7 ms·

I haven't found anything that's been able to match the price point of the pi for the amount of things you can do with it. I'd love an x86 system of similar foot

I haven't found anything that's been able to match the price point of the pi for the amount of things you can do with it. I'd love an x86 system of similar footprint and cost. Are there some I don't know about?

thinkmassive 6y ago
Here's a great place to start your search https://www.hackerboards.com/ https://www.hackerboards.com/
- gregmac 6y ago
  I think this actually highlights part of the problem. There's certainly a ton of capable products there, lots of stuff that looks very fun to play with. You can probably find something with whatever specific combo of features you need for your project. However, there's two big issues: price and availability. Price is obvious. If you want to spend $200 or more you have a massive number of options. However, this is a far cry from the $35-75 for a Pi, plus for both you still need a power supply, case, etc. I can also order a Pi from a couple different sites, and probably pick one up locally in a pinch, too. It seems like there's lot of other boards where you can't actually buy one. Some are in the category of "how many thousand would you like?" It's just a totally different world than the Pi's distribution and ecosystem, to the point it's not really fair to consider for the average hobbyist. There's dozens of readily available case options and other add-ons for the Pi. I also know if I build software for the Pi I'll still be able to buy another one anytime I want for the next few years, and due to its popularity chances are for the next decade (if not a real Pi, someone will make a clone). It's great there's options, but the fact a product merely exists doesn't instantly make it a viable alternative.
  - GordonS 6y ago
    The sheet quantity of boards here is another problem - I'd personally much prefer a curated list, with recommendations for different use cases.
    - squarefoot 6y ago
      There are two major distributions aimed at more than one board, they're Armbian and DietPI, I would suggest reading through their forums because of the good number of people familiar with different boards, so those might likely be the best places to ask if task X is better accomplished by board A or B etc. . Sometimes however boards are similar to each other for employing the same SoC, so it's not rare finding an image that boots successfully both a board from one vendor and a TV Box from another vendor. There are many ready images for tested hardware, but users are encouraged to rebuild the images and make more test to unknown hardware then report findings. https://www.armbian.com/ https://www.armbian.com/ https://dietpi.com/ https://dietpi.com/ (warning: puke inducing site colors! :-)
      - LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
        What is puke inducing there? The green? I'd call that color scheme Liquorice-Absinthmeister :-)
        squarefoot 6y ago
        > What is puke inducing there? The green? Yes, I find it extremely uncomfortable to look at; literally a punch in the eye.
  - sangnoir 6y ago
    $10 to $75 for a Pi - the RPi Zero can be gotten for $10 and it remains very capable. The Pi has no competition among SBCs on bang-for-your-buck: I have extensively checked. You can get lower prices (and lower memory) on microcontroller systems, but for hobbyists, you'll be additionally paying with your time
    - squarefoot 6y ago
      The RPi Zero has been a joke for two full years: produced in extremely small quantities and sold at loss just to keep customers away from the competition. Of course there are a few people who somehow managed to get one or two without being forced to purchase it bundled with unnecessary overpriced stuff, and they usually were very quick to point that out in forums (while downvoting any criticism), but they were a really small minority. Things may have changed, but too late: I've removed the RPi from the list of the boards I could purchase for anything but video playing. My video player has been a RPi1, then 2, then 3 now 4, but all the other older Pi boards lie now unused in a drawer while I rather use other stuff (Odroids, Orange PIs, NanoPIs, probably getting soon a Pine64B from the excellent pine64.org guys, etc.). The RPi has a lot of competition, almost all of it more powerful or more cheap, sometimes even both.
      - zapzupnz 6y ago
        And almost none of it available in my country without paying more in shipping than the actual product.
        squarefoot 6y ago
        Are you sure about that? Many of these boards are sold by Chinese vendors, and usually shipping from China/HK is very cheap because their govt subsidizes shipping. You also have the fast courier option which of course will cost a lot more, but that's just one of the options. When contacting them just be sure they use a tracked method, and much better if they support PayPal which employs an effective user protection against missed or damaged deliveries, faulty products, fakes etc. That's what for example pushed me away from buying more Orange PI boards years ago since although the products are really good their manufacturer and vendor gave no other option than their Aliexpress shop that didn't support PayPal.
  - cestith 6y ago
    Popcorn Computer is very close to shipping. https://shop.popcorncomputer.com/ https://shop.popcorncomputer.com/ Pine64 has a number of SBCs and also other products that build around them. https://store.pine64.org/product-category/pine-h64-boards/ https://store.pine64.org/product-category/pine-h64-boards/ Both offer things in similar price ranges as Raspberry Pi. I have some of each (if you consider the Popcorn to be a true successor to the CHiP as the seller does).
    - mysterydip 6y ago
      I really wanted the CHiP to succeed and was going to grab a pocket chip when I had the spare cash. Unfortunate what happened, but if popcorn ship, it looks like a good successor.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- theamk 6y ago
  This list is missing a very important column -- "quality of Linux support" There is a great difference between a board which uses mainline kernel and is supported by major distros, and a board which can only run specific old version of OpenWRT and a patched 2.6.x kernel.
NortySpock 6y ago
https://www.explainingcomputers.com/sbc.html https://www.explainingcomputers.com/sbc.html lists a few other x86 single board computers, but the only ones that come close to the $35 price point that I know of are the Atomic PI (quad core Atom, 1.4GHz boosting to 1.9GHz, started at $35 and rose up to $50 per the video review) and the LattePanda (similar specs, more USB ports and needs a cooling solution) for ~$90.
- TheRealPomax 6y ago
  The Raspi hasn't been anywhere near $35 for the decent versions for a while now, though. And while the 4gb pi4 is $55, the 8gb version (which anyone who wants a pi would want because that memory makes a ton of difference) is $75. Sure, the 2gb version is cheap, but it's also borderline useless if you want put a pi4 to use as a computer instead of fancy arduino. And while they're both "computer-board-things", we can't really compare a LattePanda to a Pi: the only reason LattePanda boards exist is because they allow the same kind of prototyping/embedding as the pi, but specifically for windows. There is very little reason to buy one unless you _need_ a board that runs regular windows (because you need to run closed source, windows-only tools, for instance).
  - NortySpock 6y ago
    I wish to point out that everyone's use case and performance targets are different. I have been happily using my RPi2 as a home dns, file and media server for at least a year now. While I agree it is constrained by memory, IO and compute, it is adequate for my purposes. Though I am upgrading to an RPi4 4GB, it is a nice upgrade, not a requirement (for me). I presume there are some people who wish to run x86 binaries on Linux or Windows, for which a LattePanda might be a good fit at a modest cost. I wish them success, which is more fun than failure.
  - a1369209993 6y ago
    > Sure, the 2gb version is cheap, but it's also borderline useless if you want put a pi4 to use as a computer I remember when EMACS was "Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping"; there is something deeply fucking wrong with modern software if two thousand megabytes isn't enough for it to run smoothly.
arminiusreturns 6y ago
Not the same price point, but I have had my eye on the UDOO X86 II ADVANCED PLUS [1]. [1] https://shop.udoo.org/udoo-x86-ii-advanced-plus.html https://shop.udoo.org/udoo-x86-ii-advanced-plus.html

thinkmassive 6y ago

Here's a great place to start your search https://www.hackerboards.com/ https://www.hackerboards.com/

gregmac 6y ago
I think this actually highlights part of the problem. There's certainly a ton of capable products there, lots of stuff that looks very fun to play with. You can probably find something with whatever specific combo of features you need for your project. However, there's two big issues: price and availability. Price is obvious. If you want to spend $200 or more you have a massive number of options. However, this is a far cry from the $35-75 for a Pi, plus for both you still need a power supply, case, etc. I can also order a Pi from a couple different sites, and probably pick one up locally in a pinch, too. It seems like there's lot of other boards where you can't actually buy one. Some are in the category of "how many thousand would you like?" It's just a totally different world than the Pi's distribution and ecosystem, to the point it's not really fair to consider for the average hobbyist. There's dozens of readily available case options and other add-ons for the Pi. I also know if I build software for the Pi I'll still be able to buy another one anytime I want for the next few years, and due to its popularity chances are for the next decade (if not a real Pi, someone will make a clone). It's great there's options, but the fact a product merely exists doesn't instantly make it a viable alternative.
- GordonS 6y ago
  The sheet quantity of boards here is another problem - I'd personally much prefer a curated list, with recommendations for different use cases.
  - squarefoot 6y ago
    There are two major distributions aimed at more than one board, they're Armbian and DietPI, I would suggest reading through their forums because of the good number of people familiar with different boards, so those might likely be the best places to ask if task X is better accomplished by board A or B etc. . Sometimes however boards are similar to each other for employing the same SoC, so it's not rare finding an image that boots successfully both a board from one vendor and a TV Box from another vendor. There are many ready images for tested hardware, but users are encouraged to rebuild the images and make more test to unknown hardware then report findings. https://www.armbian.com/ https://www.armbian.com/ https://dietpi.com/ https://dietpi.com/ (warning: puke inducing site colors! :-)
    - LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
      What is puke inducing there? The green? I'd call that color scheme Liquorice-Absinthmeister :-)
      - squarefoot 6y ago
        > What is puke inducing there? The green? Yes, I find it extremely uncomfortable to look at; literally a punch in the eye.
- sangnoir 6y ago
  $10 to $75 for a Pi - the RPi Zero can be gotten for $10 and it remains very capable. The Pi has no competition among SBCs on bang-for-your-buck: I have extensively checked. You can get lower prices (and lower memory) on microcontroller systems, but for hobbyists, you'll be additionally paying with your time
  - squarefoot 6y ago
    The RPi Zero has been a joke for two full years: produced in extremely small quantities and sold at loss just to keep customers away from the competition. Of course there are a few people who somehow managed to get one or two without being forced to purchase it bundled with unnecessary overpriced stuff, and they usually were very quick to point that out in forums (while downvoting any criticism), but they were a really small minority. Things may have changed, but too late: I've removed the RPi from the list of the boards I could purchase for anything but video playing. My video player has been a RPi1, then 2, then 3 now 4, but all the other older Pi boards lie now unused in a drawer while I rather use other stuff (Odroids, Orange PIs, NanoPIs, probably getting soon a Pine64B from the excellent pine64.org guys, etc.). The RPi has a lot of competition, almost all of it more powerful or more cheap, sometimes even both.
    - zapzupnz 6y ago
      And almost none of it available in my country without paying more in shipping than the actual product.
      - squarefoot 6y ago
        Are you sure about that? Many of these boards are sold by Chinese vendors, and usually shipping from China/HK is very cheap because their govt subsidizes shipping. You also have the fast courier option which of course will cost a lot more, but that's just one of the options. When contacting them just be sure they use a tracked method, and much better if they support PayPal which employs an effective user protection against missed or damaged deliveries, faulty products, fakes etc. That's what for example pushed me away from buying more Orange PI boards years ago since although the products are really good their manufacturer and vendor gave no other option than their Aliexpress shop that didn't support PayPal.
- cestith 6y ago
  Popcorn Computer is very close to shipping. https://shop.popcorncomputer.com/ https://shop.popcorncomputer.com/ Pine64 has a number of SBCs and also other products that build around them. https://store.pine64.org/product-category/pine-h64-boards/ https://store.pine64.org/product-category/pine-h64-boards/ Both offer things in similar price ranges as Raspberry Pi. I have some of each (if you consider the Popcorn to be a true successor to the CHiP as the seller does).
  - mysterydip 6y ago
    I really wanted the CHiP to succeed and was going to grab a pocket chip when I had the spare cash. Unfortunate what happened, but if popcorn ship, it looks like a good successor.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
theamk 6y ago
This list is missing a very important column -- "quality of Linux support" There is a great difference between a board which uses mainline kernel and is supported by major distros, and a board which can only run specific old version of OpenWRT and a patched 2.6.x kernel.

NortySpock 6y ago

https://www.explainingcomputers.com/sbc.html https://www.explainingcomputers.com/sbc.html lists a few other x86 single board computers, but the only ones that come close to the $35 price point that I know of are the Atomic PI (quad core Atom, 1.4GHz boosting to 1.9GHz, started at $35 and rose up to $50 per the video review) and the LattePanda (similar specs, more USB ports and needs a cooling solution) for ~$90.

TheRealPomax 6y ago
The Raspi hasn't been anywhere near $35 for the decent versions for a while now, though. And while the 4gb pi4 is $55, the 8gb version (which anyone who wants a pi would want because that memory makes a ton of difference) is $75. Sure, the 2gb version is cheap, but it's also borderline useless if you want put a pi4 to use as a computer instead of fancy arduino. And while they're both "computer-board-things", we can't really compare a LattePanda to a Pi: the only reason LattePanda boards exist is because they allow the same kind of prototyping/embedding as the pi, but specifically for windows. There is very little reason to buy one unless you _need_ a board that runs regular windows (because you need to run closed source, windows-only tools, for instance).
- NortySpock 6y ago
  I wish to point out that everyone's use case and performance targets are different. I have been happily using my RPi2 as a home dns, file and media server for at least a year now. While I agree it is constrained by memory, IO and compute, it is adequate for my purposes. Though I am upgrading to an RPi4 4GB, it is a nice upgrade, not a requirement (for me). I presume there are some people who wish to run x86 binaries on Linux or Windows, for which a LattePanda might be a good fit at a modest cost. I wish them success, which is more fun than failure.
- a1369209993 6y ago
  > Sure, the 2gb version is cheap, but it's also borderline useless if you want put a pi4 to use as a computer I remember when EMACS was "Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping"; there is something deeply fucking wrong with modern software if two thousand megabytes isn't enough for it to run smoothly.

arminiusreturns 6y ago

Not the same price point, but I have had my eye on the UDOO X86 II ADVANCED PLUS [1]. [1] https://shop.udoo.org/udoo-x86-ii-advanced-plus.html https://shop.udoo.org/udoo-x86-ii-advanced-plus.html