{"id":3142,"date":"2015-12-26T04:44:09","date_gmt":"2015-12-26T09:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/?p=3142"},"modified":"2015-12-26T04:44:09","modified_gmt":"2015-12-26T09:44:09","slug":"trying-out-the-intel-nuc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2015\/12\/26\/trying-out-the-intel-nuc","title":{"rendered":"Trying out the Intel NUC"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was thinking about buying a Mac Mini, but the Apple Store in Malaysia has over-priced it, due to the crazy Malaysian Ringgit (prices don\u2019t reflect current realities; custom Mac Mini with all things thrown in is USD$1,499 vs RM6,899, today\u2019s rate being RM6,435).<\/p>\n

So I decided to buy an Intel NUC and go the Linux route.\u00a0I picked up the Intel NUC NUC5i5RYH<\/a>\"\" from CZone for RM1,643 which has an Intel Core i5-5250U\u00a0processor, WiFi, Ethernet but requires you to provide some RAM, storage and you\u2019re good to go. This is the model that allows an M.2 SSD and another regular 2.5\u201d disk, so I chose to get\u00a0the Transcend M.2 256GB SATA III 6Gb\/s MTS800<\/a>\"\" to be the disk I’ll used to install an OS on for RM477 and decided that I’ll get another disk for storage\/Dropbox purposes — HGST 7000rpm 2.5-Inch 1TB SATA III<\/a>\"\". RAM was easy – just make sure to get low power DDR3 RAM (DDR3L), and its easy enough to pick up 2*8GB sticks for a total of 16GB of RAM.<\/p>\n

All in, I paid RM2,713 for this, and I provided by own MiniDisplayPort to VGA adapter. I see this as a huge<\/strong>\u00a0savings over the Mac Mini. Sure, I can get a 2TB spinning disk on the Mac Mini (it seems that OEM folk can\u2019t get these fusion drives at that size), but if I really wanted to go all out, I could have gotten a larger M.2 SSD and also went all in with SSD instead of spinning disk. Maybe when the 6th generation NUC comes out.<\/p>\n

Configuring Ubuntu was relatively easy. Ubuntu 15.10 did require me to boot with the\u00a0nomodeset<\/tt> option (so immediately after the visual BIOS splash screen, hit the Shift key, press e to edit the displayed kernel, and when it says ro quiet splash<\/tt>, edit it to say ro nomodeset quiet splash<\/tt>. You install Ubuntu via a USB thumb drive as well.<\/p>\n

This is basically a server with X for me. It\u2019s doing tasks like syncing Dropbox<\/a>, backing up with CrashPlan, and it will allow me to use Docker containers, compile software, etc. while I\u2019m sitting at my desk. It makes for a pretty mean desktop, all packed in a tiny little package.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Why didn\u2019t I go with the current i7? Seems like there wasn\u2019t too much of a performance boost (good reading:\u00a0Intel NUC Mini PC Review: Core i5 and i7 Benchmarked<\/a>). The 6th Gen is also coming, so it will be a much more interesting platform for me (see the NUC6i5SYH<\/a>; here\u2019s hoping they also have i7 versions).<\/p>\n

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