I recently took delivery of a new HL-4 built system. I love that case. It’s easy to work on and the insides are tidy with the cables provided. Parts picks are nice. Some observations.
- In the case manual, note that a small form factor power supply is required.
- The first user password as shipped was not the one in the manual. A panic call resolved that one.
- XFCE does not support show password on the login screen. Complex password require it. Gnome login does.
- I used a TV for display as iMac no longer has a display mode. TV overscans causing the boot options to vanish. It would be good to have these in the box. Also good to support screen sharing as Raspberry Pi does.
- HL-4 manual has HL-8 photos.
- Case manual should note the super-skinny fans used. They’re quiet by the way.
- HL-4 build product description does not mention ECC memory. Jeff Geerley did. Haven’t looked. That the motherboard supports ECC is an important differentiator as System 76 and others don’t offer ECC.
Otherwise, impressive. And quick.
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Thank you for this feedback we are always looking for improvements, i will pass this onto the team
Thanks, Hutch.
Just a little context. I’m a 10 years retired former modeling and simulation developer with experience on nuclear power plant operator training simulators, reactor monitoring systems, and Navy wargaming. And since 1988 and SunOS 3, Unices of several varieties.
Since I retired, tool development and server environments have exploded. I have a couple of TrueNAS boxes here to keep TimeMachine in spool space, Raspberry Cobbler strewn about the place to doo odd tasks, and now HomeLab for tinkering.
There’s a whole slew of stuff to learn. I have Portainer and Docker up, TrueCommand and Plex Media Server running. And DeepSeek managed to turn command strings for the docker stuff into Docker Compose specs. Cool.
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Before I discovered what a good deal the 45HomeLab boxes were, I ordered a MiniX+ from the other guys to replace Sherman who was found dead one morning. Sherman was a home brew in a Node 804 case and SuperMicro workstation board. He ran for 8 years or so.
Anyway, the Mini arrived. The iXians haandle first login by putting a flyer in the box reminding you that there’s a random password for the IPMI on the back of the case. The QR code on the flyer takes you to a landing page with instructions for signing in to the IPMI web app for the first time.
Once signed into IPMI, you could select the physical terminal video. There was the same console menu that they used since FreeNAS 9 that let you change the administrator password. It also told you the administrator user name.
According to the iXians, California made them lock the root account and give each box a unique birthday password. Given the servers were IPMI capable, they gave you the IPMI login and let you discover the admin console login. Then you could change its password.
I rather like not blowing stuff up on my 3rd backup (2 MiniX+ and a LaCie 8 TB IronWolf box). And RDP works! And helpful folk in forum. The TrueNAS forums seemed rather peeved when questioned by M&S developers who spoke FORTRAN. I rather like it here.