I run Linux on little VIA machines. They make great home servers because they're so small and low-power. You can tuck them in almost anywhere.
VIA also does some cool innovating. PadLock is an encryption engine built right into the hardware, which dramatically accelerates tasks requiring encryption, as well as random-number generation. SSL and SSH processes that used to monopolize the CPU are now efficiently outsourced to the onboard PadLock engine.
The "VIA Linux Portal" that just launched is pretty bare-bones at the moment. "This is currently a beta website; VIA will augment these resources and functions when appropriate," it says. But when it expands to feature more drivers, source code, and chipset documentation, VIA hackers and I will be pretty pleased. It's not just servers that are hackable: the HP 2133 teeny notebook has a VIA motherboard.
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