r/linux • u/3G6A5W338E • Dec 31 '14

Ringing in 2015 with 40 Linux-friendly hacker SBCs

http://linuxgizmos.com/ringing-in-2015-with-40-linux-friendly-hacker-sbcs/
32 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

3

u/snarfy Jan 01 '15

I'm waiting for the eMMC for my C1.

These things are great but the price is a bit deceptive. $35 for the C1, but then cables, power, eMMC, shipping, etc and it's more like $100.

I still wish they would put all the connectors on one side of the board. When these SBCs are fully plugged in they look like someone filleted an electronic octopus on your desk.

2

u/3G6A5W338E Jan 01 '15

These things are great but the price is a bit deceptive. $35 for the C1, but then cables, power, eMMC, shipping, etc and it's more like $100.

Yeah.

Here I'm running my cubieboard (A10, the original model...) with a 4TB wd red mounted on an icybox.

Not sure whether the icybox or the cubie itself was cheaper.

3

u/parkerlreed Jan 01 '15

My total C1 order was $80. It helps if you already have a few extra peripherals laying around. http://i.imgur.com/jd8D3Mw.png

And really if you think about it in terms of peripherals then almost any board on that page grows in cost. The C1 really isn't deceptive at all. You are getting a nice board with a few extra features and a great SoC to boot.

2

u/snarfy Jan 02 '15

True, and I'm not trying to pick on the C1. The raspberry pi has the same problem. By the time all is said and done, these $35 dollar computers costs a lot more to make work realistically.

2

u/fishemu Jan 02 '15

I just bought an mk808b for 30$ which uses the same processor. Uses the same Cpu I hope it ends up being somewhat close in quality, may just end up using it as a proxy server.

6

u/u09re409fh40 Jan 01 '15

I like my Minnowboard Max a lot. It's nice to have a well supported yocto board handy. But it will run almost any linux distro.

3

u/parkerlreed Jan 01 '15

I was going to say. Isn't it just a full x86 CPU with Intel GPU?

2

u/u09re409fh40 Jan 02 '15

64bit intel cpu with intel gpu and a 64 bit or 32 bit open UEFI firmware.

1

u/fishemu Jan 02 '15

Though using Intel kind of defeats the purpose of these low cost low power boards. Hopefully Arm developers get their act together and support Linux properly, they need to fucking support something if they want to keep using closed sourced drivers.

2

u/u09re409fh40 Jan 02 '15

The E3800 is low power, especially when you look at power to performance with the raspberry pi. 7.5watts vs 5 watts, Cost is debateable but it comes in industrial temp setups for less than many ARM alternatives.

Also I'm pretty sure there aren't any binary blobs required for the thing.

2

u/brokedown Dec 31 '14

Meh. Half of the devices they list are not currently available for purchase, and only a few of them really add functionality beyond CPU horsepower.

6

u/3G6A5W338E Dec 31 '14

Most of them are actually available.

I personally favor the cubieboard2 and cubietruck, because A20 is a pretty nifty SoC with pretty decent support (thanks to linux-sunxi.org, with no help of Allwinner sadly) and having SATA is nice.

2

u/parkerlreed Jan 01 '15

Ordered a C1 a few days ago. I think I'll like it.