4 ms·

It's important to note that competitive x86 SBC do exist, and have the typical, full, x86 support. Of course, the downside is that the price is higher (around t

It's important to note that competitive x86 SBC do exist, and have the typical, full, x86 support. Of course, the downside is that the price is higher (around twice as much for a full system). A downside of ARM SBCs is that they pretty much all have an expiry date. Due to their closed nature, when the community pulls the plug, they're gone (SW-wise). x86 boards last virtually forever. While they're somewhat compatible with standard Linux distro, in order to have full support, one needs to use the adhoc ARM distros.

nojs 6y ago
Which x86 boards would you recommend?
- paper25 6y ago
  odroid h2+
- dljsjr 6y ago
  I've used UP boards at a previous job for resource constrained systems that needed to be x86 and they're actually quite nice: https://up-board.org https://up-board.org
- jsheard 6y ago
  If you're looking for something in the Raspberry Pis price range, the Rock Pi X is only $20 more than the equivalent 4GB Pi4 It has 32GB eMMC onboard too so unlike the Pi4 there's no need to deal with external USB storage or flaky SD cards
aseipp 6y ago
There's quite a bit more to it than that, though. First, the "closed nature" thing is just as true about x86 as it is about ARM; you don't get full specs for any machine these days, Broadcom or not. Rather, from the perspective of "Linux developers who write code on and deploy to Linux" — or maybe "Linux Desktop Users" — the difference is in peripheral discovery and setup, of which x86 has ACPI and UEFI to dynamically discover and configure devices upon every boot, while ARM boards use device tree, which is static and requires up front, BSP-specific descriptions. Userspace binaries for AArch64 Linux will work across most devices. A RPi4 running Ubuntu and a RockPro64 running Ubuntu will use the same binaries just fine. The problem is when vendors have kernel patches or workarounds that make booting harder. But it's not like literally all software stops working on a specific date. If you have the kernel and dtb, you can make it work and keep your system booting. It's definitely less than ideal, if you think of it like a desktop, where timely updates are common and easy. But it's doable. And more devices seem to be moving towards an upstream-first model, so this seems like less of a problem anyway. I'll also note it's not actually hard to package a device tree blob with a userspace+kernel, it's just that most "desktop" distros make spinning custom variants unreasonably hard, IMO, so you need Buildroot/Yocto or whatever to build custom images. And again, "Linux users" like, say, most people reading this comment, don't actually want Yocto — they want Arch or Debian or whatever. A bit chicken and egg. Furthermore, the RPi4 also supports ACPI and UEFI (upstream Tianocore) which is continuously improving, so it can support generic Linux distros. I have a "generic" Fedora 33 install working on my RPi4, with UEFI boot, all from a USB3 stick. It even installed using an ISO, and I configured the install using Anaconda, identically to x86. The Pi4 also has a production date of at least 2026, and almost the entire userspace software stack is completely upstreamed now, including kernel, graphics drivers, and peripherals. So from the perspective of someone who treats the RPi as a kind of "mini Linux Desktop", most of your complaints don't really apply at all. But... --- The actual biggest problems with the lack of specs/dtb shit/"closed stuff" isn't when you want to treat it like a normal Linux machine with keyboard/usb/ethernet. That's easy and works today. You can get most of the desktop Raspberry Pi experience, including generic distro boot, today! It's when you want to treat it like an actual "embedded device" where you write custom drivers or poke GPIOs or use hardware features, or whatever. That's where the closedness sucks, but in that case, even if it sucks or there's no specs, there's normally no realistic x86 alternatives. Sure, you can buy a $100 x86 device in an RPi form factor with RAM and plug a keyboard into it, and it's OK if it uses 2x as much power at load, if you just want a mini desktop that is cool. But where's the $20 x86 device that has a shitload of I/Os I can use to interface with various peripherals of my choosing, with all the accompanying good stuff like good DAC/ADCs, GPIOs, camera support, eMMC? And where can I buy them? Where's the $5 RPi Zero alternative? Because the ODROID-H2+ is $120 USD, and doesn't even have GPIOs!
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
regularfry 6y ago
With pi's that last point is at least somewhat mitigated. The foundation has committed to supporting specific hardware for several years.
- geerlingguy 6y ago
  Heck, they still support the original Pis and A+; I just installed the latest version of Raspberry Pi OS on my A+ with 128 MB of RAM, and while it is slow, it works just the same.
  - happycube 6y ago
    It helps that the pi zero hasn't been superseded yet, and probably won't be for a long time. (They've surprised me, heck, everybody, before though)
    - GeorgeTirebiter 6y ago
      The problem with the $ PiZero w/o WiFi or the $10 PiZero w/WiFi is you don't seem to be able to buy them in quantity. They are simply not 'available' to use in any sort of 'product', it seems.
throwaway894345 6y ago
> While they're somewhat compatible with standard Linux distro, in order to have full support, one needs to use the adhoc ARM distros. Maybe you mean something specific by "adhoc" or "full support" that isn't apparent to me, but Ubuntu has ARM distros today and I expect that ARM support is only going to get better as (1) ARM continues to make headway in the server space and (2) Apple Silicon pressures desktop/laptop OEMs to adopt ARM.
- imtringued 6y ago
  Just because Ubuntu has "ARM distros" doesn't mean those "ARM distros" have the necessary drivers needed to actually use all features of your SBC. The fact that Vulkan support in raspberry pi landed in 2020 should tell you something. Even the most well known SBC series is getting driver support at a glacial pace. When was the last time you waited for your x86 iGPU to get vulkan drivers?

nojs 6y ago

Which x86 boards would you recommend?

paper25 6y ago
odroid h2+
dljsjr 6y ago
I've used UP boards at a previous job for resource constrained systems that needed to be x86 and they're actually quite nice: https://up-board.org https://up-board.org
jsheard 6y ago
If you're looking for something in the Raspberry Pis price range, the Rock Pi X is only $20 more than the equivalent 4GB Pi4 It has 32GB eMMC onboard too so unlike the Pi4 there's no need to deal with external USB storage or flaky SD cards

aseipp 6y ago

There's quite a bit more to it than that, though. First, the "closed nature" thing is just as true about x86 as it is about ARM; you don't get full specs for any machine these days, Broadcom or not. Rather, from the perspective of "Linux developers who write code on and deploy to Linux" — or maybe "Linux Desktop Users" — the difference is in peripheral discovery and setup, of which x86 has ACPI and UEFI to dynamically discover and configure devices upon every boot, while ARM boards use device tree, which is static and requires up front, BSP-specific descriptions. Userspace binaries for AArch64 Linux will work across most devices. A RPi4 running Ubuntu and a RockPro64 running Ubuntu will use the same binaries just fine. The problem is when vendors have kernel patches or workarounds that make booting harder. But it's not like literally all software stops working on a specific date. If you have the kernel and dtb, you can make it work and keep your system booting. It's definitely less than ideal, if you think of it like a desktop, where timely updates are common and easy. But it's doable. And more devices seem to be moving towards an upstream-first model, so this seems like less of a problem anyway. I'll also note it's not actually hard to package a device tree blob with a userspace+kernel, it's just that most "desktop" distros make spinning custom variants unreasonably hard, IMO, so you need Buildroot/Yocto or whatever to build custom images. And again, "Linux users" like, say, most people reading this comment, don't actually want Yocto — they want Arch or Debian or whatever. A bit chicken and egg. Furthermore, the RPi4 also supports ACPI and UEFI (upstream Tianocore) which is continuously improving, so it can support generic Linux distros. I have a "generic" Fedora 33 install working on my RPi4, with UEFI boot, all from a USB3 stick. It even installed using an ISO, and I configured the install using Anaconda, identically to x86. The Pi4 also has a production date of at least 2026, and almost the entire userspace software stack is completely upstreamed now, including kernel, graphics drivers, and peripherals. So from the perspective of someone who treats the RPi as a kind of "mini Linux Desktop", most of your complaints don't really apply at all. But... --- The actual biggest problems with the lack of specs/dtb shit/"closed stuff" isn't when you want to treat it like a normal Linux machine with keyboard/usb/ethernet. That's easy and works today. You can get most of the desktop Raspberry Pi experience, including generic distro boot, today! It's when you want to treat it like an actual "embedded device" where you write custom drivers or poke GPIOs or use hardware features, or whatever. That's where the closedness sucks, but in that case, even if it sucks or there's no specs, there's normally no realistic x86 alternatives. Sure, you can buy a $100 x86 device in an RPi form factor with RAM and plug a keyboard into it, and it's OK if it uses 2x as much power at load, if you just want a mini desktop that is cool. But where's the $20 x86 device that has a shitload of I/Os I can use to interface with various peripherals of my choosing, with all the accompanying good stuff like good DAC/ADCs, GPIOs, camera support, eMMC? And where can I buy them? Where's the $5 RPi Zero alternative? Because the ODROID-H2+ is $120 USD, and doesn't even have GPIOs!

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

regularfry 6y ago

With pi's that last point is at least somewhat mitigated. The foundation has committed to supporting specific hardware for several years.

geerlingguy 6y ago
Heck, they still support the original Pis and A+; I just installed the latest version of Raspberry Pi OS on my A+ with 128 MB of RAM, and while it is slow, it works just the same.
- happycube 6y ago
  It helps that the pi zero hasn't been superseded yet, and probably won't be for a long time. (They've surprised me, heck, everybody, before though)
  - GeorgeTirebiter 6y ago
    The problem with the $ PiZero w/o WiFi or the $10 PiZero w/WiFi is you don't seem to be able to buy them in quantity. They are simply not 'available' to use in any sort of 'product', it seems.

throwaway894345 6y ago

> While they're somewhat compatible with standard Linux distro, in order to have full support, one needs to use the adhoc ARM distros. Maybe you mean something specific by "adhoc" or "full support" that isn't apparent to me, but Ubuntu has ARM distros today and I expect that ARM support is only going to get better as (1) ARM continues to make headway in the server space and (2) Apple Silicon pressures desktop/laptop OEMs to adopt ARM.

imtringued 6y ago
Just because Ubuntu has "ARM distros" doesn't mean those "ARM distros" have the necessary drivers needed to actually use all features of your SBC. The fact that Vulkan support in raspberry pi landed in 2020 should tell you something. Even the most well known SBC series is getting driver support at a glacial pace. When was the last time you waited for your x86 iGPU to get vulkan drivers?