Zotac Zbox ID18 Linux Server

• Zotac Zbox ID18
• Samsung SSD 840 EVO 1TB
• 4GB RAM (SODIMM 1600)
• Ubuntu 13.10

Samsung SSD firmware update: The process is quite broken:

• download the 'Windows' Firmware update for the 840 EVO
• mount it
• dd the btdsk.img onto a USB stick
• put the USB stick into the Zotac
• change the Zotac BIOS so it boots from the USB stick
• reboot
• ignore all error messages about missing partitions
• eventually the Samsung Firmware Update program comes up
• take note of the Firmware revision
• follow the instructions of the program
• wait
• ignore the message about power cycling the SSD, since you cannot power cycle it in isolation
• ignore the message about the firmware update being unsuccessful
• reboot (still from the USB stick)
• check that you have the new firmware revision
• Linux shows: ata1.00: ATA-9: Samsung SSD 840 EVO 1TB, EXT0BB6Q, max UDMA/133)

The installation of Ubuntu is quite straight forward.

Recommended settings after installation:

• Enable TRIM support and avoid unnecessary writes when reading files and dirs:
• /etc/fstab:
• UUID= /   ext4    discard,noatime,errors=remount-ro 0       1
• Reduce amount of disk space reserved for root from 45GB to 1GB:
• sudo tune2fs /dev/sda1 -m 0.1
• Install sshd:
• sudo apt-get install openssh-server
• Install 'sensors' to check the CPU temp:
• sudo apt-get install lm-sensors
• sudo sensors-detect
• sudo service kmod start
• sensors
• Install 'smartmontools' to see the SSD temp and other interesting data:
• sudo apt-get install smartmontools
• sudo smartctl -x /dev/sda | grep -i 'Current Temp'
• Do not start GUI/X
• edit /etc/default/grub:
• #GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
• GRUB_TIMEOUT=1
• GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="text"
• sudo jed /etc/default/grub
• sudo update-grub
• I like to install:
• sudo apt-get install jed apcalc screen minidlna openssh-server samba emacs ispell subversion g++ imagemagick
• If you have a couple of minutes:
• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get upgrade
• If you would like to manually TRIM the SSD:
• sudo fstrim -v /
• Install SAMBA:
• sudo apt-get install samba
• see https://help.ubuntu.com/12.04/serverguide/samba-fileserver.html

Example /etc/samba/smb.conf:

[zotti]

    comment = Share on the Zotac

    path = /zotti

    browsable = yes

    guest ok = yes

    read only = no

    create mask = 0777

    veto files = /.*.pdf/.*.jpg/.DS_Store/._.DS_Store/.*.ini/.*.txt/.*.mov/.*.avi/.*.mpg/.*.png/

    delete veto files = yes

    hide dot files = yes

    hide unreadable = yes