Re: free software mini pc
> So to recap my original post, the basic requirements are:
> - fanless mini PC
> - it will run Debian
> - production environment (reliability is important)
> - good Linux support to facilitate fast deployment and low maintenance,
> - avoiding non-free software (non-free firmware, out-of-tree kernel modules,
> ndiswrapper)
My Fit-PC2 is running stock Debian, and "vrms" tells me that the only
non-Free code it has installed is firmware-ralink (well, it also
mentions some non-DFSG packages which the FSF considers as Free).
The wireless chip was not well supported by the stock kernel when I got
it, but I haven't needed it very often and the few times I've needed it
it worked just fine (including "WPA Enterprise").
The same should hold for the Fit-PC3 (tho you may want to check their
forums first, since support for some particular features like the IR
interface or the watchdog may not all be supported by the current
kernel). While they don't guarantee that the stock kernels supports all
the hardware, they do care about GNU/Linux support and provide fairly
good information on the forums about the available support, so you can
make up your mind before actually buying the unit.
You can actually buy them with some GNU/Linux pre-installed.
IOW it's one of the companies I've found to be most supportive of using
GNU/Linux on their devices. I'd love to hear of others, especially if
they're even more clearly supportive of Free Software, since I like to
vote with my feet,
Stefan
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