My first DualCore Atom
I bought a new toy – the first Intel Atom-based, Dualcore Motheboard – the Intel D945GCLF2. I found this board very handy, as it allows you to run Mac OS X on it. Unlike my Dell Mini 9, which refuses to run OSX until now, the installation on this board seems to be less error-prone. Here you will find my thoughts, results, problems and more…
Before I start, just one thing: I won´t go into the spec´s, as there are other sites which have done this before. If you can speak german, I would recommend this one: Minitechnet
Initially I bought this board to run Mac OS X on it. A short, but rather interresting article (will publish the link, as soon as I find it) showed it´s capabilities to run Mac OS X. Also, the whole hardware seems to be supported, and through the 2 Cores it should be rather fast. I thought I´ll give it a try – and for roughly €75 with 2GB RAM it´s a cheap investment.
Edit: I will post some photos here later, as I have my cam in the office now.
The box arrived some days after my purchase. It´s small, neat, and includes the most needed things (but not more – a good thing in my opinion). Installation was straight forward. I didn´t assemble it, just plugged in the power source, added an old hard disk and the RAM and the keyboard. I will install different operatin systems on it to check the speed. I´m especially interessted in the throughput of the NIC. Strange, that Intel put´s a Realtek card on their boards. I would love to see a INTEL PRO 1000 on it, but anyway. Go figure.
Operating System list:
- Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop 32bit & 64bit
- Ubuntu 9.04 Server 32bit & 64bit
- Windows XP SP3 32bit & 64 bit
- Windows 7 RTM (yes, I already have it – thanks to my TechNet subscription)
- VMware ESXi 4.0
- VMware vSphere 4.0
- Openfiler 2.3.1
- FreeNAS (latest release at the time of test – will be announced)
- Mac OS X (we will se when I find some spare time to do this awkward task)
I will try to compare the benchmarks done on those systems. Certainly, you cannot compare Linux benchmarks with Windows benchmarks, but it should give everybody interrested a good starting point.
Utilized benches:
Linux – tiobench | hardinfo | phoronix test suite | vpenis
Windows – yet to decide
Mac OS X – yet to decide
VMware – yet to decide
Ad this board utilizes the well-known Intel 945 Chipset with integrated Intel GMA 950 graphics, I expect no troubles. Every distribution should support this specs out of the box.
Installation of Ubuntu 9.04 Server 32bit using the Alternate CD was straightforward and painless. Youtube movies run smoothly (needed to install the Flash Plugin prior to this). The only issue I could see so far is the flickering of the screen. Until now, I´m not shure why it does this, but for my tests this should be no problem.
…to be continued over the weeend…
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hi guy,
please write more about your OSX-try, soon i also will buy a new motherborad and components…maybe then i give a chance to OSX…finally the only true OS is gentoo….
Keule said this on August 27th, 2009 at 10:06
Hi Keule,
Give me some time to finish my tests. Afterwars I will go further with my “Hackintosh”. I will then update this post with the benchmark results.
BTW: if you´ve ever tried “apt-get”, you will realise that emerge sucks
Johannes said this on August 27th, 2009 at 13:37
Hey Keule,
the System is running pretty smooth – Softwareupdates are also no problem. Now I need to dive deeper into Mac OS X…
Johannes said this on April 18th, 2010 at 21:41