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64 Hacker Friendly Single Board Computers (linuxgizmos.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the best-of-class dept.

An anonymous reader writes: This year, we've seen some incredible price/performance breakthroughs in low-cost single board computers. LinuxGizmos has put together a compilation of 64 low-cost, hacker friendly SBCs that are all available in models that cost less than $200, with many well below $100, including Shenzhen Xunlong's $15 quad-core Orange Pi PC, Next Thing's $9 to $24 Chip, and the $5-and-up Raspberry Pi Zero. Processors range from low-end 32-bit single core ARM chips, to 64-bit ARM, x86, and MIPS parts, and with clock rates from 300MHz to 2GHz. This year even saw the arrival of low-cost SBCs based on octa-core processors, such as the $88 Banana Pi M3.

3 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. NOT hacker friendly. by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 4, Informative

    After 6 years with a SheevaPlug I decided to upgrade to a newer batch of 'hackable' ARM boards. Across the board they're terrible with driver and OEM support.

    Half are knockoffs of knockoffs made by some Chinese manufacturer. They run a special version uBoot version that is in violation of the GPL. They run "Linux" but what they don't tell you is it isn't a mainline version. It is half full of binary blobs and unsupported past when it was released, despite the board still being sold.

    I'm going to try out the Intel Edison next because I've always had good luck with Intel boards, they put development time into making working drivers. (Compare their GigE controllers vs Realtek).

    This should be "64 hacker friendly SBCs if your time is free and you enjoy being frustrated by stupid nuances"

    1. Re:NOT hacker friendly. by petes_PoV · · Score: 4, Informative
      So apart from the sweeping generalisations, would you care to substantiate some of those claims?

      Which SBCs, specifically.

      As for being "made by some Chinese manufacturer" - you've just described 90% of the world's consumer electronics. Most of which is excellent.

      --
      politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
  2. Luv these things by stabiesoft · · Score: 3, Informative

    I ended up using a beaglebone green to replace my pool controller. Analog I/O for temp sensing, cheap, low power and easy to use. I had some raspberries, but went beagle for the built in analog. I could have bought a external A/D, but these things are so inexpensive, figured I'd try the beaglebone to try another platform. I'm pondering replacing my irrigation controller next with either the beagle or raspberry. I guess time will tell how resilient the beaglebone is to being in an outside enclosure environment. Still given that the replacement board for my pool was crazy expensive, I could get a new beaglebone every year and still be ahead moneywise. And I ended up doing an android app to control it so now I can program the pool from anywhere.