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I would like more SBC options, rather than the solitary RPi right now. My sdcard shield popped off the RPi I have, and I had to resolder it back on. Two years
by bb88 4y ago
I would like more SBC options, rather than the solitary RPi right now. My sdcard shield popped off the RPi I have, and I had to resolder it back on. Two years ago, I would have just trashed it and bought another.
- bmlw 4y agoYou have so many options! I have Raspberry, Banana, Mango and Orange Pi boards sat here. NanoPi, Rock Pi, Radxa, Beaglebone etc all have alternatives available too.
- guyomes 4y agoAlso Olinuxino from Olimex, chosen [1] to host the solar-powered website low tech magazine [2]. [1] https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html#server https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html#serv... [2] https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/ https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/
- bb88 4y agoLoading octoprint on an RPi is a seamless experience today. Are other boards as seamless as the RPi?
- ephbit 4y agoAlso Odroid
- teraflop 4y agoI'm still bummed about the discontinuation of the H2. Every alternative that I've been able to find with comparable specs is at least twice as expensive.
- rvz 4y agoSo many options and alternatives from all of them, yet the Raspberry Pi has by far the most software support, technical support, documentation and hardware compatibility and updates compared to the alternatives. From the rest of the other boards it is just one kernel release (if you're lucky, 3 releases) and they have moved on to the latest SBC and dropped support and releases. The Raspberry Pi Foundation still continues to support older boards. It just seems that with the many Raspberry Pi users, the documentation and the ecosystem built around it seems to be its success rather than the technical specs.
- throwawaymaths 4y agoI suspect the high expense/unavailability of the Rpi is a result of supply chain issues and would affect other sbcs as well, am I wrong?
- bb88 4y agoMCU's are basically locked to a vendor currently. You choose a chip, make your design around it, and hope there won't be a shortage from that vendor, and it's high enough on the vendor's priority list to not hurt your product. If there was a RiscV chip that met a particular standard (x voltage range, y clock speed, same supporting circuitry and software), then we'd have multiple chip vendors creating the same part, and hopefully it would turn into a jelly bean chip.
- numpad0 4y agoI don’t see a standardized pin definition coming soon in something as complex as a Linux compatible SoC with DRAM interface - that isn’t a thing sometimes even across a single sub-class of products from a same company. Maybe there will be a gold standard of RISC-V SoC like there was the Intel 8086, and bunch of clones could show up. That was close to happening with ATmega32U, but ultimately the clones disappeared.
- a9h74j 4y agoMore likely in an SBC with only a few buses emerging? Advantage there could be to do your high-density routing and PCB mfg with a smaller trace-width etc process.
- inferiorhuman 4y agoHow is that different than with ARM? There are plenty of ARM MCUs out these days and it seems like ARM's defeated MIPS for the embedded space. But once you step away from the core ARM bits it's all proprietary.
- mrandish 4y agoAccording to public statements by the execs at Rpi, the availability issues are due almost entirely to unexpected new demand exceeding their planned production volume (which they claim was quite large and scaled up from previous gens). They report their suppliers have been delivering their parts orders on time and RPi is shipping the full volume of units they always intended for 2022. They are just getting bought up at a much higher rate than expected. They also say some of the issues in buying single units through online consumer retail channels is because RPi is prioritizing filling advance orders from volume integrators. I have no idea the accuracy of what they're saying but fulfilling advance commitments from volume integrators first makes sense as those are long-term customers who are counting on the orders to ship their own products. Shorting those orders would be fairly disastrous as it flag RPi as an unreliable supplier reducing future design wins.
- colonwqbang 4y agoThere is so much available beyond Rpi. I recently got one of these: https://www.pine64.org/rockpro64/ https://www.pine64.org/rockpro64/ It has four lanes of PCI express so you can connect a big NVMe SSD or whatever. In my testing it seems to run OK on only passive cooling.
- tryptophan 4y agoBut do any of them have software support? Most of these rpi knockoffs only ever release 1 kernel version and you are stuck on it forever.
- colonwqbang 4y agoI just run mainline Linux on the RockPro64, like I do on all my computers. It seems to work fine for my purposes, although I don't use every feature of the board so there could be some hidden problem I've missed. I agree that it would be a mistake to buy a wildcat board which needs a special patched Linux from the vendor. Mainline support, or no deal.
- Ardon 4y agoThe pine64 boards are supported by a few major arm Linux distros, i.e. manjaro arm. Other SBCs though...
- discardedrefuse 4y agoIt depends on the underlying chipset. A good place to start is by choosing devices with a mainlined chipset. https://linux-sunxi.org/Linux_mainlining_effort https://linux-sunxi.org/Linux_mainlining_effort And also, have a look at SBC's supported by Armbian. https://www.armbian.com/download/ https://www.armbian.com/download/
- sircastor 4y agoMaybe this is a feature. It would be a shame to trash a computer because it’s cardslot broke. Incidentally, I’ve been trying to repurpose a Pi Zero W I blew out the USB bus on. A bunch of people in my local group expressed interest, but each I contacted in turn said “give it to the next guy”