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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.
The problem with the Orange Pi and many other inexpensive systems is that they lack mainline Linux support. AllWinner just doesn't seem to be interested in investing the time, effort and money to make it happen.
With these types of systems you may be able to find and boot a relatively new kernel (ie. 3.8 or later), but even if you manage that you find yourself stuck in time as the rest of the Linux community and API's continue to progress. I have clients that have chosen to use hardware only supported by a hacked 2.6.35 Linux kernel and they fail to realize the enormous effort it takes to get newer applications and protocols working in such an environment -- if it is possible at all. Not to mention the security issues of not being able to track the latest software versions.
It's a shame because the hardware is perfectly fine, but with the systems I own and manage, I want to deal with manufacturers that have at least a 5 year horizon for software support with regards to the hardware they produce rather than 5 months which seems typical of the cheap systems out of China.
I'm intrigued by these Intel based systems if they can indeed run generic mainline Linux kernels. If so, it will be well worth the $30 or more price premium.
I don't know of a $45 Amazon tablet that can be a standalone off the shelf x86 Ubuntu system with performance comparable to a netbook which can host VMs running Ubuntu Snappy Core for IoT applications. Since the JaguarBoard also has I2C, COM and GPIO ports, it can in some cases be a replacement for an RPi, depending on the number of units to be deployed in production, and the profit margin and TCO of the target solution.
If you want that, it's very important to make sure the Atom-based system is actually a PC architecture system with a normal PC or EFI BIOS. Some of these Atom systems-on-chip have all the same drawbacks as ARM systems-on-chip, namely obscure bootloaders and binary drivers that were hacked into one version of the Linux kernel by some chip vendor. They will never be able to receive a normal Linux distribution to replace the firmware.
In a moment of carelessness I bought an Atom Z2480-based smartphone thinking the x86 chip was going to make tinkering easier in the future. I have no complaints about the performance of the device as a black-box appliance. However, it is so niche that there is no community really hacking firmware for it, and I don't have enough spare time to do all of that myself.