One piece at a time: Part 1

After I built my itty-bitty Ubuntu box, I began to explore possibilities for this new design. For a user whose needs were modest, the smaller mini-ITX motherboard and associated smaller CPU were not a handicap. They were a right-size alternative to what "the man" wants to sell you.
I began to think of my middle-schooler whose computing needs (and I use that word in its pre-teen sense) are quite modest. She has my old iPod and the Smiley Virus (I mean Miley Cyrus) and the Justa Beaver CDs that she has ripped there unto. She has whatever Disney sites she likes to peruse. Then there is the school district's PowerSchool page. That is it.
She has been using her eldest sisters old laptop which is coughing up blood mucus and whose sclera have turn yellow. It is laying back upon a pillow and has taken on a preternatural glow.
The idea occurred to me that it would be fun for the two of us to build a computer for her. At this point it looks to me like her itty-bitty hands with those long, thin fingers would be quite useful inside a mini-ITX computer case.
Buying all of the pieces at once so soon after having built my first mini-ITX computer would put too much strain on my marriage and my credit card, and besides there is nothing like teaching about the delay of gratification--if I don't know about it at least my children should--so we decided to be like Johnny Cash and build it one piece at a time.
The first piece is the case. If you take a look at it I am sure you will agree that it fits my middle-schooler's personality. It arrived this week.

We will report on the rest of the pieces as they arrive.

My itty bitty Ubuntu Box

It was scary because it was all so easy. First I ordered the parts:

• the motherboard-CPU combo,
• the memory,
• the case, and
• the optical drive.

Then they all came just as they said they would. First the motherboard and the memory, then the case, and finally the optical drive. At the same time, I had been working with Ubuntu. I had downloaded it back when I was working on my Windows Home Server. It was there on the hard drive on my laptop. I first put it on a thumb drive just because the possibility of booting from a thumb drive seemed so cool to me. Then I burned it on a CD just in case the BIOS on the motherboard wasn't up to it.
Then came Saturday morning. I woke up having slept like the righteous dead at approximately 6:30. The computer was together by 8. I didn't shower, but I did shave; I did make coffee and eat breakfast. I did put the previous day's dishes in the dishwasher. (We'd had a plumbing emergency on Thursday with the dishwasher.)
The point is that it all went together like a puzzle.
The case is the size of a 4-slice toaster. Seriously. It is red and as cute as a button. The mini-ITX board with the Atom CPU is square and a smidgen over six-and-a-half inches on a side. It all plugged in nicely with the various wires: power, SATA cables, USB cables, and front panel wires. Having learned previously the hard way, I took great care with the front panel wires, but there was a nice, color-coded schematic that came along with the motherboard.
Then I put in the hard drive, which I'd bought last September at Wal-Mart, and then the optical drive. This is where the smallness of the case and the strength of the design came into play. It all fit easily. I did stop to think it out; this is something else I have learned. But it all fit.
I'd thought ahead to put the SATA cables on before I even thought about the drives. There would've been no way my huge hands could've gotten in there to put them on with a hard drive in the way. If I ever put more memory in, I will have to take both of the drives out. This is just how it is going to be.
Anyway, the process was somewhere between stacking toast and the second round of Jenga in complexity.
Then I install Ubuntu Linux.
I'd never done this before. I didn't know what to expect. I stuck in the CD, turned it on, and it booted to the optical drive. It began installing. At various points it stopped to ask questions. Once I thought it was stuck but I was patient and it continued. Then it came time for the final restart and it did stick at the BIOS screen. I figure that was more of a function of the BIOS than Linux, so I just turned it off and turned it back on. (Having screwed-up and restarted a lot has given me an inner calm that allows me to do stuff like that.) It worked.
It has now been about 24 hours and I am happy. Ubuntu Linux looks a lot like MacOS on the front-end. I might just be saying this because I am a PC user, but it is my opinion.
Some issues that I've discovered that might matter:

• it doesn't work with iTunes and
• it doesn't do Netflix.
  

These are things I've discovered as I am now contemplating building a machine like this for my youngest daughter. Her iPod and TV are very important to her.
All said, it was a nice couple of hours, but those who've been inspired should read earlier in the blog about the failures.