
Raspberry PI alternative: Cubieboard 1Ghz 1GB RAM - nyrb
http://www.indiegogo.com/cubieboard?a=1662441
======
EwanToo
One interesting thing about the Cubieboard is the SATA port, otherwise it's
very similar to a lot of other ARM boards out there (e.g. Beagleboard,
Pandaboard, etc). This makes it much easier to stick a low power SSD on the
device, rather than rely on a hugely slow SD card.

What I'm looking forward to next are Cortex A15 boards, the first CPUs are
shipping (In the new Chromebook), so hopefully we'll start seeing them on
small hackable boards soon.

~~~
hermanhermitage
Another board is say:
[https://www.miniand.com/products/Hackberry%20A10%20Developer...](https://www.miniand.com/products/Hackberry%20A10%20Developer%20Board)

With WiFi. Other alternatives are at the same site.

I have a few Mali devices next up on the chopping block after I finish
reversing the VideoCore IV.

~~~
wladimir
_I have a few Mali devices next up on the chopping block after I finish
reversing the VideoCore IV_

Hehe. Reversing a GPU is a _lot of work_. From my experience it usually
involves zillions of commands, state bits that subtly change handling, and
different instruction sets for different kinds of shaders and other sub-
processors... (even figuring texture formats can be lots of work) I can't even
imagine starting such a project again, though it was fun, wish I'd still have
the time...

I wish you the best luck of course!

~~~
hermanhermitage
Wladimir, I respect your view here - I agree with everything you write. My
field of expertise is more ISA encodings, overall functional block
architecture and decompilers. Once I hold the encodings, I point at the blob
and say there is your source & specification. ie Binary blobs + ISA encodings
= specification to me.

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gregsq
I'm sort of amused that an outfit from Shenzhen China, perhaps the worlds
great manufacturing centre for options like this, is asking for US dollars to
make 1000 boards, when firms like ARMJISHU can knock ARM boards out in no time
and sell them cheap as chips.

There's nothing that special about this that I can see. And giving loaned
Chinese money back for free when they have such a massive comparative
advantage seems an exercise in market distortion to me.

~~~
wisty
Small innovative Chinese outfits lack capital. There's big, government
affiliated outfits with lots of capital, and outsourcing companies (like
Foxconn, which is Taiwan run), but not a lot of capital for bootstrapped
companies.

OK, I've heard that's changing, but it's not Silicon Valley.

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Nursie
This is kinda cool actually.

I had been looking at the ODROID-X (hardkernel.com) and various other single-
board machines for a while. Whilst this isn't particularly powerful (ODROID is
quad core exynos), it does have an advantage I haven't seen anywhere else -
SATA.

Does anyone know of any other boards that have a SATA connector?

~~~
nitrogen
The Marvell-based stuff (e.g. SheevaPlug, DreamPlug, D2Plug, OpenRD, CuBox)
mostly has SATA (not SheevaPlug) and gigabit Ethernet (though for some reason
the GuruPlug Display only has 100mbit). It just tends to be a bit pricier, and
mostly lacks an FPU or GPU.

I look forward to the day when I can get a Cortex A9 or A15 board with a USB
host good for the full 480mbit/s, SATA, and gigabit Ethernet.

~~~
Nursie
I had a sheevaplug about three years ago. I was hoping things had moved on a
bit since then...

I also look forward to that day. We seem to be at the stage right now that we
can have some but not all of those things. Soon, soon...

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subsystem
If you consider buying one, just don't assume it will be useful for your
application. Do some research first, especially when it comes to the gpu/vpu.

I recommend reading this page and its links:
<http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Allwinner_A10_devices> and
<http://linux-sunxi.org/Main_Page>

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adestefan
Realize that the A10 does not have mainline kernel support and part of that
reason is because the code is so bad no one wants to even try to get Linus to
add it.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
But it looks like this board uses the A8.

~~~
adestefan
The Allwinner A10 is a SoC that uses an ARM Cortex A8 as the CPU, a Mali 400
GPU, Ethernet, SATA, etc. Yes it's confusing. It's like calling a hypothetical
Intel Core based SoC the Foobar Core 10.

Apple called their ARM SoC the A4 and then Allwinner probably designated their
SoC the A10 to play off that marketing.

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sspiff
Are these by any chance built around the Allwinner A10?

The specs seem to match the dime-in-a-dozen Allwinner A10 Chinese
tablets/phones/set-top-boxes/...

I have 3 of these A10 devices, and the performance isn't that bad. It's also
not great, but it's sufficient for all the things I tried with it.

~~~
ConstantineXVI
The A10's right there in the photo...

~~~
sspiff
Oops! My bad, thanks for pointing it out. Well that explains the pricepoint
then :)

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nullc
This is good news— the rpi is really an embarrassing system. It is shockingly
slow compared to other small arm systems clock per clock. A lot of people seem
to be trying things on it that would be fine on almost any other arm SBC but
fail on rpi…

There are many alternatives which are much faster but none are within a factor
of two of the rpi's price, so people keep buying the rpi and walking away
disappointed.

~~~
stan_rogers
Somehow people keep missing the point: Raspberry Pi is meant to be a nearly-
disposable kids' learning toy first and foremost. The object of the game, from
the beginning, was to get a programming sandbox into as many small hands as
possible—in families that couldn't afford a "real" computer, or
couldn't/wouldn't allow kids to try potentially damaging things on the family
machine.

It's nice that it can, incidentally, play other roles, _but those other roles
are not it's purpose_. It's not an "embarrassing system"; low cost,
"universal" peripherals (common televisions as the "monitor", for example),
enough portability to get the unit to and from school are its primary
concerns. It's an OLPC for the western world, a BBC Micro reborn for the
modern age. Y'all rabbits might like these Trix, but they're for kids.

~~~
subsystem
"in families that couldn't afford a 'real' computer, or couldn't/wouldn't
allow kids to try potentially damaging things on the family machine."

How many of those families are going to buy a rpi, have the knowledge to teach
set it up and teach their kids, etc? What's going to get kids programming is a
really cheap "normal" computer, just like it always has.

~~~
stan_rogers
Schools were and are the primary target. Just go back and read the story
behind Raspberry Pi[1]. The point always was to get back to the days of the
BBC Micro and a general introduction to computing fundamentals (as opposed to
mere "using the applications" training) for British kids (although kids in
other places can benefit as well), based on the notion that broad exposure
would mean a larger cohort of people to draw upon as adults in the tech sector
(commercial and academic) in later life. Full-featured computers in schools
are expensive for this sort of task, and not everybody can take their work
home with them to expand upon it—or even just to do homework. At around the
price of a textbook, the Raspberry Pi makes that at least possible.

The low price, suggested curriculum, etc., are a big part of making it work.
Or is it your contention that computing should be restricted to people who can
afford a "proper" computer?

[1] <http://www.raspberrypi.org/about>

~~~
guiambros
Thanks Stan, for setting the record straight.

It's amazing how many people totally miss the point about R-Pi. There's so
much hate (here and in other forums) because the Pi is not fast enough, or
open enough, or supported enough, or available enough.

People don't realize that it was _never_ intended to be a replacement to your
desktop computer, or a completely open hardware platform, or widely available
at retailers, or a commercial system widely supported. The primary target are
schools and young developers, interested in learning. Honestly, kids don't
really care if the GPU is open sourced or not. But they'd love things like
this: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/freshers/raspberrypi/tutorials/os/>.

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fsiefken
I am looking for a portable i386 compatible chip&board instead of ARM for
running windows programs (wine doesn't work on arm), does anyone have tips?

~~~
michaelt
There's a few companies that make "pico-ITX" boards that run x86 processors
[1]. Mostly low powered chips like Atom, but you can get Core 2 Duo boards if
you've got the cash. Prices started around $300 last time I checked.

[1]
[http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/eng/meng/wmr/projects/uav/...](http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/eng/meng/wmr/projects/uav/photos/mountingthesensors/img_7234-raw-1600.jpg)

~~~
ojiikun
Does anyone know the exact model of board in that photo? Clicking around their
site yielded only images, and sadly little text.

~~~
michaelt
A Kontron something-or-other, sticker's on the USB port. Similar-looking
things (without the heatsink) here:
[http://uk.kontron.com/products/boards+and+mezzanines/embedde...](http://uk.kontron.com/products/boards+and+mezzanines/embedded+sbc/pitx+25+sbc/)

------
lee
Everytime one of these rPI-like boards list "Use it as your NAS" I get
disappointed to see that it only offers 10/100 Ethernet.

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ChuckMcM
I've looked at the Cubieboard in the past, its an interesting take.

What strikes me though about this, the Pandaboard, the Chumby, Etc, is that
one of the effects of the 'post PC' momentum shift is that people who were
building general purpose computers have switched to building these things
which are tailored more for browsing and content consumption, and perhaps
business content (documents, spreadsheets, reports) generation.

That shift has once again opened up the market for a general purpose hobbiest
computer. That is pretty refreshing to see.

------
agumonkey
Reflecting about all this, I find the rpi design curious. Most of the SoC is
wasted and impose heavy side effects (lan over capricious usb). The graphical
applications (video processing, etc) seems to be limited by what is already in
the GPU blob.

Honest question, isn't there more simple SoC (armv6 + basic 2d gpu) with sane
default and i/o chipsets ?

How much of the closed source binary is due to the GPU ?

With a simpler and open source system, I think it would have provided a better
learning substrate than what it is now.

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concsiecourses
Sorry if slightly OT but we organized a "Raspberry Pi's Impact on Hacking" Web
Show with forensics expert DJ Palombo. Thought might be of interest to y'all!

Here is the link - <http://www.concise-courses.com/infosec/20121106/>

Thanks Henry

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jaggs
A few other alternatives.

<http://www.redferret.net/?p=33596>

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protomyth
Looks nice, a little worried about how low some of the funding options were.

I do wish someone would build an ITX sized motherboard with SATA, actual ram
slots, and gigabyte network ports. Perhaps when the 64-bit version is more
available someone will.

~~~
alexkus
There are plenty of commercial ITX motherboards with those specs, i.e.
<http://www.mini-itx.com/store/~DH61DLB3> or <http://www.mini-
itx.com/store/~Z68-ITX-A-E> for dual gigabit LAN.

Or am I missing something? (Ah, you probably want ARM rather than x86[_64]).

~~~
andybak
The price.

~~~
pja
And the power consumption.

~~~
DannyBee
Yeah. My little pandaboard, if i'm not powering the USB ports at full bore,
doesn't take more than ~7 watts while doing full 1080p video decode of a movie
over the network.

The same on one of these ITX boards would take probably 25-30 watts, minimum.

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mtgx
If they are this late in the cycle, they should've gone with the Cortex A7 CPU
and Mali 450 GPU. They might even be cheaper than A8 and Mali400, since they
are targeted at the mass-market.

~~~
fn0rd
There is no SoC currently shipping that uses the A7 as the principal core.
It's also considerably slower than the A8 in meaningful ways.

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SeanDav
Really needs to be Raspberry PI compatible to take advantage of the growing
libraries.

~~~
Nursie
Really?

It surprises me that Pi compatibility is a criteria for stuff, though I know
it's popular. Are we talking pin-compatibility?

AFAICT the Pi is just another linux on a single board device. It's low cost
but otherwise fairly unremarkable.

~~~
davidw
I'm not even sure what "compatibility" means in this context. You can run
executables for one on the other? But you can swap out the OS on the Pi, so...
I'm just confused.

~~~
ivix
This kind of thing is what has really annoyed me about the Pi 'movement'.
"Raspberry Pi compatible" _means nothing_. It's a totally standard ARM based
linux computer, of which there are a huge (and growing) number.

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drivebyacct2
Don't fall for the Mali/A10. Constant, repeated disappointment.

