In collaboration with CompuLab, we are starting the year with a 20% sale on the MintBox Basic, with a price reduced from $476 down to $379.
For more information on the mintBox please visit: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2055
You can order the mintBox from CompuLab at: http://www.fit-pc.com/web/purchase/order-direct-mintbox/
I would love one (or two), but it’s outside of my budget at the moment. I’m still happy for you that have your own branded computer! š
Interesting idea!
Unfortunately for the same price you can assemble a much more powerful machine and above all upgradeable.
That’s cool and all, but for that price I can get a netbook AND a tablet… Any chance of a $200 netbook (or $250 slightly bigger would be even better) with mint xfce pre-installed? I would sell those to clients left and right.
Edit by Clem: We could look into it with a different partner and try to get a mass-produced low-cost netbook out but that’s a completely different thing. We’re not trying to fund Mint by selling hardware (donations, sponsorships and advertisement are our main sources of income), we partner with CompuLab because we love what they do and we’re excited to be part of it, to have these units run Mint and to place our logo on the mintBox. The iPad2 is roughly the same price and ranges from $399 to $529. So for the same price you could get a netbook AND a tablet, or one iPad2, or a mintBox. In the end of the day, it depends what you’re looking for. If you want a computer and the form factor and versatility is irrelevant to you, this is definitely not for you. If you want to seat in the couch and do casual things in front of the TV, this isn’t for you either. The mintBox is a unique product, it is expensive and it isn’t for everybody. It’s ok if this isn’t for you or if the price seems high because the selling points of the mintBox don’t appeal to you. I test a lot of hardware personally because of what I do, I happen to have 1 iPad, 5 mintBox and 2 netbooks, they’re all good at particular things and they’ve all very little in common. We obviously wouldn’t sell iPads, we don’t sell netbooks and the mintBox isn’t addressing the same market at all (for instance, it truly shines when deployed in offices, internet cafes etc.. due to its lack of noise, low power consumption and versatility).
I really like the MintBox, but the initial price was too high for me. I’d consider buying it on sale, but I just built my own system for about $300. Too late. Like rhY says, I’d like to see a Mint Netbook too. I considered buying a Google ChromeBook and trying to install Mint, but I think the ChromeBooks are locked into Google ChromeOS no matter what you do. So far, the only laptops I can order with Mint are from ZaReason starting at over $600. Too much. Again, I had to build my own using a refurbished 12 inch Dell D420, a KingSpec 32gb SSD and 2gb RAM upgrade for about $200 total. I even took off the Windows XP sticker and replaced it with a Linux Mint sticker instead. Not bad for a refurb job. Too bad the battery life sucks.
Edit by Clem: Well, we can consider selling cheap netbooks, but unless we find a great partner and a unique product we can fall in love with, I don’t really see a point in doing so. There are a lot of vendors out there already, Mint works out of the box on many of these netbooks and we do happen to sell Linux Mint stickers to stick on top. There’s no need for us to engage in selling and promoting something we’re not excited about. As you know we’re doing well financially thanks to donors and sponsors and our focus is on the development of the distribution. Sales are a bonus here, not a motivation, so selling hardware you can find elsewhere isn’t something we’re interested in. If you’re looking for a netbook that works well with Mint, we have a Hardware Database you can use at http://community.linuxmint.com/hardware/welcome
Great form factor (fanless! Yay!) running a great distribution of linux. Seems like an ideal candidate to run as a media pc or for home automation. I’d buy one right now. Except the price is FAR too high. Has to be under $150. Perhaps $200, but higher than that and the interest will be limited.
I bought MintBox Pro about six months ago. Although I found it expensive it was an obsession for me. Generally I am happy with it. But I have some minor annoying problems. I think they are hardware specific problems. I expected it to be flawless but it is not. I think the manufacturers should be more careful about it. Yet, as I said, I m happy with. It is a cool device anyway.
Edit by Clem: Hi YB. Let us know about these problems. We can test and troubleshoot on these units so we’re likely to be able to help.
Really cool, but does it have a solid state drive and a wireless capabilities?
Edit by Clem: This particular model comes with a 250GB HDD. We’ve tested models with SSD drives (they drive performance up slightly and the cost down slightly but you then trade 250GB for 16GB of space) and it’s something CompuLab and Linux Mint are considering at the moment. Regarding connectivity it comes with Wifi 802.11b, g and n, as well as Bluetooth, Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI, 8x USB (2 of which are USB3), RS232. 2x eSATA and a DisplayPort.
for $180.00 i picked up a gateway lt4008u netbook new at walmart. installed linux mint 13 xfce, no problems. would like to see another fluxbox edition, any chance?
Edit by Clem: I’m sorry Jeffrey, we really enjoyed making the Fluxbox and LXDE editions but not enough people were using them and we had too many editions to maintain and not enough resources to focus on some of the projects we wanted to develop, so we had to discontinue them.
Cool and great but it’s still expensive. I bought this fanless machine instead of mintbox. http://www.evot.biz/products/ecopc-n1a
There’s a lot of comments about the price being too high, but I’ve seen too many cheap netbooks fail miserably after 12 – 18 months to consider them as anything more than toys now.
The fact that it could also run off a solar panel much more easily than a desktop (with say a USB powered monitor), and save on shipping / aircon / support / power / software costs, is one of the reasons I want to propose these for the government on the islands where I work. Any chance of volume discounts for say 20 basic’s and 5 pro’s?
Edit by Clem: Hi Josh. Get in touch with CompuLab, they’ll probably agree to a volume discount for these quantities and facilitate things to reduce shipping and extra costs. Linux Mint has a 10% margin on this so I’d be happy to reduce this on our end as well (CompuLab insisted our margin shouldn’t change despite the price reduction but they might agree for these quantities). Also let us know how things go, we’re always interested to hear about Mint being deployed and adopted like this.
Chris, if you kit the EcoPC that you bought with similar hardware specs as the MintBox, the price is just about the same (albeit with a better cpu and no HDMI out).
I went looking around the web for computers that had similar specs and form factor as the MintBox. Most of what I found was in the same general price range, particularly at the sale price of the standard MintBox.
Before I go ahead and purchase one, I would love to hear what issues YB has seen with his.
Well, maybe you’re right beef, but I doubt it. I mean, mini PCs are easy to come by at a price below 100 euros if size is what matters to you (PI, A13-OLinuXino, and the like). If not, you can find much better than the mintbox for the same price.
so, sorry to say it, but I won’t be seduced anytime soon.
I’d say this is great… 2 usb 3.0 ports is awesome.. As is bluetooth, wifi and ethernet… that covers any situation you might need for connectivity… And all those usb 2.0 ports… And the ammount of ram is excellent. If I had the cash, I would buy this!
Killinjoe – the PI and the A13 are not comparable products to the MintBox (no hdd, much less ram, no HDMI out on A13, no enclosure, etc…). If there are products out there that are closer, such as the EcoPC that Chris bought, I would be interested in comparing them. If anyone has a link, post it.
As far as better than the MintBox in the same price range, the only thing I am finding is a few boxes with a better cpu. Anybody seeing any thing else? I ask because I am really interested in purchasing something like this.
Cool. Thx
@Clem Thank you for your comment about asking my problems about MintBox Comment #6). Do you want me write them here or another place (e.g. forum or email)?
Edit by Clem: Hi Yusuf, I sent you an email.
I bought a fitPC3, which is the UK version and fitted it with an SSD (120G) in July.
In addition I had to get a hdmi monitor, an usb DVD rewrite, a usb key board and mouse and finally a usb hard disc holder. The machine that was replaced arrived in 1992!
The ‘MintBox’ does every thing that it should, it has wireless connection built in and it was ‘plug and go’.
The original hard disk is now used for backups.
I thoroughly recommend it.
About Samsung laptops:
sorry if this is not the appropriate place to post this-
Bug #1040557
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-cdimage/+bug/1040557?comments=all
UEFI boot live-usb bricks SAMSUNG 530U3C,np700z5c laptop
Bug Description
I cannot provide detailed log massages because laptop is bricked right now.
If you have courage to try it select UEFI boot from bios and than try to boot laptop using liveusb (made form Precise Pangolin 12.04.1 amd64).
IMHO, maybe you can post a warning about this critical bug on the homepage. Thanks.
How to destroy a brand-new Samsung laptop
Motherboard DEATH alert.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/31/ubuntu_uefi_bricking_samsung_laptops/
Edit by Clem: Thanks. A warning was added at the top of the release notes for Mint 13 and 14.
Clem,
Thanks for the response! Yes, I’m aware this is a totally separate product (though great!), and aimed at a totally different market. I’m just letting YOU know how I’m using mint most in the field: xfce 64 bit on older hardware, most often laptops and netbooks. I’ve done this for tons of clients/family, to nearly universal acclaim. Thanks again for such a great OS! Let me know if any lappie manufacturers approach you, because they’d probably sell very well!
rhY
PS if the laptop/desktop is too old to support x64, I usually say just chuck it. LOL. Thought I’d just add that for clarity.
@rhY, agreed! No x64 toss it! One exception: a Pentium M (especially when it’s in a decent piece of hardware like an IBM Thinkpad), that’s one which XFCE 32 would fly on for a few more years.
Thanks for the response Clem. It’s still early days for the proposal I’m writing yet, I want to see the govt here go to Mint on FitPC instead of Windows 8 on locally (poorly) built desktops. So far we have 10 to 15 Mint installs (mostly ad-hoc when XP fails) and it’s very popular with its users. I have ordered one to test (ok it’s really for me to play with…)
I’m very interested to hear of anyone else using a FitPC and/or Linux Mint in a similar situation (low IT knowledge among users, no broadband).
It’s still better buy a mac mini and install the free OS š
Before come to Brazil the price will be duplicated.
Few questions:
– Mintbox has power adapter outside box? (It would be much better if 110V/230V power adapter were inside box – less space consumption, more practical)
– Can you remove hard drive and boot system from USB or SD card?
– Network boot? (what BIOS is inside?)
– Mint box uses AMD E450 notebook cpu/apu?
– What is maximum operating temperature at only 5% humidity? (in very dry environment?)
– Is there reset button on the Mintbox? (I really miss reset button.)
If you want to buy a monster. Then look at Intense PC http://www.fit-pc.com/web/fit-pc/intensepc/#techinfo It has I7 1.7Ghz processor 26W.
Edit by Clem: Hi Joe, I’ll try to answer most of the questions but some of them are quite technical I’d suggest you contact CompuLab as well. The unit comes with a power adapter that is similar to the ones you usually see on laptops. You can remove the hard drive easily by opening the bay (only closed with 1 screw). This was designed for easy access to the HDD and the RAM. You can boot via USB. There is no SDcard reader by default (but it should work if you use a USB-SD adapter). There is no reset button, only a power button at the back which turns off the unit if you press it for 4 seconds or asks you what you want to do (shutdown dialog) if you just press it once. The unit is hot as the case acts as a heatsink and it’s made of diecast metal but I can’t tell you its temperature. It feels hot when you touch it but it doesn’t burn or anything. The intense PC is great too and a mintBox i7 is planned.
I think it is somewhat odd that there are so many people coming here and proclaiming that this is overpriced. Whether it is or not, I find it a little rude to the man who provides a great free OS.
Sadly, my Mintbox is gathering dust with a corrupted install.
The price didn’t include the UK VAT levied by Customs and it then took weeks before the correct UK power plug adapter arrived, so I instead resorted to ‘Mint on a stick’ “Bruce’s Way” using the LTS Cinnamon and then the LTS Xfce versions. If there were to be a further ‘branded device’ I’d now vote for XFCE Maya on a ’32GB’ SanDisk Cruzer Switch Flash Drive.
The Sandisk Cruzer has a way above average CrystalDiskMark ‘4K’ random Read Write score that suits it well for USB2 port use, whilst the XFCE version of Maya offers greater cross-platform compatibility than the Cinnamon version.
“Bruce’s Way” then makes it simply look like an about ’15Gb’ simple data storage device for Windows use which could even include Portable Apps.
Of course, whilst limited to 64bit host platforms, a pre-installed OEM version might usefully reduce installation hassle for newbies but it would then lack the further pre-customization possible with the XFCE version, but that’s life at the moment.
However, I hope that this ‘Comment’ provides some food for thought.
Edit by Clem: I’m sorry to hear you didn’t get the right plug adapter. I’m sure this was a mistake, but I’ll mention it to CompuLab. Regarding customs, they can’t be included in the price. Every country’s levies are different (where I live you can’t even calculate/predict them). CompuLab and Mint are considering partnering with a European distributor so customers within the EU would pay less shipping and no customs at all. At the moment this is the case for customers in Israel and in the USA.
Great form factor (fanless! Yay!) running a great distribution of linux. Seems like an ideal candidate to run as a media pc or for home automation. Iād buy one right now. Except the price is FAR too high. Has to be under $150. Perhaps $200, but higher than that and the interest will be limited
Hi, do you know if totem (gstreamer) is able to play 1080p video, use the APU hardware acceleration bit?
Edit by Clem: Hi. It can decode it and play it but it might be smooth or not smooth depending on how compressed the file is. I can run particular tests for you if you want to be sure (as long as you don’t make me download big files) š
Clem – Thank you for the feedback at 24 re Compulab – good luck with that as the Israelis must have other survival worries at the moment.
Awesome, you love to see this box on a youtube vid.
hope java update 13 will be in the next iso ^^
At that price, I’d buy one if I could afford to, š
lol, webtv on steroids
I noticed, in the fine print of the ad above, that 10 % of the purchase price, or $37.90 goes to support Linux Mint. So the actual price is only
$241.10
plus a well-deserved donation to “the Mint-factory”.
Plenty good deal, eh?
Sorry, typo — should have been $341.10. Bad boy!