3 ms·

What is an example of a better board that I can get shipped to my home for under $50 USD?

by dfrey 14y ago

hosay123 14y ago
If all you want is USB, there are (seemingly hundreds of) Allwinner sticks available via Aliexpress, e.g. http://goo.gl/th1bO http://goo.gl/th1bO as low as $34, which is supported via the linux-sunxi port. Boards generally cost more, I've less information on that.
- dfrey 14y ago
  A board like the Pi is defined by these attributes (order irrelevant): Price Performance Exposed I/O Device Size Community Size I don't know of any board that beats the Pi on more than 3 of these attributes. The allwinner sticks you mentioned are comparably priced, but have a smaller development community and very limited I/O. If all you want is a little media player, I think they are a good choice though.
  - Fuzzwah 14y ago
    I have an R-Pi and an mk802. I run linux on both. While the mk802 is faster for most general things (compiling, serving web pages, etc) the R-Pi beats it as a media player due to the fact the mk802 video drivers haven't been released. http://liliputing.com/2012/07/allwinner-pledges-support-for-xbmc-media-center-for-mk802-mele-a1000-other-inexpensive-android-devices.html http://liliputing.com/2012/07/allwinner-pledges-support-for-...
  - devcpp 14y ago
    I believe most people would like a cheap and small board to use it like they would use a regular computer: high-level development, media player, various "apps", small home server. Clearly, for these people, performance/price is the first and foremost criterion. If it works like it's supposed to, it's a done deal. As for lower level development, you are probably right, few boards can claim to beat the Pi.
  - koralatov 14y ago
    I'd disagree that the order of those is irrelevant. Far and away the two most important ones are `Price' and `Community Size'. If it cost three times as much, the RPi wouldn't have been such a hit; if the community of users was tiny, it wouldn't matter how cheap it was because it wouldn't have critical mass. The Raspberry Pi managed to get out cheap enough and with enough support to make it a runaway success, which is why we now face a glut of similar machines.
  - davidw 14y ago
    The community is pretty big though for all of these kinds of things though, isn't it? There are a lot of Linux users out there.
  - gbog 14y ago
    I think the naked board aspect of the Pi is another relevant attribute.
- cnxsoft 14y ago
  The stick you link to is A10s, I'm not sure it's well support by sunxi-linux at the moment. For Linux support, better stick to A10 dongles which cost about the same.

What is an example of a better board that I can get shipped to my home for under $50 USD?

by dfrey 14y ago

What is an example of a better board that I can get shipped to my home for under $50 USD?

If all you want is USB, there are (seemingly hundreds of) Allwinner sticks available via Aliexpress, e.g. http://goo.gl/th1bO http://goo.gl/th1bO as low as $34, which is supported via the linux-sunxi port. Boards generally cost more, I've less information on that.

dfrey 14y ago
A board like the Pi is defined by these attributes (order irrelevant): Price Performance Exposed I/O Device Size Community Size I don't know of any board that beats the Pi on more than 3 of these attributes. The allwinner sticks you mentioned are comparably priced, but have a smaller development community and very limited I/O. If all you want is a little media player, I think they are a good choice though.
- Fuzzwah 14y ago
  I have an R-Pi and an mk802. I run linux on both. While the mk802 is faster for most general things (compiling, serving web pages, etc) the R-Pi beats it as a media player due to the fact the mk802 video drivers haven't been released. http://liliputing.com/2012/07/allwinner-pledges-support-for-xbmc-media-center-for-mk802-mele-a1000-other-inexpensive-android-devices.html http://liliputing.com/2012/07/allwinner-pledges-support-for-...
- devcpp 14y ago
  I believe most people would like a cheap and small board to use it like they would use a regular computer: high-level development, media player, various "apps", small home server. Clearly, for these people, performance/price is the first and foremost criterion. If it works like it's supposed to, it's a done deal. As for lower level development, you are probably right, few boards can claim to beat the Pi.
- koralatov 14y ago
  I'd disagree that the order of those is irrelevant. Far and away the two most important ones are `Price' and `Community Size'. If it cost three times as much, the RPi wouldn't have been such a hit; if the community of users was tiny, it wouldn't matter how cheap it was because it wouldn't have critical mass. The Raspberry Pi managed to get out cheap enough and with enough support to make it a runaway success, which is why we now face a glut of similar machines.
- davidw 14y ago
  The community is pretty big though for all of these kinds of things though, isn't it? There are a lot of Linux users out there.
- gbog 14y ago
  I think the naked board aspect of the Pi is another relevant attribute.
cnxsoft 14y ago
The stick you link to is A10s, I'm not sure it's well support by sunxi-linux at the moment. For Linux support, better stick to A10 dongles which cost about the same.