I'm scared of the Rasberry Pi because it has no OS and needs a disk and whatnot... so I searched the net and found interesting stuff about PoE (power over Ethernet), and various specialized fanless computers. but those are expensive.
My intent is to have a very low power consumption computer that does only one thing: never go to sleep, and host tightVNC so I can remotely manage my home network. The machine can be really low-spec. It just has to run a VNC client and do various networking tasks, nothing more.
1.
How low can I go, spec-wise? Should I opt for A Linux distro? What kind? I prefer Windows, it's what I'm familiar with and everything else on my network is Windows or Mac.
2.
How do I best approach hardware selection? The mantra is: as cheap as possible, maybe used parts, or get an old machine off eBay and gut it? I hope to velcro the thing behind my TV-set eventually for space saving reasons.
3.
Is Rasberry Pi the only $25.00 computer of it's kind? I imagine there might be something else similar? All I found was +$100.00 solutions...
4.
Is it feasible to buy some components only, like some lame MoBo and 10-year old CPU and a 1GB RAM stick off an overstock site and walk away with only $40.00 spent?
Thanks.
My intent is to have a very low power consumption computer that does only one thing: never go to sleep, and host tightVNC so I can remotely manage my home network. The machine can be really low-spec. It just has to run a VNC client and do various networking tasks, nothing more.
1.
How low can I go, spec-wise? Should I opt for A Linux distro? What kind? I prefer Windows, it's what I'm familiar with and everything else on my network is Windows or Mac.
2.
How do I best approach hardware selection? The mantra is: as cheap as possible, maybe used parts, or get an old machine off eBay and gut it? I hope to velcro the thing behind my TV-set eventually for space saving reasons.
3.
Is Rasberry Pi the only $25.00 computer of it's kind? I imagine there might be something else similar? All I found was +$100.00 solutions...
4.
Is it feasible to buy some components only, like some lame MoBo and 10-year old CPU and a 1GB RAM stick off an overstock site and walk away with only $40.00 spent?
Thanks.