Product – D54250WYK / boxd54250wykh3 – via e.g. Ballicom or eBuyer
It’s an Intel i5 4250U processor (dual core, laptop processor). Supports up to 16gb of RAM and the Intel 5000 graphics thing in it.
The box itself is really small – and silent. A laptop size hard disk can fit into it (2.5″ hdd).
Issues :
- BIOS needs updating before it can be installed (apparently); See Intel’s website – currently here – it’s just a case of downloading the .BIO file and sticking it on a USB stick and pressing F7 on boot and following through the prompts.
- Most Linux distros do not yet support the network card (Intel 559/I218-V) – I had to netboot a Debian unstable netboot iso image (from here )
Good things –
- BTRFS root filesystem + booting etc just worked with Jessie.
- X configuration just works – even though it’s quite a new graphics chipset.
- Boot time is VERY fast – currently <5 seconds.
I maybe also want to buy the same Model and also installing Debian on it. Could you tell me a little bit more about your setup and how Debian runs on the NUC?
I want to use it as Desktop Computer (Debian + i3) for some simple development tasks and a bit of browsing…
Hi Patrick –
If you have a USB cd/dvd drive, then I suspect installation would be dead easy. Wheezy would probably work – but perhaps require you install a wheezy-backports kernel.
The issues I had were all related to the fact that I needed a newer kernel for the network card to work – and as I didn’t have a usb dvd/cd drive, I had to use a newish build of the installer cd running Jessie.
Apart from the installation – it’s been perfect – aside from X sometimes forgetting my xrandr setup (this may be due to my monitors as I had a similar problem with a Mac Mini and those monitors).
Anyway – short summary – speedy, silent and reliable. I’ve not knowingly had any weird lockups or anything like that.