I think you’ll agree that having an APU single-board computer isn’t much use unless you’ve also got an operating system installed.

But getting an operating system onto an APU server is actually trickier than you might expect.

Hi, I’m Nikki, from Yawarra Tiny Computers and today I want to share with you the easiest way that we’ve found to get an operating system onto an APU.

There are four main ways to get an operating system onto an APU

So the APU takes three kinds of storage devices, SD cards, mSATA drives and SATA drives.

And there are four different methods that we’ve found for getting an operating system onto an APU.

1. Use a card reader

The first one involves a card reader and requires four things:

1. Firstly, that you have a card reader.
2. Secondly, that you pull your box apart to get the storage medium out.
3. Thirdly, that you’re not trying to use an mSATA drive because that won’t fit in a card reader.
4. And fourthly, that you’re not trying to install Voyage Linux ’cause it needs to be running under Linux to install.

2. Use another Linux machine

The second approach involves using another Linux machine.

Basically you mount your storage medium as a secondary drive on your Linux machine and install your operating system that way.

But of course that’s not much use if all you’ve got is Windows machines or Macs.

And equally if your Linux machine doesn’t have an mSATA drive and you want to install onto the mSATA drive it’s not much use either.

3. Use PXE booting

The third method for getting an operating system onto an APU involves PXE booting.

But if you know how to use PXE booting then what the heck are you doing even watching this video?.

So you want to install an operating system onto your APU but you don’t have a second Linux machine, you don’t have a card reader, you don’t want to pull your box apart, you’re using an mSATA drive or you’re trying to install Voyage Linux.

What on earth do you do?

4. Use a bootable USB drive

Well that’s where the fourth method comes in and we think it’s the easiest of the lot.

So the fourth method involves creating a bootable USB stick.

And for that you need four things: your APU board, a blank USB stick, a working computer of some kind whether that’s Windows, Linux or Mac, and you need an image of Voyage Linux that you install on the USB stick. Basically you install Voyage Linux onto the USB stick and make it bootable, and then you plug it into your APU and use it to install your operating system of choice.

So this last method is the easiest by far that we’ve found for getting an operating system onto an APU.

Follow along with our step-by-step tutorial

And as luck would have it we’ve created a step-by-step tutorial just for you, to take you through the process of making your very own bootable USB stick.

And we’ve even thrown in an image of Voyage Linux that you can download and install onto your USB drive.

I’ll put a link in the description of this video to that tutorial.

And if you know of any other ways to get an operating system onto an APU or an easier way, let us know in the comments.

And I will see you in the next video.

So what is the difference between an APU 1, an APU 2 and an APU 3?

Hi, I’m Nikki from Yawarra Tiny Computers and that’s a question I’ve asked Paul more than one so I figured I wasn’t the only one.

What are the APU boards?

Firstly, what are these boards?

So the APU 1, APU 2 and APU 3 are single board computers from PC Engines.

They all have the same six inch square footprint, they have Gigabit Ethernet, four Gig of RAM and they’re all bootable from USB, SD card, mSATA drive or the SATA drive.

What are the differences between them?

So what about the differences?

Well the APU 1 was the first board to be released and the APU 2 was released some time after that.

The APU 1 vs the APU 2

So first let’s take a look at the difference between those two.

And there are four main differences between the APU 1 and the APU 2.

1. The brand of NICs

Firstly, the APU 1 has Realtek NICs while the APU 2 board has Intel NICs.

2. The number of cores

Difference number 2, the APU 1 board has a dual-core CPU and the APU 2 has a quad-core CPU.

3. The RAM speed

Difference number three is that the APU 1 uses 1066 MHz RAM whereas the APU 2 uses 1333 MHz RAM.

4. Power usage

And difference number four is in the power usage.

The APU 1 board uses anywhere from 6 to 12 watts depending on the CPU load whereas the APU 2 uses anywhere from 6 to 10 watts depend on the CPU load.

So basically the APU 2 is an evolution of the APU 1.

It’s faster, it’s cooler and it’s more robust.

And that’s the one that we tend to recommend to people that they use unless they have a particular reason for using the APU 1.

The APU 2 vs the APU 3

So what about the APU 2 to the APU 3.

Well the APU 3 is a relatively new board and it’s a variation of the APU 2.

And it’s optimized for 3G, 4G and LTE purposes and there are three main differences between the APU 2 and the APU 3 because of this.

1. Number of SIM card slots

The first difference is that the APU 3 is able to take two SIM cards as opposed to the APU 2 which can only take one SIM card.

In order to do this the expansion slots on the APU 3 are more flexible.

Just keep in mind that if you want two SIM cards you can’t have an mSATA drive on the APU 3 board.

2. Swappable SIM slots

The next difference on the APU 3 is that because there are two SIM cards they’ve been designed to be swappable under GPIO, which means you can use them for failover.

3. Power usage

And the final difference between the APU 2 and the APU 3 is that the power usage for the APU 3 board is slightly higher at 6 to 12 watts depending on CPU load.

So those are the key differences between the APU 1, APU 2 and APU 3 boards.

And check out this quick summary that I’ve put together for you of all the differences that I just outlined.

Want to know more?

So we currently offer the APU 1 and the APU 2 products and we’ll probably start offering the APU 3 once the board revision moves from B to C when they tend to be more stable.

If you’re desperate to get your hands on an APU 3 board just get in touch with us.

And if you want to learn more about the APU products in general I’ll put a link in the description of this video.

And I will see you next time.

Hi. I’m Nikki from Yawarra Tiny Computers.

And today I want to share with you five things that I love about the APU server case.

Number one, we designed this case ourselves.

We looked at the options that were out there and we just weren’t happy with any of them.

So Paul sat down and designed this case.

And frankly we’re really happy with the way it’s turned out.

#2 – Really easy access

Number two, this case gives you really easy access to the board.

When we realised that there weren’t any components along the edges of the ALIX and APU boards, we made this case design into a sliding design.

So the edges of the board actually sit in the grooves on the edges of the extrusion so the board slides in and out, giving you easy access to all the components on the board.

#3 – Compact yet spacious

Number three, even though this case is compact there’s space in there for everything that you need.

So in this case you can see we’ve got the board in there and we’ve got a hard drive installed as well.

So there’s space for everything that you need.

So it’s compact on the outside and roomy on the inside.

A little bit like the tardis.

#4 – Really strong

Number four, these boxes are really strong.

We designed them to use an extra heavy gauge aluminium just to give the components that extra bit of protection.

And we ship these boxes all over Australia using Australia Post.

Now we do package them very carefully as well but we’ve never had a problem with our boxes.

I’d stand on it to show you how strong it is, but it might scratch the paint and then Paul would get cross with me, and we don’t want that.

#5 – The colours

Number five is the colours.

Now I love using colour for systems in business because it makes it so much easier to recognise at a glance what something’s for.

It’s so easy to say, “Oh, it’s that red box in the corner.” Or to use, you know, red for the firewall, and blue for the files, and green for the router.

You know, whatever you want to break down your network by those colours are a great way to do that. And honestly they are fantastic colours and they make the cases just look fantastic.

Want to know more?

So that was five things that I love about the APU server case.

If you want to know more about the APU servers I’ll put a link with more information in the description of this video.

And I’ll see you next time.