Mac Attack 🍏

Hey all, welcome to yet another eidtion of Boxed News, the newsletter that’s all things mini PC even if it means that, yes, we have to occasionally talk about Apple. If you’re on the fence about whether the new Mac Mini is a worthy upgrade over a workhorse like an M1, some new GeekBench numbers may make you reset your priors.

With the Mac Mini hitting at the end of September, performance numbers not closely guarded by Apple have been hard to come by. But some numbers that leaked earlier today put the M6 processor at roughly double the M1’s single-core performance and nearly triple its multi-core numbers, per Apple Insider.

That’s a lot of performance for a little machine.

I will grant that performance numbers don’t mean everything, and some hands-on time will be more telling than some synthetic benchmarks. But the strangeness of the market nonetheless means that a used M1 Mac Mini looks like a pretty mediocre deal in comparison to the M6 device that’s just launching. Currently, Amazon has an M1 Mini selling for $730 refurbished with 16GB of RAM and a terabyte of storage, which has the effect of making the M6 device, with the same amount of RAM and 256GB of storage, look like an absolute steal at $879. The 8GB models, meanwhile, are unlikely to be competitive in this market, making those M1 models a tougher sell for home server tasks. (And yes, I checked eBay—prices over there aren’t much better. Something something OpenClaw.)

But that said, if you’re happy with your M1 Mini and you’re not ready to give up the ghost, it does have some notable advantages. For one thing, it supports modern Linux more or less fully, and for another, its Goldilocks performance has held up surprisingly well for a machine that came out six full years ago.

Plus, if you sell your M1 now, there’s a nonzero chance you might get your money back given how weird the used market is for Mac desktops at the moment.

Love Your Terminal

How to SSH into your remote PC somewhat painlessly

If you’re a mini PC user, you likely will need to access your device “headless.”

And yes, the easiest way to do so is with a warm embrace of your terminal. You don’t need to necessarily use a terminal to run a mini PC; remote-access tools like RustDesk and Parsec make it more than possible to keep an eye on a device visually. But those come with overhead—they use extra resources and give you an extra desktop to manage.

Which means that if you want to get the most out of your mini PCs, you should leap into the terminal with both feet.

» A good starting point: If you use Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code, you can set up every machine you use for remote development with the Remote Development Extension Pack, which makes it possible to manage projects with ease. There are two main tactics: SSHing into a remote server, or using a VS Code Tunnel, which makes it possible to manage a given folder like it’s one of your VS Code projects, complete with extensions. One caveat: Microsoft doesn’t make a solution for mobile (it got a “not planned” status on its GitHub earlier this year), but others have attempted to fill the gap.

» A smart upgrade: But what if you want to get into your terminal without having to load VS Code on every device you own? That’s where Tailscale comes in. The networking tool, which does require a lightweight installer, is capable of connecting devices together within a contained network, which comes in handy for self-hosting, but its best trick might be the fact that it makes SSH authentication, a notably confusing process, painless. You can turn on or off remote terminal access on the fly through a web interface, a huge benefit if you only need to SSH into something every once in a while, and you can even access your servers without having to remember a password for every one. Tailscale is commercial, but has long offered a generous free plan. (If you want something that’s more integrated, the Terminus app uses a similar approach.)

» Getting fancy: The two above tools are of course great, but they come with an inherent problem: Every time you log into your terminal remotely, you have to start over from scratch. What can you do about it? Friends, this is why you should get to know tmux, a “terminal multiplexer” tool that makes it possible to run multiple terminals in a single process. But it’s capable of more than just that. It allows you to keep those processes running in the background remotely, which can then be accessed via SSH or other means. Trying to keep an eye on a complex task, like an AI run or a compilation process? Sticking it in tmux means that you can have it running on a mini PC while you keep an eye on it with a mobile terminal like Termux. There’s a learning curve, much as with any terminal-based tool, but it’s worth learning, given how powerful it is.

One more thought about learning curves: Don’t be afraid of them, especially if the tool works like other tools you might touch. You will be a better sysadmin for yourself if you can actually explain what the hell is going on with your damn terminal.

Mini-Links

» HP wants to make its OmniDesk a thing. And not just for AI boxes, either. The company announced the OmniDesk Mini Desktop M05-0000t at a $799 starting price. That price sounds promising until you consider that it gets you 8 gigs of non-upgradeable RAM and a Core 3 processor. It only tops out at a Core i5 and 16 gigs of LPDDR5X, and storage upgrades are brutally expensive. Unless you’re in the market for an Intel chip, there are better deals to be had elsewhere.

» KVMs are getting better and cheaper. JetKVM over the weekend announced its latest model, the JetKVM Mini, a device small enough that it could fit behind literally any device you need remote access to. It tops out at 1080p30 natively, but a new OS service offering can push things to 4K60. While it’s gonna take a few weeks to reach the public, the $33 starting price might just be good enough to win over folks who favor software-only remote tools.

» Getting even more specialized here, a new MSi box promises to offer the capabilities of NVIDIA’s Jetson Orin Nano in a fanless device. LinuxGizmos points out the MS-C9ZA, an 8GB module intended for industrial solutions—one with dual Ethernet and robust expansion capabilities. No price as of yet, but if you’re getting hardcore about your machine-learning fun, it’s a good one to keep an eye on.

Jargon Clarifier

DP Alt Mode

USB-C is the greatest port ever, but some still call it the worst. And the confusing state of affairs over what the port is capable of doing is a big reason why. Nowhere perhaps is the confusion more acute than with the existence of DP Alt Mode, the primary way that we access video signals over USB.

Announced in 2014 by the Video Electronics Standards Association, it reflects the packet-based approach that both USB and DisplayPort are based on. In practice, it has made USB much more flexible, allowing more monitors to be plugged into a given machine. (Although your USB-C port and cable each needs to support the spec, and not all do.)

So you might be wondering: Why not HDMI Alt Mode? Yes, it exists, but as Pocket-Lint explained earlier this week:

Unlike HDMI, USB-C isn’t explicitly designed for audio and video transmission and uses an alternate mode to transmit them. It doesn’t support native video and audio transmission and instead uses HDMI or DisplayPort protocols. In reality, HDMI over USB-C hasn’t taken off, and most cables use the DisplayPort protocol, which supports up to 8K resolution at 60Hz and 100W of power transfer on a single cable.

This occasionally leads to the fun situation where your HDMI cables are shooting DisplayPort signals over an HDMI port. Exciting!

Deal Watch

» If you winced at the pricing on that HP machine up above, I should note that Amazon has a deal on an AceMagic machine packing a recent Intel processor for $240 less than HP’s OmniDesk, at $569. (More RAM and storage, too—though no Thunderbolt.) The Core 5 220H that this sports a higher TDP than the Core 3 304 that the HP machine has, but that may not matter for your use case.

» You’ve looked into NASes. You’ve looked into AI boxes. But have you ever looked at an AI box that doubles as a NAS? The MinisForum N5 Max AI NAS packs both an AI Max+ 395 and a bunch of storage spaces for all the SSDs you can throw at it. It may be the only time we suggest a device with 64 gigs of RAM and a 128GB SSD might be a reasonable idea—but at $2,399 on MinisForum’s site, it’s not a bad price for one of AMD’s AI workhorses.

» Just need a cheap starter? eBay has a bunch of HP ProDesk 600 G2 devices, which each come with a sixth-gen Core i5, between the $40 and $60 mark (you supply the RAM and storage). I wouldn’t suggest these for like neural processing work or anything, but it’s more than enough to create a tiny Linux box for screwing around. Not quite feeling the eBay approach? Woot has the similar EliteDesk 800 G2 devices for between $179.99 and $289.99—and those do have storage and 16GB of RAM.

Mini PCs in History

One would think if you named your company Tiny Computers, you’d be knee-deep in mini PCs. But you’d be wrong. The UK brand, which did try to launch an offshoot on the West Coast of the United States in the year 2000, was generally a big beige box brand, hitting the same market that Packard Bell did. (Sample ad language from its U.S. launch: “As American as steak & kidney pie.” No wonder we’re all using them today.)

But the brand did occasionally shrink its ambitions in a way that matched its name. In 2001, the company released the Takami, an AMD-based mini PC that aimed directly at the living room. Packing a DVD drive, it sold for £999 without a TV, but could be delivered with a 42-inch plasma TV for an eye-watering £6,999. (The Gateway Destination got there five years earlier, but who’s counting?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-itPDr8tdQA

Apparently this company was freaking massive with the Brits, despite the fact that the entire name of the company was mostly a lie.

Turns out, this device was a bet-the-company kind of thing. A Wall Street Journal report from around June 2001 notes that the device tested the company’s designers for eight months as it perfected the model. But even then it missed obvious things—like support for surround sound. When they added it in, it caused the machine to go haywire just before launch.

Folks were skeptical of the device, despite its marketing push, and the device ultimately sold fewer than 5,000 units—putting Tiny Computers in a tailspin that led the company to be bought out by its competitor Time Computers the next year.

Takami is Japanese for “excellent idea.” It should have been called Hayasugiru, which is Japanese for “too soon.”

Alright, that’s it for us. Thanks again for reading Boxed News. And hey, do us a favor: If you know someone who likes computers but doesn’t have a lot of space, tell folks about us! Back at it next week. Shoot me an email at ernie@tedium.co in case you feel like talking shop.