Once I had all the hardware in hand, it was time to start getting the software in place. And the first order of business was the operating system.
As alluded to in the previous post, I would attempt to use Linux first. Which turned out exactly the same as every other time I tried to use Linux: I couldn't get hardware acceleration for the video processor.
Fundamentally, the DN2800MT is a Cedar Trail board and implements a GMA 3650 graphics processor. (For a more detailed review of the board, you can read this.) And being a relatively new architecture, there were early reports at the time of its release that it didn't quite play well with Linux. Take this example. The video processor also strays from Intel convention in that, in upgrading the capabilities from the standard Intel integrated graphics processor to full HD support, its design was actually sourced to another manufacturer: PowerVR. As a result, the Linux drivers remain proprietary.
This in and of itself was not the problem. There's excellent documentation of how to implement the Linux drivers in Ubuntu (also here). And what's more, when I had installed Ubuntu 12.4, it automatically told me that I had the option of installing the proprietary drivers for my board's graphics processor. Apparently, the Ubuntu community worked through it, and the install should work, right?
Despite the seeming simplicity of getting it to work, I was never able to get the graphics hardware acceleration to function properly. And with Windows 8 Pro running $39.99, I ended up opting for that in the end and brought the total spent at this point up to $555. It was worth the low price and my time to get it up and running without much fuss. With the operating system out of the way, I commenced installing the necessary software to make the box do what I want it to do. And having picked Windows, I had a couple of options available to me along those lines that I will discuss in the next post.
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