GEEKOM Mini Air12 Lite Review – Part 3: Ubuntu 24.04 on a low-cost mini PC

We have already checked the hardware of the GEEKOM Mini Air12 Lite mini PC in the first part of the review, before testing the low-cost Intel Processor N100 mini PC with its 8GB RAM and 256GB SATA SSD running Windows 11 Pro in detail in the second part.

We’ve now had time to test the GEEKOM Mini Air12 Lite with Ubuntu 24.04 in the third and final part of the review. We’ll test the features in Linux, run some benchmarks, evaluate storage and network performance, play some 4K and 8K videos in YouTube playback, perform a stress test to check its thermal design, and finally measure the mini PC’s fan noise and power consumption. We’ll also compare the results in Linux to the earlier GEEKOM Mini Air12 mini PC with the same CPU, but better specs and a higher price.

A challenging Windows 11 / Ubuntu 24.04.1 dual boot installation

We planned on installing Ubuntu 24.04.1LTS alongside Windows 11 in a dual boot configuration by resizing the Windows 11 partition by about half. However, the first time Disk Management only allowed us to resize it slightly, only leaving a little over 20GB for Ubuntu out of the 256GB SATA SSD. It could be usable, but once we install programs it’s going to be tight.

We tried to follow recommendations on Microsoft Answers including cleaning up the disk, deleting and disabling recovery, etc…, but we were not able to further resize the partition. We eventually decided to reset Windows 11, and we managed to resize the Windows partition to have a 48.89GB unallocated partition for Ubuntu. Not quite our initial target, but this will do.

After that, we have no issues installing Ubuntu 24.04.1 alongside Windows 11 using the ISO on a USB flash drive. So dual booting is not recommended on a mini PC with a 256GB SATA SSD, and if you do, make sure to install Ubuntu or other Linux distributions before you install programs in Windows, and ideally right after the Windows 11 setup wizard is complete.

Ubuntu 24.04 System information

The Settings->About window in Ubuntu 24.04.1 confirms that we have a GEEKOM Air12 Lite mini PC powered by a quad-core Intel Processor N100 CPU, and equipped with 8GB of RAM and 256.1 GB of storage.

We can get additional information in the Terminal:

More details are available with inxi utility:

We can see a quad-core Intel N100 CPU clocked at up to 3400 MHz, a Motorcomm Micro YT6801 Gigabit Ethernet controller (without loaded driver?), a MediaTek MT7922 wireless module, etc… Bluetooth is detected but with a 00:00:00:00:00:00 MAC address, so it’s not going to work. We have a fix for that we’ll use a little later. The CPU temperature is 38°C at idle.

GEEKOM Mini Air12 Lite benchmarks on Ubuntu 24.04

Let’s start the Linux benchmarks on the GEEKOM Mini AIr12 Lite with Thomas Kaiser’s sbc-bench.sh:

There seems to be some throttling as the 7-zip benchmark averages 12,750 points, but the score drops after each run. The first run yielded 13,566 MIPS,  the second 12,792 points, and the last one only  11,906 points. But it’s not related to the CPU temperature because the temperature never exceeds 70°C in the full results log.

Let’s check the power limits:

PL1 and PL2 power limits are set to 15W and 25W just like in Windows 11.

We can further test the CPU performance by running Geekbench 6.3.0 single-core and multi-core benchmarks.

The GEEKOM Air12 Lite achieved 1,228 points in the single-core test and 3,122 points in the multi-core one.

We tested GPU performance with Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0 and the Intel N100 mini PC achieved a score of 276 points while rendering the scene at 10.9 FPS on average at the standard 1920×1080 resolution.

Time to test some 4K and 8K videos on YouTube at different frame rates in Firefox.

No problem at 4K 30 FPS with only 5 frames dropped out of 10,016 after playing the video for over 5 minutes.

4K 60FPS was fine too, but with a few more frames dropped (121 out of 19,934).

8K 30FPS video playback was excellent with only 8 frames dropped after playing the video for over 5 minutes.

However, 8K 60FPS was not perfect with some stuttering as shown in the “Stats for Nerds” overlay with 2,524 frames dropped out of 22,252. We live in a hot climate and our room temperature was around 26 to 28°C during testing. 8Kp60 might work better in cooler rooms.

Finally, let’s switch to web browsing typically a single-core test using Speedometer 2.0.

GEEKOM Mini Air12 Lite could manage 157 runs per minute in Firefox.

Since Speedometer 2.0 is deprecated, we also ran Speedometer 3.0 to have some data for future reviews.

The Intel N100 mini PC got 9.83 points.

GEEKOM Mini Air12 Lite Ubuntu benchmarks comparison against other Intel N100 mini PCs

Now that we have benchmark results for the GEEKOM Mini Air12 Lite in Ubuntu 24.04, we can compare those against the results for two other Intel Processor N100 mini PCs: GEEKOM Mini Air12 and MINIX Z100-0dB both of which we tested with Ubuntu 24.04.

But first here’s a summary of the key specifications for the three systems.

And now the Ubuntu benchmarks comparison table.

Unsurprisingly all three systems perform quite similarly since they are all Intel N100 mini PCs. Having said that the GEEKOM Mini Air12 typically has an edge in most benchmarks, and we can see the MINIX Z100-0dB fanless mini PC struggles more during multi-core tests like 7-zip than its actively-cooled competitors. The higher Speedometer 2.0 Firefox score is likely due to software improvements that occur over time in web browsers.

Storage and USB testing

We tested the performance of the 256GB SATA SSD using iozone3:

The sequential read speed is about 542 MB/s and the write speed is around 456MB/s. If we compare it to the results in CrystalDiskMark on Windows 11, the Mini Air12 Lite managed  561 MB/s and 503 MB/s R/W speeds respectively. That’s quite lower than on most mini PCs with NVMe SSD, but that’s normal for a SATA drive, and GEEKOM made this choice to lower the cost of the entry-level mini PC.

In order to double-check the speed of the USB ports, we connected the ORICO M234C3-U4 USB 3.0 NVMe SSD enclosure to each of the USB 3.0 ports and a USB HDD to the USB 2.0 port relying on lsusb and iozone3 command line utilities to confirm the speed and standard used.

Here are the results for the left USB 3.0 Type-A port on the front panel:

Same for the top left USB 2.0 Type-A port on rear panel:

Summary of USB port speeds (from left to right)

• Front panel
  • USB-A #1 – USB 3.2 (10 Gbps) – Read speed: 874 MB/s; write speed: 1010 MB/s
  • USB-A #2 – USB 3.2 (10 Gbps) – Read speed: 869 MB/s; write speed: 981 MB/s
• Read panel:
  • USB-A #1 (top) – USB 2.0 (480 Mbps) – Read speed: 39 MB/s; write speed: 40MB/s
  • USB-A #2 (bottom) – USB 2.0  (480 Mbps) – Read speed: 42 MB/s; write speed: 42 MB/s
  • USB-A #3 (top) – USB 3.2 (10 Gbps) – Read speed: 876 MB/s; write speed: 988 MB/s
  • USB-A #4 (bottom) – USB 3.2 (10 Gbps) – Read speed: 869 MB/s; write speed: 986 MB/s

Everything is as advertised.

Networking performance (GbE and WiFi 6)

We also tested networking performance on the GEEKOM Mini Air12 Lite using the iperf3 utility on UP Xtreme i11 Edge mini PC on the side.

The first problem is that Ethernet does not work as while the Motorcomm YT6801 controller is detected, there’s no driver in use as reported by inxi. Luckily, there’s a driver on GitHub that we can install relatively easily on Ubuntu:

Now that we have a gigabit Ethernet connection, we can run the test with iperf3

• Download

• Upload

• Full-duplex (bidirectional)

The results are acceptable, although not quite as good as with Intel or Realtek controllers, at least for upload and bi-directional performance.

We also tested WiFi 6 @ 5 GHz, but it’s not super useful because GEEKOM told us they will switch to a WiFi 5 module for future production batches.

• Download

• Upload

As previously reported Bluetooth on the Mediatek MT7922 module requires at least Linux 6.10, but Ubuntu 24.04 ships with Linux 6.8,

So if users need Bluetooth on their mini PC, they either need to install Ubuntu 24.10, or manually install Linux 6.10 on Ubuntu 24.04. We went with the latter:

Bluetooth was detected and no errors were reported:

We could transfer a file from the computer to an Android phone over Bluetooth without issue. But as noted with WiFi, GEEKOM will change the wireless module, so our WiFi and Bluetooth test here will not be relevant to most people.

Stress test and Mini Air12 Lite thermal performance

In order to evaluate the GEEKOM Air12 Lite Lite thermal performance, we performed a stress test on the Intel Processor N100 quad-core Alder Lake-N CPU and monitored the CPU temperature and frequency with Psensor and sbc-bench.sh.

The chart shows the CPU temperature jumping quickly from around 42°C before the test to around 60-65°C before shortly stabilizing in the 68-72°C band during the rest of the stress test.

sbc-bench.sh also reports the CPU frequency is around 2900 MHz under load or the same as the earlier Mini Air12. The maximum CPU temperature is slightly lower for the Lite version at 72°C against 77°C for the Mini Air12; Note: Testing was performed in a room with an ambient temperature of 26 to 28°C.

Fan noise

The mini PC’s fan is barely audible when the computer is idled or under light load, but is a bit more noisy under heavier loads. We measured the fan noise with a sound level meter placed at around 5 centimeters from the top of the device

• Idle – Around 39 – 39.6 dBA
• Video Playback – 39.6 – 41.1 dBA (Youtube 8Kp60 in Firefox)
• Stress test – 39.5 to 48.1 dBA

The ambient noise in the room was measured at 37 – 38 dBA.

GEEKOM MIni Air12 Lite power consumption in Ubuntu

The power consumption was measured with a wall power meter:

• Power off –  1.2 to 1.3 Watt
• Idle –  6.0 to 6.5 Watts
• Video playback – 16 to 17 Watts (Youtube 8Kp60 in Firefox)
• Stress test  – 20.1 to 21.1 Watts

Note: The mini PC was connected to WiFi 6, a USB keyboard, a USB mouse, and a GAOMON PD2200 pen display through the HDMI port during the measurements.

Conclusion

GEEKOM Mini Air12 Lite mini PC works reasonably well with Ubuntu 24.04 Linux distribution, although the initial Linux experience is not as smooth as on most other systems. Let’s go with the positives first, Web browsing works fine taking into considering we only have 8GB of RAM to play with (so don’t open 100+ tabs), 4Kp60 and 8Kp30 YouTube video playback is smooth, but somehow 8Kp60 not as much despite the Mini Air12 having no such issue last year, and overall performance is similar to that of more expensive mini PCs based on the Intel N100 CPU.

The onboarding process was not very smooth. First setting up a dual boot system with Windows 11 and Ubuntu 22.04 is more complicated on a 256GB SSD, and we had to reset Windows 11 before installing Ubuntu side-by-side Windows. Ubuntu does not come with drivers for the MotorComm YT6801 gigabit Ethernet controller, meaning only WiFi works, until we install a driver to get Ethernet. GEEKOM will also change the WiFI 6 module from your sample to an unnamed WiFi 5 module for new production runs, and I can’t guarantee that the new wireless module will be supported in Linux. So future Mini Air12 Lite mini PCs may not have any network connectivity out of the box in the worst-case scenario, meaning you’d need a USB to Ethernet dongle to install the YT6801 module. I view this scenario as unlikely since most wireless modules are supported in Linux, but it’s not out of the question.

We’d like to thank GEEKOM for sending the Mini Air12 Lite mini PC for review. It’s fine with the pre-installed Windows 11 Pro, but Ubuntu/Linux should be reversed for more adventurous users. It can be purchased on Amazon for $169 (for Black Friday) and GEEKOM US for $179 with the coupon code “Air12Lite20” valid until December 2, and possibly beyond. British users can also find it on GEEKOM UK for 199 GBP, and the company has shops in other countries too.  While it’s a low-cost mini PC compared to the Mini Air12, it’s not the cheapest Intel N100 mini PC around, and for instance, you’ll find the GMKtec G3 in a similar configuration for about $100 on AliExpress or $128 on Amazon. One advantage of purchasing a GEEKOM mini PC is that they ship from a local warehouse so they can offer free 30-day returns/refunds and a 3-year warranty that can be taken advantage of if needed (e.g. Linux is not working on new models with the WiFi 5 module).

CNXSoft: This review is a translation – with some additional insights – of the original article on CNX Software Thailand by Suthinee Kerdkaew.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.

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