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Unfortunately the software support seems seriously lacking for a lot of these RPi competitors, I'd be reluctant to get one without seeing a sizeable community b

by cs02rm0 12y ago

Unfortunately the software support seems seriously lacking for a lot of these RPi competitors, I'd be reluctant to get one without seeing a sizeable community behind it. Parallela looks to be another interesting alternative.

Nursie 12y ago
Find something that runs a 'normal' distro like debian. Have a generic but tiny machine. Why would you need a specific hardware community?
- zhemao 12y ago
  The RPi can run "normal" distributions in a sense, but all ARM boards need some degree of software customization because there is a lot less standardization in the interfaces to hardware peripherals. x86 CPUs have a standard interface called PCI with which they can dynamically probe what sort of peripherals are attached to them. ARM CPUs don't have such an interface, so connections to peripherals have to be configured in the kernel at compile-time.
  - Nursie 12y ago
    Well aware of this! But once you have a distro with suitable kernel, again, why would you need a board-specific community?
    - zhemao 12y ago
      The kernel isn't the only thing. What about drivers? Getting random hardware peripherals to work with a single-board computer is not always straightforward. A larger community means there is more documentation out there on how to get things working.
      - Nursie 12y ago
        But once it's a peripheral the drivers are loaded as modules and it doesn't matter what the board is ... ? Sorry, just don't really get it. Been running debian on (mostly headless) ARM boards for about a decade now and I don't really grok why a community around a particular board is that useful. Once you have a system you have a system...
deleted 12y ago
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rjsw 12y ago
At least the main CPU on the Parallela has a big company supporting it, Xilinx.
stevekemp 12y ago
I have to say I've been really impressed by the Cubox-i products. It's the first one I've used consistently and easily for several things. (Mostly using it as a media streamer, where on-board wifi is a real plus.)

by cs02rm0 12y ago

Nursie 12y ago

Find something that runs a 'normal' distro like debian. Have a generic but tiny machine. Why would you need a specific hardware community?

zhemao 12y ago
The RPi can run "normal" distributions in a sense, but all ARM boards need some degree of software customization because there is a lot less standardization in the interfaces to hardware peripherals. x86 CPUs have a standard interface called PCI with which they can dynamically probe what sort of peripherals are attached to them. ARM CPUs don't have such an interface, so connections to peripherals have to be configured in the kernel at compile-time.
- Nursie 12y ago
  Well aware of this! But once you have a distro with suitable kernel, again, why would you need a board-specific community?
  - zhemao 12y ago
    The kernel isn't the only thing. What about drivers? Getting random hardware peripherals to work with a single-board computer is not always straightforward. A larger community means there is more documentation out there on how to get things working.
    - Nursie 12y ago
      But once it's a peripheral the drivers are loaded as modules and it doesn't matter what the board is ... ? Sorry, just don't really get it. Been running debian on (mostly headless) ARM boards for about a decade now and I don't really grok why a community around a particular board is that useful. Once you have a system you have a system...

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

rjsw 12y ago

At least the main CPU on the Parallela has a big company supporting it, Xilinx.

stevekemp 12y ago

I have to say I've been really impressed by the Cubox-i products. It's the first one I've used consistently and easily for several things. (Mostly using it as a media streamer, where on-board wifi is a real plus.)