Gravitational Pull 🍎

Greetings all, and welcome to another edition of Boxed News, everyone’s favorite newsletter for half-height cubes. (Still getting the hang of the schedule. Trying.) This week’s hot story is only tangentially related to mini PCs but is potentially gonna make a lot of Mac Mini owners happy.

Asahi Linux is one of the best little projects in all of tech: A ground-up Linux build targeting Macs. It hasn’t really played that big a role in the recent Mac Mini glow-up in the AI era, as it only tends to support earlier generations of Apple Silicon, but that could be about to change. Kinda.

See, a new fork of Asahi has emerged from the ether, called Gravity Linux, and its calling card is that it supports the M4 Mac Mini. But as you might guess, it comes with a vibe-coded rub: it was built with the help of LLMs, and it’s not ready to be daily driven.

In tech and retro communities, AI has become something of a pariah, a scourge that must be disregarded in most cases. (Based on some of the emails I’ve been getting, I understand.) But it also appears to be an effective way to speed up reverse engineering processes and bend software in interesting ways. Gravity Linux helping to accelerate the process of getting Linux onto Apple Silicon feels like a great way to sort of prove what it’s capable of.

I worry how the added competition will impact the Asahi project, which has truly been something to watch (if not immune to drama). However, I think having Linux on the M4 Mac Mini is going to potentially be a game-changer for a machine that went straight-up viral earlier this year.

Let’s hope Gravity Linux doesn’t brick any machines on its way to LLM-assisted Nirvana.

Hot-Plugging

Finally, a dedicated event for homelab nerds

Mini PC fans and other self-hosting enthusiast types have not exactly had an event dedicated specifically to them, instead latching onto maker events, retro tech circles, and similar spaces.

All things that kind of touch on home labs and self-hosting, but never anything actually specifically targeted at the space.

But that’s about to change thanks to Jeff Geerling, a good dude who has been seeing some deserved success with his blog and YouTube channel over the past few years. Geerling is putting together Home Lab Fest, a St. Louis-area event that is already looking very promising for curious tinkerers. Beyond Geerling, pretty much every mini PC nerd you can think of on YouTube is making an appearance. (If all you watch on YouTube is ServeTheHome, Level1Techs, Craft Computing, and Alex Ziskind, do I have some good news for you.)

Boxed News is obviously new to this space, but this feels like our Super Bowl. Guess we gotta think about going to this; fortunately, it’s not hitting until September 12-14, 2027, so we have some time to think it over … though not too much, as early-bird tickets basically disappeared immediately.

Mini-Links

» The Eurocentric PC maker Kubb is known for its material-driven industrial design, but odds are they didn’t expect one of those materials to be gold. In an epic example of custom PC design, the firm developed a custom pure-gold version of its Kubb Fanless device, at an eye-watering cost of $1.7 million. Hey, think of it this way: At least the anonymous client didn’t buy 1,800 Mac Minis instead.

» You gotta hand it to Sixunited, which made a flat, palm-sized mini PC that could make for a decent computing-on-the-go experience. The bad news? Good luck finding it outside of China.

» Here’s another fanless machine, though it’s got plenty of cooling: the AAEON UP Xtreme PTL Edge Air packs a Frore Systems solid-state cooling device, one of the first devices to actually hit the market with solid-state cooling.

Jargon Clarifier

Fanless Devices

As hinted at in the items directly above, there’s a constant demand for silent devices in the world of mini PCs. That’s especially true in industrial and similar settings, in part because a fan might be the only moving part in the entire system, and dropping a fan means it doesn’t need to be maintained.

So, how do you do it? Generally, this has meant making the entire case a giant heat sink, but in recent years, there’s been a spate of startups (including the aforementioned Frore Systems) attempting to make solid-state cooling devices. These essentially replace the spinning fan blades with vibration that can pull the heat out. That tech, while super-cool, is far from the mainstream at this point, so if you’re looking for a mini PC without a fan, you’re likely to see what is best described as a metal hedgehog with ports. Or, as it turns out, a Porcoolpine.

It’s one of many examples of how the heritage of mini PCs is generally embedded computing, rather than tiny shrinking boxes made by cool industrial designers like Jony Ive.

Deal Watch

» If you haven’t heard, ASUS has essentially taken over the NUC business from Intel in recent years. They’ve never been particularly cheap, but Amazon has some refurbished barebones models selling for $500 or less—including an Ultra 7 155H model and an Ultra 9 185H. You’re on the hook for the expensive stuff, though.

**» Then again, if you spend $30 more,** you can get an Acemagic mini PC with a Ryzen 7 H 255, 16 gigs of RAM, and a terabyte of storage. Plus, [the $529 Acemagician W1](acemagicianamazonsellerus.sjv.io/4ajEB9) isn’t refurbished.

» In the market for an empty husk? Over at eBay, there’s a seller offloading HP ProDesk 600s with literally no RAM, CPU, storage, or WiFi. But hey, 25 bucks plus shipping is 25 bucks plus shipping.

Mini PCs In History

How the ClearCube C3 put the thin client in the server room, too

Thin clients are a kind of small computer that is designed as a waystation for a more powerful computer. It’s not a new concept—Sun Microsystems leaned into it back in the ’90s, and Larry Ellison arguably made his career on telling people about them, though it’s unknown if he actually helped sell any.

By the early 2000s, IT departments were realizing that it was a complete pain to have to manage computers at folks’ desks, and embraced thin clients as a way to help mitigate the pain.

But a company named ClearCube took things one step further, but putting the thin clients in the server room next to the server. This system, called the ClearCube C3, was very novel at the time, and essentially relied on putting complete systems on 5 1/4-inch “blades.” Instead, end users were given tiny desktop adapters that plugged into specialized Ethernet ports, allowing connectivity with keyboards, mice, USB components, and even monitors. (Yes, they did video over Ethernet. No, it apparently wasn’t very good. Yeah, I know. Wild.)

Given that the company’s product was getting compared against legacy-free systems like the Compaq iPaq, it really stood out as an unusual option, and one not without its problems, as a 2001 PC Mag review noted:

The blades slide into a cage, which can hold up to eight units and can be rack-mounted in a safe central location. For each blade in the rack, there are two RJ-45 ports: one for the C/Port, the other for an Ethernet connection. If a user shuts down his machine from the C/Port, a technician would have to turn it on from the blade.

Interestingly, the company is still around today, and pitches its connectivity approach as “zero client,” with products targeting government agencies and similarly high-end enterprise folks. Everyone needs a mini PC in a server room somewhere.

OK, that’s it for this edition of Boxed News. Thinking about getting a mini PC of your own? Not sure where to put it? Shoot me an email at ernie@tedium.co! Thanks!