.
Things I liked:
Reasonably fast server brings in 937 Mb iso in 10-15 min.
Universal LiveUSB installer easily makes LiveUSB.
ALL my laptop hardware recognized and drivers provided
....except for internal closed-source wifi.
Easily sets up open-source external wifi.
Xfce desktop neat, intuitive & responsive.
Uses Ubuntu whisker menu and includes a LibreMenu menu editor.
Network mgr working well, given wifi drivers.
FF is 25; LO is 4.2; amd64 kernel is 3.13.
Boots to browser on-line in ~60 sec; shut-down < 5 sec.
GUI makes it easy to disable my touchpad which disrupts typing.
Things I didn't like:
Inefficient choices in initial 937 Mb base configuration.
937 Mb iso doesn't include closed-source ttf-mscorefonts, Broadcom drivers & flash;
....also doesn't include open-source LibreOffice, Geany & tzdata.
Configuring 2 Gb of persistence took a really long time.
LibreOffice took a long time to bring in as well.
*Apt-get needed to install tzdata; ntp updates desktop to local time on reboot.
Mousepad editor poorer than leafpad, much poorer than gedit IMO.
Bug 1: whisker menu editor doesn't save (or properly display) liveUSB favorites;
....Mint 16 doesn't have this problem with favorites panel display
Bug 2: does not recognize closed-source drivers brought in
....nor indicate correct status of devices using closed-source drivers.
LibreMenu requires a wholesale upgrade of gtk+ and python3 infrastructure.
Things I don't understand:
Why screensaver set only to blank screen.
Why Ubuntu Software Center rather than Synaptic.
*Maybe because I didn't understand Ubuntu Software Center usage as root.
HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 Server Xeon E3-1220L 16GB RAM No HDD's
$299.00
HP Proliant MicroServer Gen 8 2.3GHz CPU 16GB RAM NO DRIVES/CADDIES INCLUDED
$179.99
HP ProLiant HSTNS-5151 Micro Server 8GB RAM No Drives/Key/Caddies *READ*
$94.99
HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 Server Xeon E3-1220L 8GB RAM No HDD's
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HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen 10 Plus, Xeon E-2224, 16GB DDR4, 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD
$750.00
ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 Intel Xeon E3-1220L V2 2.3GHz CPU 8GB RAM
$170.00
HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 Server Intel Xeon E3-1220L v2 16GB DDR3 (4) 4TB HDs
$399.00
HP ProLiant N36L Micro Server 633724-001 AMD Athlon II Neo N36L - No HDDs
$82.07
HP ProLiant Microserver Micro Server HSTNS-5151 untested
$75.00
HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus v2 Ultra Micro Tower Server P54644001
$849.99