By Jeff Field

Linux, Windows, BeOS, OpenBSD, FreeBSD. All of these operating systems have different sorts of users with different needs. All support different hardware in different ways, and so most hardware reviews have to cater to one or two of these choices at most. Some things, on the other hand, are applicable to every OS, and one of these things is cases. To many people, their case is their computer and what goes on inside might as well be magic. While most people reading this will understand that a case is simply some nicely designed metal, it is still important. Having the right case can affect how how stable your computer is, how easy it is to work with and for those who customize their cases, what kind of person you are.

The case

The In-Win Q500N is an improved version of the popular Q500 case. From the front, the Q500N looks the same as the Q500. The changes are in the rear, where there is now room for one 80mm fan at the top and another down by the ATX backplane in order to blow air over or suck air from the CPU. That’s a change from two fans at the top of the Q500, which really didn’t help in cooling the CPU(s) at all. The other changes are smaller, such as the removal of the silly single 3.5-inch drive bay in the top of the case, arguably the worst place to mount a hard drive as far as the cooling goes because it was such a cramped area. Also changed were the vents on the side — they now run up and down along the front of the sides, rather than along the bottom. Curiously, the In-Win’s Web site has no pictures or information regarding this version of the case, even though it has been around more than a year.

The case is a full tower ATX case, capable of holding six 3.5-inch drives (One external, five internal), five 5.25-inch drives (all external) and up to seven devices in the expansion slots. The case I have shipped with a 250-watt ATX 2.01 compliant power supply that was set to suck air in rather than to move air out, which I thought was odd. I prefer to have the hot air removed from the case rather than forcing cooler air in.

Installation and cooling

One of the big factor in deciding on a case is how easy it is to work with. The Q500N is a true pleasure to work with, thanks to In-Win’s excellent design. The first, and best, of these features is the fact there are no sharp edges. I’ve worked with hundreds of computer cases, and I can tell you there is nothing more annoying than removing a cable and slicing your hand on a sharp edge within the case.

In order to make motherboard and expansion card installation easier, the Q500N has a slide-out motherboard tray which is really nice to work with. You simply remove four screws and slide the tray out. You can then mount your motherboard, CPU, RAM and expansion cards without having to worry about being limited for space. Then you simply slide the tray back in, connect LEDs and wires, and you are done. The tray slides in and out smoothly and is very well designed. You can purchase trays for this case that will allow you to use AT all-in-one, AT standard or LPX motherboards, another nice feature that allows you to keep your case as standards change.

In order to access the inside of the case, you simple remove the screws from side and top of the case, and the panels easily slide off. The panels are easy to remove and reinstall, which is a plus, because with some models of panel-cases the panels can be a pain to reinstall once you remove them, as you have to line them up in various odd ways. My only gripes are that in order to access the side panel I had to remove the top one, which seemed unneccesary, and in order to access screws on the right (if looking from the front) side of the 3.5-inch bays you need to move the motherboard tray.

As for cooling, as I mentioned earlier, the Q500N has room for two 80mm fans in the rear of the case. It also has room for one in the front to blow directly on the motherboard and expansion cards, which can really help stability in overclocked or multiprocessor systems. Also, the inclusion of ample ventilations through the sides and rear really helps dissipate air from the hard drives mounted in the front. I could not successfully get i2c working on this system to read the temperatures from the motherboard, but with a 750MHz Athlon, a 7200RPM IDE drive and a heavily-accessed 75gig 10,000 RPM SCSI drive, the system ran completely stable, even through functions that require a lot of hard drive access such as kernel compiles and hard drive benchmarks done repeatedly for other reviews.

Conclusion
The In-Win Q500 is a wonderful case to work with and has ample expansion capabilities and a lot of room. It is the case I choose for my Linux system, as it is easy to work with with great features and excellent cooling, all things neccesary for a system I rely on daily. I feel safe recommending it to all of you out there in the market for a quality full tower case. I purchased mine for $83 (after shipping) by finding the case on Pricewatch.com

The Register reports on Sun’s expected announcement of its new Full Moon clusters and file system. “But does the world need another proprietary cluster file system – when free software projects such as the GFS (GlobalFileSystem), Intermezzo and Lustre are making headway on cheap Linux hardware?”

From an eWEEK report: “While the Armonk, New York, company’s initial goal was to enable Linux on the mainframe, it is now working to effectively cluster large-scale Linux configurations. The result should mean more scaleable and reliable server and mainframe applications for such things as e-mail, Web hosting and enterprise resource planning.”

From a press release at PR Newswire: “SGI (NYSE: SGI) today announced a new strategic alliance with SuSE Linux AG, an international technology leader and solution provider in open source operating system software. Under the alliance agreement, SGI will make an undisclosed equity investment in SuSE Linux and will work cooperatively on the development, deployment and support of the Linux(R) operating system and infrastructure
code.”

“AbriaSoft(TM), a provider of Open Source software solutions, announced today its release of Abria SQL Standard 2.1 for Redhat Linux and Microsoft Windows platforms. The product integrates a secure ‘SSL’ flavor of Apache, the world’s leading web server with MySQL, the most popular open source database.” Read the complete press release at Internet Wire.

Newsforge reader Mikael Pawlo sent in this link: “The GNU General Public License version 2 has been translated into Swedish. It was first translated in November this year. Now it’s been proofread and checked for errors.

The Swedish translation is available online.

Original story written (by me…) at the Swedish news service Gnuheter.”

Newsforge reader pkej writes: “zez.org has a new article series by the always mighty Jan Borsodi. This time he is covering Emacs and Gnus.”

Newsforge reader pawal tells us that “After negotiations in Bratislava, the 33 European countries that have signed the Wassenaar agreement, have decided to revoke the crypto export controls over crypto products that are using strong enctryption technology.
The restriction was agreed upon in 1998, and have led to problems for the european technology companies that develop crypto products.
Read more in Swedish at Gnuheter.”

A BusinessWire press release announces: “Under the terms of the agreement, Dell will ship Eazel’s network user environment with its Linux-based desktop and notebook products. Eazel’s network user
environment, which includes Eazel’s Nautilus software and Eazel Services, extends the user experience by fully embracing and exploiting new possibilities created by
the Internet. In addition, Dell Ventures — Dell’s investment arm — has made an equity investment in Eazel signaling a continued commitment to the Linux market.”

“The Microsoft Network may have to raid itself. A groovy new facility
available in MSN communities allows you to steal other people’s
pictures and then get MSN’s partners in copyright conundrums to
shove it on mugs, T shirts and similar which they then sell to you.” The Register reports.