Atom-Based JaguarBoard To Take On Raspberry Pi (hothardware.com)

MojoKid writes: The tiny single-board PC movement that's leading the Internet of Things (IoT) market is largely dominated by ARM-based processors, and for good reason — they're cheap, low power and capable. However, what if you prefer to work with the x86 architecture? JaguarBoard looks strikingly similar to Raspberry Pi, which is arguably the most popular single-board mini PC. But unlike Raspberry Pi, JaguarBoard allows users to develop for x86, courtesy of its Intel Atom Z3735G (Bay Trail) foundation. The chip is a quad-core part clocked at 1.33GHz to 1.83GHz with 2MB of L2 cache, offering a fair amount of horsepower for IoT applications. In addition to an Atom processor, JaguarBoard also boasts 1GB of DDR3L memory, 16GB of eMMC storage, three USB 2.0 ports, 10/100M LAN port, HDMI 1.4 output, SDIO 3.0 socket, two COM ports, four GPIO pins, and audio ports. It's an interesting device that you could use strictly as a mini PC for general purpose computing, as an embedded system, a learning or research tool, or for whatever DIY projects you can conjure up. It's not the only hobbyist-appropriate x86 board, but those specs are pretty good for $45.

Comments

The RPi's "secret weapon"

[petes_PoV]

Is its following, community and wide range of available software.

Without something comparable, all the SBCs in the world amount to very little. For example, consider the Orange Pi. It's based on a different architecture, it uses a different boot-up process. Sure, it runs Linux, it's probably hardware compatible up to a point, it's cheaper: $15 compared to what? $30 for a RPi (I'm not up to date on US dollar prices). Has it taken the world by storm? No. Can you buy it without sending your money to China and waiting 1 - 2 months? Definitely not.

What it, and all the other SBCs, lack is the ease of use. The wide range of almost-working software. The examples to create your own almost-working software. The documentation about what almost works and the "experts" (those people who can make TWO LEDs flash) who can and will answer questions - preferable with correct answers.

Re:The RPi's "secret weapon"

[goombah99]

Yep. I wasted $20 on an Orange Pi PC. Official distro would not boot, eventually found an unofficial on that would boot linux. Only ran on one of it's CPUs it looks like. And not much support for GPIO modes like SPI. it would not work with any of the bog standard monitors I owned. Did get it to work on an HDMI TV but only in certain modes. Problems with KEy boards. Would not recognize some SIM cards despite their meeting specs.

Sure I could make it work, but would I develop for it? no because if I came back a year later I'd probably fiund anything I created would not work on their unsupported releases and there would be a newer board out. With Rpi I can be productive imediately and know I have path forward for anything I make.

Re:The RPi's "secret weapon"

[DCFusor]

Yup - rather than mod up an already +5, thought I'd chime in myself. It's the community, and the existing popularity - the network effect, that makes the pi a win. I tasked myself with designing a "LAN of things" for my off-grid homestead, intended to last, well, forever - as long as I'll live. LAN because security, and my life depends on Neuman's little helpers. Will I be able to get a replacement for an also-ran that will go off market the instant it's not a huge success, as has happened many times from this source already? I'm not going to count on it.
Tell me again what advantage there is in X86 if I'm not going to use assembler? Anything running a modern opsys - any of them - will have "issues" doing real time hard-deadline stuff, because the opsys will preempt your code now and then to do its thing - which is why I hang an Arduino Uno or a Teensy off most of the Pi's in my setup - the hardware support for little fiddly bit-bang stuff stinks on all these class of boards, but linux (well, it's all there is, but I'd have chosen it anyway) - and its apps - from NGINX to MySQL, to...you name it, absolutely rocks on a pi.
It's a total no-brainer if I might want to have a hot spare available well down the road. If not new - so many have been sold I'd bet there's even a thriving used market by the time I'd need one.
I don't sell anything, I give what I develop away - GPL or just copyleft, I have no reason to care. Interested people might want to check out my forums under software to see some of what I've managed so far along the LAN of things lines. I like to say that surviving off-grid is actually the oldest profession - you have to be alive to do that other one that claims to be the oldest, after all ;~).
I have nothing against Intel - all my regular PC's are intel, and I like them - including the NUCs (I'm posting from a Haswell one with 2tb of spinner and 500gig of SSD right now). It's not the point, the point is - will they abandon this if it doesn't make money fast? Track record speaks for itself.

Missing Stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Missing:

-No commercially available case
-No SPI port - [besides sdio, not accessible]
-No secondary i2c port
-All of "4" gpios - not nearly enough

this is a great XBMC box, but good for little else.

Re:Not a Raspberry pi competitor.

[Anonymous Coward]

And do any of those solutions you bring up involve x86? That is the main point for this...

$65 now, how's TDP?

[4wdloop]

The $45 and later $50 was an early kickstarter deal. It's $65 now (or $500 for 10).
1GB ram and 16GB flash makes it a non-windows worthy at the moment (don't even bring up the Win10 IoT gimmick).

The 4 core Atom is a good CPU with a decent GPU (for a small SoC).
But how does this board's TDP compare to Pi or BBB?

Re:Not a Raspberry pi competitor.

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean? Linux is already available on ARM, Windows isn't. If you just want Linux, you would be better off with one of the more common ARM boards.