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Meet VoCore2 Lite, a $4 Coin-Sized, Open Source Linux Computer (zdnet.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report on ZDNet:Four bucks buys a lot of hardware these days, and nothing highlights this more than a project like the VoCore2 Lite. VoCore2 is an open source Linux computer and a fully-functional wireless router that is smaller than a coin. It can also act as a VPN gateway for a network, an AirPlay station to play lossless music, a private cloud to store your photos, video, and code, and much more. The Lite version of the VoCore2 features a 580MHz MT7688AN MediaTek system on chip (SoC), 64MB of DDR2 RAM, 8MB of NOR storage, and a single antenna slot for Wi-Fi that supports 150Mbps. Spend $12 and go for the full VoCore2 option and you get the same SoC, but you get 128MB of DDR2 RAM, 16MB of NOR storage, two antenna slots supporting 300Mbps, an on-board antenna, and PCIe 1.1 support.
The Canadian mint put out a $4 CAD coin in 2009.
https://www.coinsunlimited.ca/canadian-proof-bu-commemorative-coins/2009-hanging-the-stockings-4-dollar
The original VoCore has been out for 2-3 years now, and other than maybe like 5 projects that various people have come up with in those intervening 2-3 years, the community surrounding it is dead as a door-nail, and it's going to be just as dead for the VoCore II.
The VoCore and VoCore II are made by some shitty Chinese company just trying to make a buck off the cheap embedded board market. Just look at the poor excuse for "documentation" that comes with the VoCore, rife with Chinglish and light on details. Their "How to develop for the VoCore on Windows" guide is what I'm assuming is the Chinese equivalent of a joke, with the first two steps being "Install VMware" and "Install Ubuntu as a VM via VMware", which is not exactly what I call "developing for the VoCore on Windows".
Just like these fly-by-night hacks did last time, they're shopping their advertisements around to just about every geek website that's out there, and just like they did last time, the moment the campaign is over they'll release their hardware, release a ridiculous excuse for "documentation", and then pretty much disappear into the night.
Moving beyond the company making it, the lack of a community, and lack of documentation, the hardware itself is also fragile as glass. On a whim I bought two VoCores some months ago, and managed to brick one within an hour. How? By having the temerity to try to set it up so that it used the wired ethernet interface on the dock board, rather than using its default, useless, functionality of a wireless bridge. I somehow managed to fuck up configuring it thanks to the scant documentation on exactly how to configure the damn thing, and now it doesn't so much as pull an IP from my router, so I can't actually shell into it to see what's wrong. The kicker? Despite having a micro-USB port on the dock, they didn't bother including a USB-TTL bridge chip on the dock, so I can't even try to unbrick the fucking thing that way without investing in a USB serial cable. Fuck that.
Fuck the VoCore, and fuck the VoCore II.
That is OK -- there is no $4 VoCore 2 either. Their shop shows it going for $14.99.
Maybe they meant that the shipping is only $4.
http://vocore.io/#store
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
What they don't tell you is how the software is. Is it up to date, or does it still run Linux 3.x? What Linux distros does it run? Can you run stock Ubuntu, or do you need some guy's custom build that's two years old and you can't apt-get upgrade?
I echo your sentiment. I love the idea of ARM SBCs and all, but the software-stack generally ranges from awful to I-wanna-gouge-my-eyes-out-in-frustration. I am personally aware of only the Raspberry Pis and C.H.I.P. running a modern, 4.4-series kernel. The H3-based Orange Pis are getting better, I can actually boot a mainline 4.9-series kernel on my OPi PC, but there's still a whole lot of work for the devs to do and no Mali-support is forthcoming.
My specific beef: It looks like the VoCore2 rans OpenWrt. Which version? Custom build that's updated every six months?
It runs a custom-version of Chaos Calmer. I have zero idea if they're planning to try and introduce their code upstream, though.
Also the VoCore2 Ultimate, which actually has USB & microSD ports like a RPi sells for $44.99
The "normal" VoCore2 is just a PCB with a chip on it.
http://vocore.io/v2u.html
One more detail: All product pages on store say:
Sources
Update at Nov.30
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
Not particularly, considering that it runs a customized version of OpenWRT Chaos Calmer, with sources available at https://github.com/Vonger/open...
This is the same SoC as the M1 3g/4g wifi router (a similiarly cool 6-12 dollar device that is a full fledged router the size of a bic lighter.)
In contrast the M1 only has 32 megs of ram and 4 megs of spi flash, but has the USB and ethernet stock, and a microusb connector for power.
This sound like a pretty cool device, but I haven't seen any actual mention of the PCIe 1.1 support: Does it have a desktop/laptop PCIe x1 connector board available? Can it handle REAL PCIe x1 devices? Can it be used with the usb port/ethernet so you could make it into a real system? (There are mini-PCIe to desktop PCIe x16 slot adapters available! Also 2-4 slot PCIe/PCI bridge boards which would allow a device like this to be a desktop replacement peripheral-wise.)
The biggest holdup on PC replacement boards is the lack of any form of PCIe, SATA, and (less so compared to modern laptops) socketed memory. Those three items and any one of these cheapo boards could become a desktop replacement. Get one with 4-8 gigs of ram, and it IS desktop replacement. Get it 32,64, or 128 gigs and it could run pretty much whatever you would want, so long as its io bus could keep up.
wtf is wrong with slashdot that this trash can't be removed, even automatically ?
Here's my taxonomy of storage:
NAS: File-based protocol access (SMB/NFS) with perhaps iSCSI block access. Largely locked to the LAN based on the nature of access protocols.
Private Cloud: Usually NAS plus some kind of HTTP/S access. May or may not include a Dropbox-type client for local synchronization. Largely limited to LAN by LAN/FW configuration itself, not the software, although I have seen some brain damaged web access components that would make use over the internet dumb or frustrating.
Private Cloud web accessible: The above, but with a hardware vendor service in the middle providing a broker service to access the device from non-LAN location.
Private Public Cloud: Yes, a contradiction in terms but a step above. Usually privately controlled hardware or VM accessible from the internet without reliance on third party broker services. Could be hosted at home, run on AWS, etc, but all software and OS is under user control.
Public Cloud: Third-party provided service, often only web accessible and with OS client for local file sync. Infrastucture is shared. Dropbox, Google Docs, etc.