3 ms·

I bought a Skylake NUC and I will buy more NUCs in the future but using them with Linux isn't all rosy: - Getting the NUC to wake up after sleep is a hit or mi

by zuzun 10y ago

I bought a Skylake NUC and I will buy more NUCs in the future but using them with Linux isn't all rosy: - Getting the NUC to wake up after sleep is a hit or miss. Sometimes I can still SSH into it, but I never manage to get the display back on. - One in every 200 boots the fan just doesn't start. Since the fan isn't very loud, some people might not notice this, which might or might not be a problem. - One in every 1000 boots the fan seems to be the only thing that starts. - Sometimes Wifi doesn't come up or goes down. Getting it back up is impossible. - Getting into BIOS is annoyingly difficult. I had some more problems but I think they were my monitors fault (looking at you, Dell). I've been using Linux since forever now and I never had so many problems with any machine.

windexh8er 10y ago
Which model? I have NUC6i3SYH and NUC6i7KYK, neither exhibit any of the characteristics you've described. I've used Arch and Ubuntu Mate 16.04 on both as well as Windows 10 LTSB and Anniversary editions on the Skull Canyon. The latter is to run some graphics editing software (which is why I wanted dual M.2 slots so I could dedicate physical drives to each OS). If it were really that bad I definitely wouldn't be able to use it as my daily driver. My Dell 5510 on the other hand is a PoS that I've had replaced 4 times now. I won't buy another Dell product because of that and their horrible support.
- zuzun 10y ago
  NUC6i5SYK and Ubuntu 15.10 and now 16.04 LTS. Since I got the NUC right after its release I was hoping for newer kernels to fix some of these problems, but they didn't.
  - ychombinator 10y ago
    And lack of H.264 encoding in Firefox / YouTube means no smooth HD YouTube playback
    - ndesaulniers 10y ago
      Decoding? Firefox supports h.264, and YouTube is mostly VP8/9, which Many Lake has accelerated decode for.
      - bartvk 10y ago
        > which Many Lake has accelerated decode for Only Kaby Lake has VP8/9 hardware acceleration. Skylake doesn't.
        ndesaulniers 10y ago
        autocorrect, meant Kaby Lake
  - caleblloyd 10y ago
    Ditto on the Dell monitor issues. I had some of these inconsistencies with earlier firmware but updates seem to have helped. Also I've had these things just not start at all before. Completely taking the main board out and unplug/re-plug the CMOS battery has fixed it though.
chatterbeak 10y ago
Run Windows 10 and either Microsoft's own virtualization or VirtualBox to run Linux. Much better option because all the drivers, hardware, sleep, hibernate, fan management, etc, will "just work."
cuspycode 10y ago
I have a NUC6i5SYK (Skylake) running Ubuntu 16.04 server, and I too had some serious problems initially. Installing to the SSD worked without issues, but then I got machine check panics during most boots. After a lot of troubleshooting I was finally able to make the system stable by adding these parameters to the kernel command line: intel_idle.max_cstate=1 i915.enable_rc6=0 After that it has been running without a glitch. I hope it will be as stable as the Mac Mini it replaced. That too had some initial problems however: the first one I bought in 2008 was DOA. Apple replaced it, and the replacement lasted four months before a thunderstorm zapped it. My insurance company replaced that one, and that Mac Mini then ran like a clockwork 24/7 for eight years.

by zuzun 10y ago

windexh8er 10y ago

Which model? I have NUC6i3SYH and NUC6i7KYK, neither exhibit any of the characteristics you've described. I've used Arch and Ubuntu Mate 16.04 on both as well as Windows 10 LTSB and Anniversary editions on the Skull Canyon. The latter is to run some graphics editing software (which is why I wanted dual M.2 slots so I could dedicate physical drives to each OS). If it were really that bad I definitely wouldn't be able to use it as my daily driver. My Dell 5510 on the other hand is a PoS that I've had replaced 4 times now. I won't buy another Dell product because of that and their horrible support.

zuzun 10y ago
NUC6i5SYK and Ubuntu 15.10 and now 16.04 LTS. Since I got the NUC right after its release I was hoping for newer kernels to fix some of these problems, but they didn't.
- ychombinator 10y ago
  And lack of H.264 encoding in Firefox / YouTube means no smooth HD YouTube playback
  - ndesaulniers 10y ago
    Decoding? Firefox supports h.264, and YouTube is mostly VP8/9, which Many Lake has accelerated decode for.
    - bartvk 10y ago
      > which Many Lake has accelerated decode for Only Kaby Lake has VP8/9 hardware acceleration. Skylake doesn't.
      - ndesaulniers 10y ago
        autocorrect, meant Kaby Lake
- caleblloyd 10y ago
  Ditto on the Dell monitor issues. I had some of these inconsistencies with earlier firmware but updates seem to have helped. Also I've had these things just not start at all before. Completely taking the main board out and unplug/re-plug the CMOS battery has fixed it though.

chatterbeak 10y ago

Run Windows 10 and either Microsoft's own virtualization or VirtualBox to run Linux. Much better option because all the drivers, hardware, sleep, hibernate, fan management, etc, will "just work."

cuspycode 10y ago

I have a NUC6i5SYK (Skylake) running Ubuntu 16.04 server, and I too had some serious problems initially. Installing to the SSD worked without issues, but then I got machine check panics during most boots. After a lot of troubleshooting I was finally able to make the system stable by adding these parameters to the kernel command line: intel_idle.max_cstate=1 i915.enable_rc6=0 After that it has been running without a glitch. I hope it will be as stable as the Mac Mini it replaced. That too had some initial problems however: the first one I bought in 2008 was DOA. Apple replaced it, and the replacement lasted four months before a thunderstorm zapped it. My insurance company replaced that one, and that Mac Mini then ran like a clockwork 24/7 for eight years.