me some mindless drones)

[Carbonize @ Feb 21st 2008 1:03PM]

@Jesse S - Unless you have something to hide or are just paranoid then why worry about the number of cameras? And at least when we install CCTV cameras we install ones that do the job (unlike San Francisco).

BTW you really think you are free in the US? You are probably more controlled than any other country you just don't realise it. You are raised to salute the flag and Hollywood movies like to alter history so America always wins. The films U264 and The Thin Red Line being perfect examples. Your international news is always biased towards the US but then most Americans are lost outside their own state.

[Dan @ Feb 21st 2008 4:16PM]

@ jesse s.

Having cctv in public places isn't an invasion of privacy.

Things like warrantless wire taps, like some people in this country want, are.

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Feb 21st 2008 5:39PM]

@carbonize

No, that's not UKP but $250-280 EUR

http://www.linutop.com/linutop2/shop/index.en.html

[Carbonize @ Feb 22nd 2008 2:19AM]

@I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY - Like I said €280 = £210.

[The Aggie CEO @ Feb 21st 2008 8:34AM]

$412

I can get a FULL SIZE PC with that.........

whats funny is sure.........you have a "green" PC but the HUGE MONITOR(by comparison) is killing whatever energy you THOUGHT you were saving........

[Superprime @ Feb 21st 2008 8:45AM]

Your view is skewed because of the weak dollar. Imagine that for us Europeans it costs like it would cost you 280$.

The very weak $ is the reason every new gadget seems to cost a gazillion $ (like those picture frames engadget posted a few days ago)

[JC @ Feb 21st 2008 9:18AM]

So you're saying that this green PC connected to the same monitor a normal PC would be connected to doesn't make a difference in power consumption?

Take that crack pipe you're smokin' out yo mouth, son.

[The Aggie CEO @ Feb 21st 2008 9:36AM]

it'll make a difference........

but not enough to make a fuss about......

you wanna be TOTALLY green stay in the Amazon using only NATURE.......

[Dakota @ Feb 22nd 2008 6:16PM]

Yep, my Compaq Presario C714NR notebook was $400 at Best Buy - and it's a gig of RAM, a dual core Intel @ 1.46 GHz, decent battery life - and the "more familiar to rednecks of America" Windows - what's so special about this thing?

It's like the Aleutia E1 people were ranting about - http://www.aleutia.com/products/e1specs.html - but is a total waste of money, because you can pick it up direct from China for ~$100 US. Look here: http://www.ewayco.com/51-embedded-systems-100-PC-mini-ITX-low-cost/100-tu-low-cost-pc-thin-client-embedded-system.html

[Frank @ Feb 21st 2008 8:34AM]

Give this thing at least 4GB of memory for that $400 price tag.

[Jaime Garza @ Feb 21st 2008 12:10PM]

That would be the Asus EEE 4G PC =)

900 mhz, up to 2 Gbs or RAM, 4 Gbs sotrage + Card reader + External 3 USB ports + easily modable XD

[Frank @ Feb 21st 2008 8:34AM]

Mark where have you been? The world has changed a lot since Bush has been in office...

[slowerpig81 @ Feb 21st 2008 8:55AM]

Unfortunately, he still is...

[Joe_Templeman @ Feb 21st 2008 8:37AM]

This is absolutly what I've been looking for....if I knew what to do with it!

[Joe_Templeman @ Feb 26th 2008 1:58PM]

Thought of something! It could become a cheap file/mail server (with an external hard disk of course) to sit in my uni halls of residence!

The internet speeds are easily fast enough, and because its silent, it could be on all the time!!

[Wonderkid @ Feb 21st 2008 8:40AM]

This is NOT value for money, unlike the Asus EEE PC. A sub $99 Linux PC would change the world and appeal to small businesses (including my own customers at gonumber.com) who would love a £199 PC with trackball* and 17" Monitor included. *Uses less desk space in a cramped retail environment.

[Eamon @ Feb 21st 2008 12:39PM]

Four flash drives in those four USB ports... a nice little tiny computer you have yourself there. Add a good music program and a small touch screen and it would be the business.

[optix @ Feb 21st 2008 8:59AM]

Can anyone say CarPC?

[patsy @ Feb 21st 2008 10:06AM]

Let's see: "CarPC". Yep, I can.

[not4no1 @ Feb 21st 2008 10:38AM]

As soon as I read this, My first thought was..."Can this fit in my MINI's glovebox?"

[darkstar @ Feb 21st 2008 9:02AM]

wasteful.
with the money, i can get the EEE. better specs and everything.

[Brodie @ Feb 21st 2008 9:02AM]

Great beard of Zeus! This thing has more ports than the Macbook Air...

[optix @ Feb 21st 2008 9:04AM]

Woah. Let's think this one over. It costs 60 EUR, (about 88 USD) JUST TO SHIP THE THING. Does it come in a steel crate? For something so light, tiny, and eco-friendly, they surely make up for it with packaging and handling costs.

[Matt @ Feb 21st 2008 9:05AM]

That's pretty sweet, if you look on their website, they have a mounting bracket for VESA-ready flat-panel PCs so you can hook it up round the back of your monitor and out the way.

£200 aint a bad price, I guess. Spec is low, but if you have an efficient LCD montior, you could save some of what you've spent just in lower PC bills (my PC has a 750w PSU and an old CRT montior, one of those would be a LOT cheaper to run, hah).

Designed more for business use, than home use. Still, a funky little gadget - heck its cheaper that just my graphics card!

[Badonkadonk @ Feb 21st 2008 9:13AM]

For those of you in North America, Koolu (http://www.koolu.com) offers the same thing for cheaper (http://koolu.com/Koolu-WE-Appliance/Works-Everywhere-Appliance.html). Uses an 80GB HDD instead of a 1GB SSD though; same underlying HW architecture.

[Craig B. @ Feb 21st 2008 10:45AM]

Thanks for the link. Maybe I'll buy one and then pop-out the HD to install XP as dual-boot....

[King Pin @ Feb 21st 2008 9:15AM]

You can actually do even better. I have the Fit-PC which uses only 3-5W of power. It has a 500 Mhz processor and 250 MB RAM. I use it as a 24/7 server for Sonos with Win XP, and it works absolutely great! Cost 280 USD. You can find it on www.fit-pc.com . I'm not in any way affiliated, just a happy customer.

[Meridimus @ Feb 21st 2008 10:04AM]

That's awesome and way cheaper with a bigger amount of storage space. I've been looking for something like this to use as a mini web server when I'm working at home. Looks to be one! Fit-PC it is!

[jd @ Feb 21st 2008 9:19AM]

my 5 year old laptop has better spec than this and it is worth less than 100$

why dont they green people recycle my laptop instead of making new thing n hurting our environment.

[eyurasian_destiny @ Feb 21st 2008 9:26AM]

So, 8w of power without a monitor?
15' TFT screen 30w (result from a quick google)

meaning itd use more power than my laptop (e1505 Undervolted using 20w at peak)
with a 1.66Ghz proccessor 40gb hdd, 1.5gbs of ram and a 15.4 inch widescreen

all at a cost of $500 usd

[Fergus Kane @ Feb 21st 2008 9:43AM]

Koolu ships in Europe as well. I've got one running slimerver and other low power server stuff. No need for a screen.

[Meridimus @ Feb 21st 2008 10:07AM]

Ok, I've decided the Koolu is better

[Eric Moritz @ Feb 21st 2008 10:12AM]

With those stats and price you might as well get a eeepc and you'll get a 3 more gigs of SSD, 400 more MHZ and it's portable. Granted I'm guessing the 9.5v 2.315a charger for the eeepc is probably more that 8 watts, but it can't be that much more.

E.

[Eric Moritz @ Feb 21st 2008 10:21AM]

A Follow up on my previous post:

The Eeepc draws 24 watts while charging and 17 watts while charged, not 8 watts, but still a lot less than a normal desktop and even most desktops.
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=114661#p114661

[DorianGray @ Feb 21st 2008 10:29AM]

@Michael & ScooterDe

I lived in Germany during the heyday of the strong American dollar -- the mid-80's. At one point, the US dollar got 3.45DM. That was an AWESOME exchange rate, espec for a 5th-grader with a paper route...

I bought so many effin Legos... my folks bought Bimmers & Audis... those were great days.

Can't wait til the American currency recovers from its current peso-status and is powerful on the world stage again. And to think, I used to rag on Canadians and their Monopoly-bux. Damn.

[kizane @ Feb 21st 2008 12:06PM]

I'm in Germany now and the exchange rate SUCKS! I first got here and it was about 0.80€ to $1, but ever since then it's fallen around 0.60€ to $1. I pretty much take prices off base and add half to it.

COLA rocks and helps a bit, but they're always SUPER quick to take that 'ish away when the Euro goes up, even by 1 cent and saying "COLA is going down due to a stronger American Dollar" then it takes them forever to raise COLA when the Euro goes down... grr. Oh well, though.

The ol lady says when the Euro took over from the DM, stores used the same numerical values for items, i.e. something cost 1DM it was now 1€ even though the Euro was worth double. Anyway, she says the prices lowered a little, but only to match stuff in the US. Stuff is about the same numerical value price as in the US, just in Euro, so technically more expensive. Not gas, though... that crap is like 1.40€/L or around $7USD/Gal.

...oh, and I immediately thought of putting this thing in my car ;)

[AutoTom @ Feb 21st 2008 10:48AM]

$412??

for a desktop computer with no screen?
now im no apple marketing manager.. but i think that's a stupid idea.

unless you have a really really small apartment..

[Hax Or @ Feb 21st 2008 10:56AM]

Let's see if everyone who bashed the MacBook Air comes out to bash this.

"Get a real Linux box!" etc etc ad nauseam.

[Paul @ Feb 21st 2008 11:24AM]

nth-ing the thought that the Eee is a much better way to go here. So, it's only got 3 USB ports but it's cheaper, has a bigger drive, and, yeah, it's a real laptop too. Even if you don't plan to use it that way, it seems like the better choice for most users unless there's something I'm missing.

Oh, yeah, and the Eee gives you the integrated SD card reader too..

[Bob @ Feb 21st 2008 12:03PM]

My Sony UX-280 is using only 9 watts of power (with the screen off) and it's running a weather station, sending data to the internet every minute via a wireless 802.11g connection. This is old news.

[raaaaaa @ Feb 21st 2008 12:04PM]

uhhhh, Can someone say "appletv"