Peripherals Linux Reviews & Articles

There have been 159 Linux hardware reviews and benchmark articles on Phoronix for peripherals. Separately, check out our news section for related product news.

Not your typical review on Phoronix today but rather a brief look at the Gentex PLACE Any Space smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors. For those facing ten years on their Nest Protect smoke detectors and looking for an end-of-life replacement to these smoke detectors discontinued by Google, the Gentex PLACE smart smoke detectors are an interesting and capable alternative. Being faced by needing to find a replacement to Nest Protects myself that have now expired and finding many others in the same boat with no clear winning smart smoke detector right now, I decided to go with the Gentex PLACE and figured it worthwhile to share a bit of my experience.

While there are a growing number of startups offering AI accelerators, many of them are more or less vaporware and the other big challenge even among those actually shipping products is their software stacks are very premature or an outright heaping mess. Surprisingly there's a company known as MemryX that was started out of the University of Michigan AI research that is both shipping actual hardware -- and at a decent price point -- and where the software stack is a pleasant experience that works on both Windows and Linux. Here are my initial experiences in testing out the MemryX M.2 module that features four of their in-house MX3 AI accelerator chips.

To clear up the ever-growing stack of laptops, I recently bought a TOUPUWAN 30-Slot Laptop/Tablet Storage Cart. This laptop/tablet storage cart can accommodate 32 devices in total while slots for up to 30 laptops/tablets 16.3-inches in size. It does have built-in power strips as well to easily facilitate charging of the devices while securely stored away but for my purposes I was just looking for something to better organize the mess of laptops I only occasionally pull out when running new Linux laptop benchmarks.

For those looking to purchase any holiday stocking stuffers or Christmas gifts for Steam Deck gamers there is a wide assortment of accessories offered by JSAUX. This electronics accessories supplier recently sent over a number of their Steam Deck accessories including their 6-in-1 and 7-in-1 docking stations, protected standing case, and glass screen protector. Here's a look at these great holiday gifts for Steam Deck owners.

Last week Valve launched their much anticipated Steam Deck Docking Station as the official "dock" for the Steam Deck to allow connecting up to two external displays, power, additional USB ports, and Gigabit Ethernet. I've been testing out the Steam Deck Docking Station and it's been working out well but on the pricier side compared to alternatives.

Last year I signed up for SpaceX's Starlink satellite Internet service with hopes of using it to replace the Internet connection used for running Phoronix. After months of using Starlink and carrying out thousands of benchmarks, Starlink in the US midwest / Chicagoland area has proven reliable but the performance can be rather volatile still and it was frustrating at first waiting for some Starlink accessories to ship, but the self-service nature and simplicity of the setup were great.

For those considering the Lenovo USB-C 7-in-1 Hub for connecting to your Lenovo laptop for enjoying USB-C power charging, HDMI output, and additional USB ports, it does work out on Linux. While there have been some users running into seemingly firmware-related issues, at least with my testing over the past month this $50~60 (USD) USB-C hub has been working out well under Linux.

Last month System76 launched their Launch Configurable Keyboard. They sent over this new open-source keyboard for some brief testing and I must say the build quality has been top notch and while this is their first keyboard they are bringing to market, with their US manufacturing expertise that began with their Thelio computer cases, it has carried forward with their Launch keyboard. This keyboard is beautifully crafted and among the most durable (and heaviest) keyboards I've used in the past two decades. It reminds me of the IBM Model M from a quality perspective but with its own unique advantages.

For months Linux hardware vendor System76 has been teasing their own in-house designed and manufactured keyboard with open-source firmware and various innovations. Today the embargo lifts on the System76 Launch Configurable Keyboard so we can share more about this new open hardware product.

Four years ago I chronicled building a massive L-shaped desk for a better workflow, more monitors and space. For those that may be wanting to procure a new computer desk if you are working from home or eyeing L-shaped desk options, here is a new build I recently finished up as an improvement over my original design

While Roccat previously backed their devices on Linux that is the case no more and what is left for the time being are various community/third-party applications for supporting gaming mice/keyboard configuration under Linux from Logitech to Razer and various other lesser known brands of gaming peripherals (Razer will hopefully change this, at least). One of the most promising efforts right now for unifying mouse configuration on Linux is libratbag and its GTK3 Piper interface. Ratbag and Piper have evolved into a very competent open-source project for configuring Logitech mice on the Linux desktop.

When it came to settling on the latest-generation Dell XPS 13 as my main production workhorse with Fedora Workstation 28, besides the laptop's own traits like its build quality, specs relative to price, and other factors, another important requirement was the ability to drive two 4K displays when at my desk. The Dell XPS 13 has no issue driving dual 4K screens via the Dell Thunderbolt TB16 dock.

While SilverStone is mostly known for their computer cases, power supplies, and other peripherals, with the TS421S they have a compelling four-disk drive enclosure on their hands. The TS421S drive storage device supports up to four SAS/SATA 2.5-inch drives over a single mini-SAS SFF-8088 cable.

While I have tested out many StarTech server racks at Phoronix, I have never checked out the company's computer peripherals. I ended up trying out their 2.5-inch aluminum external enclosure and have ended up liking it almost as much as their racks.

While Razer at this time does not provide any official software support on Linux, via the OpenRazer/Polychromatic projects largely driven by the open-source community, they are making impressive headway. Last time I tried the Polychromatic UI that interfaces with the OpenRazer drivers for configuring Razer products on Linux, it wasn't working too well. But now it seems to have matured a lot and is working out quite well.

If you are in the market for a dual-band USB WiFi adapter, the Panda PAU09 N600 WiFi adapter works well on modern Linux distributions and will cost you just about $20 USD.

The past number of weeks I've been able to test the Nighthawk X10 router as my main home/office router and it's been working out great. This router is powered by a 1.7GHz quad-core processor and its wireless connectivity is great, but those interested in the device, it will set you back $450 USD.

The MoCA 2.0 specification is six years but there still aren't many consumer devices making use of this "Multimedia over Coax Alliance" standard nor the newer MoCA 2.5 standard. But in looking for alternatives to Ethernet over powerline when expanding my network, I ended up setting up a MoCA 2.0 system while running some Linux performance benchmarks along the way.

While I've tested out various indoor WiFi-based security cameras over the past decade on Phoronix, outdoor WiFi cameras have been a different story. Either through my contacts from Phoronix or through my own personal searching, I've never found an outdoor WiFi security camera that I've liked either due to poor build quality, poor video quality / viewing angles, or other issues but most of the time has revolved around not being well-engineered. That has changed with the Nest Cam Outdoor that was announced earlier this year by the Google/Alphabet-owned company while this week it's finally begun shipping to consumers. I certainly like the Nest Cam Outdoor from a hardware perspective, but the software could still use some improvements.

For the Phoronix 12th birthday and in trying to make a more efficient workflow and some general improvements to reinvigorate my general 100 hour work weeks across the span of Phoronix Media, I decided to set out on building a new desk this past week. Here's the result with having a massive, 8 and 10 foot sides to a L-shaped wooden and steel desk.

Given our open-source/Linux reader base and many of our readers being very privacy-minded, Anonabox sent over their Tunneler and Pro products for us to try out. The Anonabox Tunneler is a WiFi VPN router and the Anonabox Pro is a WiFi Tor and VPN router.

If you are in need of a temperature sensor / thermometer that's USB based and plays well with Linux, there's a decent option for just $14 USD.

With tiling the basement server room this month, I took the opportunity to build a new desk that's capable of easily handling six monitors while allowing for a better layout and more organization than before. Here are some details on building a butcher block wooden computer desk.

If you have ever wanted a thermal imager to get an idea for the hottest areas of your PC, look how to improve the thermal efficiency of your server room or house, or other purposes, you've likely noticed how thermal imagers are generally quite expensive. A lower-cost solution that's also very versatile is the Seek Compact Thermal, which can attach to your Android smartphone or tablet and turn it into a thermal imaging solution paired with the ease of use of being able to save the captured video or still images to your device.

The Thecus N4310 is a small business oriented Linux NAS (Network Attached Storage) device that makes it easy to setup an EXT4-based RAID storage environment with encryption support. The Thecus web-based software makes it easy to take full advantage of the NAS with features such as BitTorrent support, media streaming for iOS/Android, and more.

D-Link this morning announced the release of the full-HD DCS-2630L WiFi camera. This 802.11ac WiFi security/monitoring camera features a 180 degree field of view and full 1080p video support. D-Link sent out the camera to us last week as a review sample and I've been trying it out and happy with the results as a new indoor security camera.

Last month was the much-viewed article about losing trust in the Nest Protect following an obnoxious false alarm and the device not silencing, which resulted in me taking a sledgehammer to the offending unit. Since then, I've decided to give the Nest Protect a second shot as they sent out replacements for all of my devices with the second-generation design.

A few months ago, after moving into my new apartment, I decided that I was ready for an upgrade to my PC. New CPU? Nope. New graphics card? Nope. More RAM? Nah. I decided to try my hand at my first ever mechanical keyboard. After doing some Google research and attempting to sort through what others thought the best 'starter' mechanical keyboard was as far as reliability and quality one name continued to come up: Das.

As a quick Friday note, if you're looking for a 802.11n/g USB WiFi adapter that's very affordable and will work great with Linux, here's one of my recent purchases. After being pleased with one of them, I've since ordered a few more of these Wireless-N adapters for Linux usage.

The latest IP assignments for our 32+ system open-source Linux benchmarking test farm isn't for more benchmarking systems at this time but rather for the smoke alarms. Adding the Nest Protect devices give a bit more peace of mind running many computers on residential wiring.