4 ms·

See, being able to run "just Linux" is about the main selling point of RPi. It's no secret you can get boards with better performance/price or performance/power

by lrem 8y ago

See, being able to run "just Linux" is about the main selling point of RPi. It's no secret you can get boards with better performance/price or performance/power, or even build your own RPi at a lower price (not sure about zero). But RPi being just "plug and play" with familiar software platform means that I can just go and link my software skills with physical doohickeys.

Nursie 8y ago
Eh, my experience with the orange pi zero was similar. But then I've been playing with debian on embedded boards since the NSLU2 days, so I guess I'm probably a little blind to the challenges. Any build that doesn't start with a multimeter, a soldering iron and a TTL->USB cable is pretty straightforward...
- classic959 8y ago
  I used the 'slug' (NSLU2) to run my first NAS. For me, that was a great introduction to setting up useful linux devices on my home network. (A wee pang of nostagia there when I saw it mentioned)
  - Nursie 8y ago
    Nice, I had two slugs. The community and Wiki were awesome. I eventually ended up adding a page about soldering a USB wireless card on to one of the unused USB headers on one. The other ran my website and an email server. Happy days :)
dom96 8y ago
> even build your own RPi at a lower price How would you go about doing that? Any guides out there for something like this?
- lrem 8y ago
  I'm afraid step 1 of such a guide would be "get a relevant engineering degree". I got mine on the wrong floor of the building, so all I know is that "RPi is overpriced for what it contains".
  - kingosticks 8y ago
    Could you provide a breakdown of what you know it should cost? That would be interesting.
makomk 8y ago
For the Orange Pi Zero, you can just download an Armbian SD card image much like you would with Raspbian - except that unlike Raspbian, everything but the kernel and bootloader is just stock Debian and receives updates straight from Debian. (In theory the next upcoming Debian release should work stock out-the-box, but it's a lot less user-friendly to get working.)
steevdave 8y ago
Just about every other board out there is just as plug and play as the RPI. I'm not saying that to downplay the RPI - the community it has around it is great, but long gone are the days of trying to get Linux running on a random arm board. And I should know, I have over 100 different arm machines at my place.

by lrem 8y ago

Nursie 8y ago

Eh, my experience with the orange pi zero was similar. But then I've been playing with debian on embedded boards since the NSLU2 days, so I guess I'm probably a little blind to the challenges. Any build that doesn't start with a multimeter, a soldering iron and a TTL->USB cable is pretty straightforward...

classic959 8y ago
I used the 'slug' (NSLU2) to run my first NAS. For me, that was a great introduction to setting up useful linux devices on my home network. (A wee pang of nostagia there when I saw it mentioned)
- Nursie 8y ago
  Nice, I had two slugs. The community and Wiki were awesome. I eventually ended up adding a page about soldering a USB wireless card on to one of the unused USB headers on one. The other ran my website and an email server. Happy days :)

dom96 8y ago

> even build your own RPi at a lower price How would you go about doing that? Any guides out there for something like this?

lrem 8y ago
I'm afraid step 1 of such a guide would be "get a relevant engineering degree". I got mine on the wrong floor of the building, so all I know is that "RPi is overpriced for what it contains".
- kingosticks 8y ago
  Could you provide a breakdown of what you know it should cost? That would be interesting.

makomk 8y ago

For the Orange Pi Zero, you can just download an Armbian SD card image much like you would with Raspbian - except that unlike Raspbian, everything but the kernel and bootloader is just stock Debian and receives updates straight from Debian. (In theory the next upcoming Debian release should work stock out-the-box, but it's a lot less user-friendly to get working.)

steevdave 8y ago

Just about every other board out there is just as plug and play as the RPI. I'm not saying that to downplay the RPI - the community it has around it is great, but long gone are the days of trying to get Linux running on a random arm board. And I should know, I have over 100 different arm machines at my place.