5/27/2018

fit-PC2i Atom 510 - Centos 6.9 i386

The fit-PC2i was a low power dedicated server module from Israel with many customizable options, mostly intended for do it yourself custom firewalls running a version of 32 bit linux or Windows 7

It comes from around the years 2008-2010

Many linux distros no longer support something so low power, or exotic.

However Centos 6.9 i386 will install on this device.

The IODD portable combo USB - CD/DVD rom drive emulator and simultaneous USB hard drive is a great way to boot quickly and switch between many ISO images. A special directory on the IODD is labeled ( _iso ) and in this directory .ISO images are placed.. a combo jogwheel and selection button on the side of the drive case allows scrolling between images inside this directory and "mounting them".. the selection is saved to a Fujitsu based microcontroller in the drive case and immediately this is presented as a USB attached CD/DVD rom drive with the selected image mounted as if it were an Optical disc.. no burning, no "actual" optical media needed.

Upon reboot the last selected disc image is automatically presented as a bootable device option. the drive case also simultaneously appears as a seperate USB hard drive, which is very convenient for offloading or onboarding files to and from an operating system that can mount the virtual attached optical drive and virtually attached usb hard drive.

The fit-PC2i has a half height microSD slot for flash media or four USB ports, two Type A and two microUSB ports.. and a drive slot for a SATA drive.

Unfortunately the support site recommended Ubuntu Desktop 8.04 as a boot option.. but this had a "Bug" in that if a SATA drive were installed, it would not be seen by the boot installer kernel.. frustrating to say the least.. the Centos 6.9 kernel correctly "sees" the SATA drive, and using advanced options during partitioning.. even allows checking off drives to use, or unchecking off drives to not use when installing the linux operating system on the device hard drive.

This is a metal case, passively cooled device.. so it generally gets "hot" and a USB powered external fan like the "AC Infinity" line up with inline speed control and rubber shock absorbers makes a very low cost and effective cooling solution.. and is very quiet.

The dual LAN ports make this Ice Cream sandwich sized server a fairly flexible platform.