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26 Feb 2023 - by 'Maurits van der Schee'
The J6412 Venoen 12th Gen Mini PC is a compact and powerful computer that offers exceptional performance and energy efficiency. This mini PC is powered by a 12th Generation Intel processor and has a fanless design, making it ideal for what I use it for: an always on Linux server on my desk.
The J6412 Venoen 12th Gen Mini PC features is a small and powerful machine. It measures just 150mm x 150mm x 58mm, not taking up too much space on the desk. The mini PC features 2x SO-DIMM slots that support up to 64GB of DDR4 memory. It also features an M.2 slot that supports NVMe SSDs for super fast I/O.
The J6412 Venoen 12th Gen Mini PC features a range of connectivity options, including 2x Gigabit Ethernet ports, 2x HDMI 2.0 ports, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, 2x USB 2.0 ports and 2x RS232 serial ports. It has 2x 3.5mm audio jack connections: one for the microphone and one for the audio out. It also features built-in Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2.
I have added a Crucial MX500 4TB SSD to the Venoen Mini PC for my backup needs. The primary NVMe disk and the added Crucial 2.5inch disk are both disk encrypted using LUKS. The PC is situated on my desk and it is running Ubuntu Linux. Every night it runs a cron job that does an rsync from the cloud machines to ensure that I have local backups of all my data.
I do recommend running it as a fully quiet and powerful always on Linux server as it uses little power. It doesn't get warm even when running backups for an hour, which is important to me, as the I want the Crucial disk to be reliable. Note that I did go into the BIOS and turned off the turbo making the quad core run at 2Ghz max to ensure there will be no excessive heat generation.
Installing Linux is easy, except that the boot process hanged for over a minute at a certain point. I added to the last line of the file /etc/default/grub:
SubscribeGRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="module_blacklist=pinctrl_elkhartlake"
Rebuilt the grub config by
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Powered off and on again. Works fine.
The J6412 Venoen 12th Gen Mini PC is a powerful and compact computer that works perfect (after adding a grub boot option) as an always on Linux server. Its fanless design means that it operates silently, making it ideal for use in quiet environments, like on my desk. Its powerful processor and fast memory make it perfect for demanding background tasks of a Linux server, while its range of connectivity and expansion options make it highly versatile.
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