SolidRun x86 Braswell MicroSoM Runs Linux and Full Windows 10, Destroys Raspberry Pi (betanews.com)
BetaNews has a report today about a company called SolidRun, which has announced an Intel Braswell-based MicroSoM. Unlike the ARM-powered Raspberry Pi, this is x86 compatible, meaning it can run full Windows 10. Plus, if you install a Linux distro, there will be far more packages available, such as Google Chrome, which is not available for Pi. Heck, it can probably serve as a secondary desktop, Brian with the site writes. From the report: At 53mm by 40mm, these new MicroSoMs provide unheard of design flexibility while also eliminating the headache of having to design complicated power-delivery subsystems thanks to its single power input rail design. SolidRun's Braswell MicroSoM also offers flexibility in RAM options, ranging from 1GB to 8GB configurations, and offers on-board support of eMMC storage up to 128GB. Its robust design and unsurpassed HD Edge surveillance, event detection, and statistical data-extraction capabilities makes it the platform of choice for mission-critical applications requiring guaranteed reliability," says Solidrun.It starts at $117, the website has more details on specifications.
Would you not want to run a real RTOS on an embedded system?
Orders of magnitude more expensive. This should be compared to a $115 dollar laptop or Android device, not a $35 embedded device.
Perhaps it's not really competition.
>Destroys Raspberry Pi
>It starts at $117,
Not for Windows 10 anything, but having this based on x86 certainly enables one to run not just standard embedded Linuxes, but just about every other good embedded OS that's there - Minix, QNX, Haiku, OS/2 and all other OSs that are out there.
Is this a 32 or 64 bit platform? Which CPU - Atom? What other chipsets for graphics and WiFi?
USB or PCI-E based e-net?
The pi's sheared usb for all sucks and can't even hit full 100/100 speeds.
I picked up 3 RasPi Zeros @ 5.00 Each.
512Mb RAM, 10/100 Ethernet, HDMI, Serial, SPI, I2C, PWM, for $5...
I can make it a USB Host, or a USB Slave. It runs whatever I want it to run.
I can run bare metal applications on it.
Or I can run a spyware laden, malware laden, resource hungry OS called Windows 10, on a device costing 117, with the OS costing another 119 on top of that.
Let me think about that.
The board itself, which starts at $117
and theres the non-starter. Intel has forgotten the purpose of the Raspberry pi isnt to outperform anything, its to provide affordable low power computing available for a wide array of applications. And FWIW if youre really that squeamish about linux, the Raspberry pi will run Windows 10 (albeit probably not much else after that.)
Good people go to bed earlier.
Comparing it with RPi is nonsense. Its a different and much more expensive category. You can buy 4x RPi3 same price. Heck, while you're about it you can buy a netbook if you spend a little more.
It has dual gig-ethernet, supports M.2 drives, and can include a metal case (heat sink). Some time ago I was looking for a small box to run pfSense - this would have been perfect.
Substantially more expensive computer is faster? You don't say...
Next you'll tell me that I can get larger hard drives just by paying more for them; or shovel more packets by telling my vendor to include 10gigE instead of the default gigE NIC.
Snark aside, it looks like they have a perfectly solid little x86 SBC there; but outperforming something that costs 1/3 to 1/4 as much as you do is 'occupying a different niche' not 'destroying'.
The first thing I did was look and see what it had for GPIOs with a small hope that it might even be at some level compatible with the RPi.
None? I might as well buy a cheap mini-itx board.
While I would love more horsepower for some projects I need GPIO's, I2C and SPI for interfacing.
This one's a non starter and certainly doesn't destroy the RPi and as others have pointed out it has no community support whatsoever.
SolidRun x86 Braswell MicroSoM Runs Linux and Full Windows 10, Destroys Raspberry Pi
It starts at $117
Well then it doesn't really destroy Raspberry Pi, then, does it?
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
A folding case and USB keyboard is $8 (designed for tablet use).
https://www.amazon.com/SANOXY-...
Instead of putting a tablet in that case, you can put a small monitor in there. Liliput is a well-known brand that sells monitors from 7-12" or so.
.
- cost: $117 --- fail
- runs full Windows 10 --- irrelevant
- significant (outstanding?) maker community support --- fail
.
So that's a minus 2.5 out of a possible 3. Not a fail, but an abundance of hype.
If your servers are Linux, you're probably using the CLI, a text console. In that case, just enable the serial console. Grub can use the serial console too. The BIOS can use the serial console on some motherboards. "Screen" is one handy way to connect to the serial console.
If your servers don't have serial ports, you can get a cable that is USB on both ends. It's basically two back-to-back USB/serial adapters.
If you Windows on your servers because you like to click on pretty pictures, that's a bit more difficult. If the machine boots fine, Windows powershell may work over a serial console, but if it's booted up fine you'd probably just use RDP over the network.
Windows 10 with display keyboard touchscreen touchpad about $100 from any good discount electronics
http://nextbookusa.com/product...
Android with display/touchscreen $37
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/di...
No wireless.
Antiquated headphone jack.
Lame!
Why *buy* one of those things, though? What's the advantage there? Surely you won't need to run your old DOS accounting program on it.
Ezekiel 23:20
So does this SoM have a detailed datasheet on how to interface and boot it or will that require a NDA like everything else that Intel releases? What about drivers, are they open source or binary blobs?
Just looking out for my freedoms.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
The point of RPI is to attach a breadboard to GPIO ports, experiment with sensors/servos and then solder up a project for personal use, or even ship a Kickstarter project.
This board does not have any GPIO ports, much less a massive support community. x86 vs ARM is irrelevant for this kind of custom code. You are not going to be running Microsoft Word or playing steam games on an embedded board.
If anything, an improvement on RPI would be better power management without sacrificing ability to develop software directly on a prototype device. Solar powered systems running on Linux would kick ass.
This doesn't seem to be competing with Raspberry Pi at all... no GPIO ports, 3 times or more the price. Of course it'll be better, albeit for a different purpose.
If you are going to compare to something, wouldn't it make far more sense to throw it against an Atom Cherry Trail CPU in something like a Kangaroo PC or something like the Gole1? Or even Intel Compute Stick?
If that's the bar for competing with a Raspberry Pi, try a $2.85 ESP32, or what ever that new competitor is that runs a Cortex M4.
Can't seem to block this tripe from the prolific manishs.
Yes, it is a good time to spend the money, before it becomes utterly useless. Fail to learn how the Great Depression worked and what it did to the Dollar, did we?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
That point being that not everything needs a full GUI interfaced OS to do it's job. More often than not monitoring and controlling 4 or 8 variables is made harder by trying to do it with a desktop/laptop/tablet OS.
Looks interesting... I've pre-ordered two (both cpu models, 4G) for DragonFlyBSD, we'll get it working on them. Dunno about the SD card, but a PCIe SSD would certainly work. BIOS is usually the sticking point on these types of devices. Our graphics stack isn't quite up to Braswell yet but it might work in frame buffer mode (without accel). We'll see. The rest of it is all standard intel insofar as drivers are concerned.
My network dev says the Gigabit controller is crap :-) (he's very particular). But for a low-end device like this nobody will care.
All the rest of the I/O is basically just pinned out from the Intel cpu. Always fun to remark on specs, but these days specs are mostly just what the cpu chip/chipset supports directly.
I'm amused that some people in other comments are so indignant about the pricing. Back in the day, those of us who hacked on computers (Commodore, Atari, TRS-80, Apple-II, later the Amiga, etc) saved up and spent what would be equivalent to a few thousand dollars (in today's dollars) to purchase our boxes. These days enthusiast devices are *cheap* by comparison. My PET came with 16KB of ram and a tape cassette recorder for storage, and I later expanded it to 32KB and thought it was godly.
-Matt
Does it support Intel Advanced Management Technology?
After all, you wouldn't want an embedded controller the NSA didn't have access to, would you? The terrorists might win!
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
DESTROYS Raspberry Pi! *
* Costs several times as much.
what a load of shit
* costs 4 times as much (157$)
* runs an x86 (fuck the monoculture)
* no gpio whatsoever
* who cares about windows 10 on embedded systems ??
* no info on power consumption...
The Raspberry Pi is popular for three major reasons -- it is small, inexpensive, and doesn't consume a lot of electricity.
Those are all good reasons to get a Raspberry Pi, but for me the top reason is because of the community that exists around the PI.
Anytime I have a question, or if I need to figure out how to do something new, there will be some clever friendly person who has either done it before and made their code available, or someone who will give me a pointer towards getting it done myself.
Every other Raspberry Pi killer I've seen touted around the place lacks that and so they don't "Destroy" the Raspberry Pi after all.
32bit UEFI support in anything other than Windows 8+ is terrible. Even if you get it to boot it's likely to need special drivers, which no one will bother making (thanks Intel!). This is no different from all the cheap Atom tablets and notebooks currently on the market, looks like a great Linux platform, except that it isn't.
Something priced over 50 times higher than the $5 Raspberry pi Zero is only a few times faster than it?
You simply cannot compare x86 IoT devices directly with ARM based chips without comparing:
- Static operation
- Power usage
- Bus types and compatibility
- Silicon die size (affecting price)
So far x86 devices have not been winning.
In this case you can only really compare this device with the Intel IoT devices which I believe offer more functionality for less price.
So this Slashvertisement only serves to google-cache the fact that this device loses to x86 IoT devices and absolutely cannot be compared to the Raspberry pi.
Make it $10 including the connection board and I'll have a second look.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
There is no excuse for "I cant buy one" except laziness.
You can even check if they are in stock in major suppliers here - http://whereismypizero.com/
Sure, you cant buy them in batches ( 1 per customer), but i got mine in Pimoroni and arrived in 2 days.
This destroys the Raspberry PI for 4Euros :
https://www.dlsweb.rmit.edu.au...
aaaaaaa
For a bit more money you can buy and equip a NUC and be done with it.
That's waaaay overkill. Heck, even an Arduino is way overkill for those applications. All you need is a very simple little 8-bit PIC with a couple of I/O lines and less than 100 lines of C.
Eat the rich.
You mean the board actually stood up, walked over to the Rasberry Pi standing nearby and crushed it to pieces? ...
What happend to normal sentences like "Runs XYZ benchmark 5 times faster than the Rasberry Pi using half the energy" or something like that?
Is this the effect the US political debate has on language? Probably.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
LattePanda ? http://www.lattepanda.com/
I'm currently considering one of these for a DSP/Synth project I am working on. Although that will still have a small squadron of smaller boards (including 'Pis) working with it.
I love the horsepower, memory potential, and especially the M2 connection of the SolidRun but, as you said, for my uses GPIO etc is a must
The zero is a marketing stunt.
The product is not available because the raspi foundation makes a loss on it. I would rather pay 30-50% more but have it available.
aaaaaaa
"Destroys Raspberry Pi" Really? They had to know this was BS when they posted it so obviously it was designed just to get the flames going. Sad!
You have already been given two links where it is available. Sure, it is a loss leader at many places, but that doesn't make in unavailable. Why do you insist it isn't available? Will it make you happy if I keep buying them for $5 or $1 or whatever and sell to you? I'll take your 50% markup.
Pricing is more... I can get a raspi for 10 dollars. Charging over 10x as much and claiming you compete in that market is an insult. Especially when it's definitely not 10x the performance.
For that money you can get a decent Android tablet or a Linux laptop. This device ought to be compared with those, not with a Raspberry Pi.
I'd love to see one of these little guys with six cores, dual nics, up to 16gb ram, and an external sata port. With an x86 based cpu they would make beautiful super cheap nodes for a private openstack cloud. Since people would be buying several of them and some companies might even considering building very large stacks on them the volume would allow them to be cheaper than this.
I was going to post something similar. I would point out that some Raspberry Pi fans will say that it's not a fair comparison. You should compare the Pi's $35 price to the price of . . . .
How much is that 12 TB or RAM again? And how many thousands of dollars is each single one of those processors again for that four socket board?
The real point being, that performance comparison of a Pi to something more expensive is probably not really meaningful. The Pi does something that fills a real need. That's why they sell so many of them.
This Solid Run board is an attempt for the Windows fanboys, or for Microsoft to say "me too!". Just like Windows 8 Phone, and Windows 8 Tablets. And we saw how well that worked out. Late to the game, and what do they bring to the game . . . windows.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Yes. With noise, as has always been the case. And yes again, the style and intensity and focus of the noise shifts with time.
/., for all anybody's criticisms, is still easily filterable by setting the minimum score for comments presented to you.
So set it to 5, and you'll be a bunny of higher happiness.
At launch (in 1983), an Apple //e with 68 Kilobytes of RAM, a single 140 Kilobyte floppy drive, and a monochrome 560x192 monitor was $2,000 (discounted from MSRP of $2,200). That's 4,832.27 in today's dollars.
The power of the raspberry pi isn't that it is cheap. There are $9 Arm systems these days. It is the fact that there's a large established community of people who are around to answer questions and blog about what they're up to. None of the Pi Killers have anything close to the momentum.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
...and an AMD 5350 destroys this thing, and a Core i7 destroys an AMD 5350, and a POWER8 destroys a Core i7...
At $160, it's in a completely different league than a Raspberry Pi 3.
rPi's CMOS is 3v, and TTL is 5v. OK, it's possible to connect on output (i.e. Neopixels) but officially not TTL.
Atari rules... ermm... ruled.