Next meeting this Sunday 02.09.20

[tom r lopes]

I haven't seen anyone announce it yet, but it is the second Sunday.  

Been playing around with a new box.  (maybe I'll bring it along.)  Samsung series 3 Chromebox.  

I flashed an UEFI firmware and installed Ubuntu 20.04 and it looks good.  

At the last BALUG I talked about building my own router with a chromebox.  One problem is only one NIC.  I thought that maybe the wireless card could be replaced with a NIC.  

But I got this Samsung for free on Craigslist and I find it has an extra slot near the msata ssd.  

Hmm wonder if that slot is pcie?  

You can see it here in action:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/iKRcPHNexhVGDLU68   

The board is propped out because the mini pci-e is on the other side (connected to the black and grey cable - it is dual Intel NIC card)  The wifi card is disconnected - you can see it still attached to the antenna wires below the case.  

Other thing to note are the upgradable ram and socketed CPU(!)  

BTW the screen is hiDPI and works out of the box in UBUNTU 20.04 (not in ChromeOS though)  

Thomas

[Rick Moen]

Quoting tom r lopes (tomr...@gmail.com):

> Hmm wonder if that slot is pcie?
> You can see it here in action: https://photos.app.goo.gl/iKRcPHNexhVGDLU68

I _think_ that white connector is PCI Express Mini, but you be the judge:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express#MINI-CARD

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[tom r lopes]

Yes a mini pcie connector.  

So actually the Wikipedia page you linked explains the connector holds pci-express, 

sata and USB 2.0 lines.  But they also point out the m-sata uses the same 

connector.  Actually m-sata is electrically compatible (as they point out m-sata drives work in 

older Thinkpad wwan slot - which is designed for pci-express cellular modem cards.)  

Mini pcie:  could have pci-express only lines

Or only Sata lines

Or it has both and maybe also USB 2.0 

(I guess it is possible to be USB only but I haven't heard of one)  

There is no way to tell.  You have to hope your machines documentation has the info.  

The case of this machine (Samsung Chromebox) there is nothing in documentation 

about the connector.  And all I could find on the interwebs were reports of msata not working 

in the slot.  So I had a good chance of finding pci-express exposed in the connector.  

And now they have replicated this genius in the M.2 connector.  How do you figure out 

which SSD to get?  There is keying on the connector but the key for SATA also has 2 

pci-e lanes.  So a 2 lane NVME drive looks the same as a SATA SSD.  Argh!  

Thomas

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[Rick Moen]

Quoting tom r lopes (tomr...@gmail.com):

> And now they have replicated this genius in the M.2 connector. How do
> you figure out which SSD to get? There is keying on the connector but
> the key for SATA also has 2 pci-e lanes. So a 2 lane NVME drive looks
> the same as a SATA SSD. Argh!

Here's an expert posting to a LUG mailing list (in Melbourne, Australia)
about this very issue (as then re-posted by me to CABAL's mailing list):
http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2020-January/010075.html

(Occasionally, when I see brilliant and helpful postings from other
parts of the world, I repost them locally.)