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Wow, had no idea VIA made these boards. The pico and the mobile are awesome. [1] Are they considered "embedded" due to not being able to add memory or change v

Wow, had no idea VIA made these boards. The pico and the mobile are awesome. [1] Are they considered "embedded" due to not being able to add memory or change very much by adding/removing components? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile-ITX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile-ITX

chx 9y ago
Rather because the CPU is soldered.
sofaofthedamned 9y ago
VIA are still going? I have horrible memories of dealing with their kit 20 years ago when I did digital signage, as well as Geode chips which were even worse...
- kbenson 9y ago
  Depending on need and use, the Mini-ITX systems from Via are simple and reliable. I haven't used them much in the last 6-7 years, but at a previous business we used them with a flash card to ship OpenBSD firewalls to client offices for VPN connectivity. Problems were rare (and on-board AES acceleration a decade ago was pretty cool).
  - sofaofthedamned 9y ago
    Interesting. I remember the VIA stuff had serious graphics problems (granted it was years ago) but the Geode stuff was worse to be fair, the hardware watchdog basically prevented any GPU events at all. How times have changed.
    - kbenson 9y ago
      Well, we didn't run GUI desktops on them, they were headless firewalls, so I can't really comment as to how well graphics works, much less 3D acceleration. We weren't running Geodes either, as IIRC that was the super low power and low performance variation and didn't match our needs.
loeg 9y ago
Embedded is subjective and in the eye of the beholder. Mini-ITX are basically full desktop boards. They usually have a PCIe x16 and two DIMM slots. My current desktop/workstation is one of these (from 2013) (with a socketed Xeon CPU).
walrus01 9y ago
mini-itx might have been created by VIA but now it's a size standard made by all major motherboard manufacturers.
dade_ 9y ago
I am very weary of VIA after the APC. It was an awful experience, and in the end they just closed the community forum years ago, with a note that it would be reopening in weeks: https://apc.io/forum/ https://apc.io/forum/

chx 9y ago

Rather because the CPU is soldered.

sofaofthedamned 9y ago

VIA are still going? I have horrible memories of dealing with their kit 20 years ago when I did digital signage, as well as Geode chips which were even worse...

kbenson 9y ago
Depending on need and use, the Mini-ITX systems from Via are simple and reliable. I haven't used them much in the last 6-7 years, but at a previous business we used them with a flash card to ship OpenBSD firewalls to client offices for VPN connectivity. Problems were rare (and on-board AES acceleration a decade ago was pretty cool).
- sofaofthedamned 9y ago
  Interesting. I remember the VIA stuff had serious graphics problems (granted it was years ago) but the Geode stuff was worse to be fair, the hardware watchdog basically prevented any GPU events at all. How times have changed.
  - kbenson 9y ago
    Well, we didn't run GUI desktops on them, they were headless firewalls, so I can't really comment as to how well graphics works, much less 3D acceleration. We weren't running Geodes either, as IIRC that was the super low power and low performance variation and didn't match our needs.

loeg 9y ago

Embedded is subjective and in the eye of the beholder. Mini-ITX are basically full desktop boards. They usually have a PCIe x16 and two DIMM slots. My current desktop/workstation is one of these (from 2013) (with a socketed Xeon CPU).

walrus01 9y ago

mini-itx might have been created by VIA but now it's a size standard made by all major motherboard manufacturers.

dade_ 9y ago

I am very weary of VIA after the APC. It was an awful experience, and in the end they just closed the community forum years ago, with a note that it would be reopening in weeks: https://apc.io/forum/ https://apc.io/forum/