Quickie Report - Installing Fedora on BMAX Mini-PC

BMAX (almost identical to BeeLink) boxes are mostly
about 6 inches square an maybe two inches thick.
A large variety of CPUs/configs can be hand. The
prices are VERY good. Typically two 4k HDMI plugs
(cable included !). 2xUSB2 + 2xUSB3 is typical.
They have space in the bottom for an 8mm thick
SATA laptop drive/SSD. They run off a wall-wart.
A few months ago I attempted to install Fedora-40
(which was brand new at the time) on a BMAX N95
box (LXDE spin). As I'd mentioned here it was NOT
particularly successful. Wound up using Manjaro
on two such units (I'm OFF debians since Worm).
THIS time however things went quite well (with the
XFCE spin) on an N100 box (N95/N100 are almost
identical - low-end Celeron range laptop chips ...
search "amazon laptop N100"). 16gb RAM + 512gb
NVRam chip - perfect for Linux. This unit was
$149 USD. It DOES come with Win11 ... which I
did not want to run for even a microsecond
for reasons of pride :-)
Procedure : Insert USB drive with Fedora ISO.
Power-up and tap Del and F10 (not sure which
works, so tap 'em both). This brings up the
BIOS menus. Change the default boot drive to
the USB. DO turn on the "last state" option
for restarts (it's easier to find in newer
units - BURIED on older ones) while you're
in there. Set the date/time and such.
Reboot. The Fedora Live should come up automagically.
Like since forever it IS the Anaconda installer
utility you want.
In the drives setup part, choose 'custom' and
manually DELETE everything on the internal SSD.
DIE WINDERS DIE !!!
Then add an EFI partition (maybe 100mb) and
then a "/" partition. EFI should be "sda1" and
the system part "sda2". A variety of partition
types can be had, but for MY uses plain old
EXT4 was the most straight-up by far. Note
Anaconda has a "delete existing partitions
AS NEEDED" default but there's no obvious
"Use Entire Disk" like you see in many other
installers. So, 'custom' is best to get
exactly what you want.
All the other settings were pretty strightforward,
box net name, user/root setup, the usual. Then
you can proceed to the install. I'd suggest
having a live hardwired ethernet connection, but
with Fedora Live MOST of the setup requiring
such seems to be in the immediate post-install
reboot.
Anyway, once installed, reboot and deal with
the typical crap. Then use 'dnfdragora' to
get all the updates. Note the "apply" button
MAY be hidden down at the bottom of your
display (mine was small).
Reboot once more and you're ready. Install
what you will. I'm using TigerVNC for remote
access (or ssh, on alt port). Also installed
SAMBA since I might use this box attached to
some external USB drives as a local storage
center.
Note that in Fedora your 'regular
user' is NOT in /etc/sudoers - you have
to edit and add (and yes you CAN use nano
or whatever, just be careful). Sudo CAN
be adjusted to use the ROOT pw instead
of the 'regular users' - which seems smarter.
Odd bit - in TigerVNC - POP-UP notices,
like password queries, do NOT show up
on the vitual console. Run dnfdragora as
root to get around this. This XFCE also
does not have right-click options like
"add to desktop" on the main menu items,
you have to use 'create shortcut' from
the main screen. Put Tiger into the
'autostart' - works best there and
you can add the '-geometry' and screen
number params. Auto-Login is in a
/etc/lightdm config file - uncomment
and fill in user and grace time.
Finally, note the default (RHEL-type) firewall
is a pain in the ass to figure out how to let
SSH/VNC/etc ports through from the outside.
I *never* use the defaults since that's what
all the bots look for.
Anyway - MUCH better experience this time.
I think the XFCE spin gets more attention
than old LXDE plus the whole system has
had a few months to get past those post-
release bugs. F40 now seems GOOD.
If you don't need all the I/O pins found on
a PI then these cheap little boxes are the
cat's meow for practical Linux uses. The
"low end" CPUs (for Winders concerns) are
"plenty fast" for Linux - an N100 is over
twice as fast as a Pi5. You CAN get BMax/Link
with up to i7's or AMD equivs - but it all
depends on what YOU plan to do.