A NUC is the perfect choice for building your first PC. It's small, few pieces to assemble, and only requests a couple Phillips screwdrivers.

• NUC mini PC
• SO-DIM RAM
• Storage (mSATA SSD, m2 SSD, or 2.5“ SSD/hard drive depending on the model of the NUC)
• Power supply
• Optional: wifi card
• USB flash drive to erase and use to load software
• Another computer with an internet connection to download the software and write it to the flash drive

A new NUC kit comes as a bare-bones system. You will need to provide RAM and storage

Used NUCs purchased off eBay have often been stripped and are missing the power supply, RAM and storage. Sometimes the wifi card and even some screws are missing.

There are a number of great videos to refer to:

• https://nucblog.net/how-to-assemble/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU_ll5mNo_g

You should also locate the model number from the bottom of the NUC (for example “BOXNUC7i3BNK”) and search for the terms NUC and that model number, and then add the keywords “user guide”. Official instructions and information about what components are compatible with your particular NUC are found there.

NUCs have the usual PC connections:

• Power (external power supply)
• USB (for keyboard, mouse, flash drives and other devices)
• RJ-45 ethernet port
  • There are models that don't have an ethernet port
  • Some models have a multigig (2.5Gbps) ethernet port
• Video
  • This varies per NUC
  • Some NUCs don't have full-size HDMI ports, so you may need an adapter to use a Display Port, Mini Display Port or Mini HDMI adapter

Whatever operating system you choose, the process is basically:

• create a bootable USB flash drive
• plug it in to the NUC
• start the NUC and press F10 to enter the boot menu
• select the USB flash drive as a boot option

See https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005471/intel-nuc.html

Ubuntu offers great documentation.

• https://ubuntu.com/download/intel-nuc-desktop

With Windows, a special tool for creating installation media is provided.

• https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/create-installation-media-for-windows-99a58364-8c02-206f-aa6f-40c3b507420d

IMPORTANT Windows requires a product key. If you don't have a product key, you can still use the unactivated device for one month without any restrictions

• HTPC (home theater PC) (https://www.intel.com/content/dam/support/us/en/documents/mini-pcs/Linux-Home-Theater.pdf)
  • LibreELEC/Kodi (https://nucblog.net/2016/11/installing-libreelec-kodi-intel-nuc/)
  • Plex Media Server https://ubuntu.com/appliance/plex/intel-nuc)

Congratulations! You have built your first PC and installed the operating system yourself!

Now it's time to seek new adventures for your and your NUC. From running your own Minecraft server to Donating CPU time to science, enjoy the journey!