
The ASUS Tinker Board is a compelling upgrade from a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ - geerlingguy
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2018/asus-tinker-board-compelling-upgrade-raspberry-pi-3-b
======
dchest
Some more cheap SBCs from my bookmarks:

\- BananaPi (Allwinner, MediaTek): [http://www.banana-
pi.org/](http://www.banana-pi.org/)

\- Le Potato (Amlogic) and Renegate (Rockchip):
[https://libre.computer/](https://libre.computer/)

\- NanoPi (Samsung, Allwinner) :
[http://www.friendlyarm.com/index.php?route=product/category&...](http://www.friendlyarm.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=69)

\- OLinuXino (open hardware, Allwinner A20, A64, etc, iMX, Ralink):
[https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/](https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/)

\- Odroid (Amlogic, Samsung):
[http://www.hardkernel.com/main/main.php](http://www.hardkernel.com/main/main.php)

\- OrangePi (Allwinner): [http://www.orangepi.org/](http://www.orangepi.org/)

\- Pine64 (Allwinner) and Rock64 (Rockchip):
[https://www.pine64.org/](https://www.pine64.org/)

~~~
jiggunjer
Any of those x86? or is that mutually exclusive with "cheap"?

~~~
rasz
$20
[https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-04W1431-ThinkPad-X220-i3-231...](https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-04W1431-ThinkPad-X220-i3-2310M-2-1GHz-
DDR3-Laptop-Motherboard/382431381403)

$30 [https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X220-Motherboard-
FR...](https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X220-Motherboard-
FRU-04W3287-w-i5-2520M-2-50GHz-CPU/322591520726)

~4-10x Raspberry pee 3 speed, SATA, pcie, 1Gbit ethernet, battery backup. Can
get them as low as $10 with one USB port broken (either mechanical or fried).

~~~
michrassena
This is an interesting option. Is it possible run that bare motherboard
attached to a compatible power supply and nothing else? I don't see heat sinks
on the first link, or RAM, or storage on either.

~~~
rasz
1GB ddr3 sodimms are pretty much free/garbage(friends, IT at work) due to
being outdated and too small for anything, or $4 on ebay including shipping if
you cant be bothered to ask around.

Those were just first random links from ebay, you can get better deals if you
search harder, for example EU $15 [http://allegro.pl/org-sprawna-plyta-glowna-
lenovo-x220-core-...](http://allegro.pl/org-sprawna-plyta-glowna-
lenovo-x220-core-i5-gw-fv-i7043900717.html) whole lower case +wifi +bt
+cooling, one usb mechanically broken (out of 3 sockets, 9 more usb available
if you solder directly to motherboard in strategic places like
camera/mpcie/fingerprint/expresscard/dock connectors). Thinkpads can boot from
SD card just like raspberry pee. You boot without keyboard by shorting one pin
on keyboard/dock/debug connector.

did I mention full schematic?
[http://plan9.stanleylieber.com/hardware/thinkpad/x220/x220.s...](http://plan9.stanleylieber.com/hardware/thinkpad/x220/x220.schematics.pdf)

mostly open source firmware is also available
[https://www.coreboot.org/Board:lenovo/x220](https://www.coreboot.org/Board:lenovo/x220)

~~~
michrassena
Thank you for your reply. I made some off-topic comment a couple of months ago
on HN about the lack of inexpensive, full x86 compatible SBCs. This gets close
to the mark, especially if I can run the bare motherboard or something close
to it.

As an aside, the schematics really take me back to a moment in the late 1980s.
Radio Shack sold Tandys and TRS-80s at one point, and I remember an especially
thick series of binders full of the system schematics for one (or some) of the
computers they sold. I was too young with no money of my own then to buy them,
and now I really wish I knew what that was so I could find it on eBay. Little
did I know that was the end of an era, and not something I'd see the likes of
again until today.

------
userbinator
For something called the "Tinker Board" you'd expect there to be lots of
documentation, and for the RK3288, it does not disappoint:

Datasheet: [http://opensource.rock-
chips.com/images/4/4e/Rockchip_RK3288...](http://opensource.rock-
chips.com/images/4/4e/Rockchip_RK3288_Datasheet_V2.2-20170301.pdf)

Technical Reference Manual:
[http://rockchip.fr/RK3288%20TRM/](http://rockchip.fr/RK3288%20TRM/)

This is on par with what TI offers for its OMAP series, and a great deal
better than anything Broadcom has ever released for its RPi SoCs.

I remember around a decade or so ago, Rockchip was one of the main producers
of PMP SoCs, mainly the RK26xx and RK27xx series (Actions was the other
popular one), and there was a community around firmware-modding those PMPs,
including, appropriately enough, porting RockBox to run on them. It's
interesting to see them "growing up" in the market.

~~~
pknopf
4k60p too!

I'm working on a simply Yocto image that will autoplay a music video. It will
serve as a nice test camera source for the medical device recorders I develop.

[https://github.com/pauldotknopf/rockchip-camera-
source](https://github.com/pauldotknopf/rockchip-camera-source)

I still got to work out some kernel panics, but when it's done, I can just dd
an image to an SD card. It beats the $10,000 medical camera I currently use :)

I am currently using a Yocto image for Raspberry Pi for 1080p60.

[https://github.com/pauldotknopf/raspberry-pi-camera-
source](https://github.com/pauldotknopf/raspberry-pi-camera-source)

~~~
ggg9990
What camera do you use with the Tinker?

~~~
pknopf
Tinker only does 4k30, I need 4k60. I'm currently using a RaspPi for 1080p60,
but I am configuring the ROCK64 now.

Also, in case you misunderstood, I'm not using a camera _with_ these devices,
I am using these devices _as_ a camera. I plug the HDMI out directly into my
capture device to test capture/rendering/encoding/etc. Previously, I had to
use a real camera and point it at a move to get some nice motion and color.
Now, I just power on my RaspPi and use the HDMI out. Our assembly line now
also uses them to burn in our devices.

~~~
BuffaloBagel
I think you mean to say you are using these devices to simulate a camera?

~~~
jacquesm
OP is probably talking about something like this:

[http://www.lcdracks.com/racks/DLW/V-SG4K-HDI-signal-
generato...](http://www.lcdracks.com/racks/DLW/V-SG4K-HDI-signal-
generator.php)

------
dtx1
I think the main issues with all of these rasbi alternatives is the software.
As ... quirky ... as the rasbi is, the software support and optimisation is
excellent. There are several speed comparisons on youtube where the rasbi
beats a lot of the competition through sheer software optimisation. Honestly,
without complete Upstream Kernel support and Open Sourcing of all necessary
drivers, none of these Boards is really useful.

~~~
StudentStuff
Allwinner based boards have mainline kernel support for most features, they're
one of a handful of vendors that has mainline support (primarily due to
community efforts). I personally like the OrangePi boards due to price &
reliability, easy to set and forget without worrying about mSD corruption.

[http://linux-sunxi.org/Main_Page](http://linux-sunxi.org/Main_Page) is pretty
useful for a list of boards and info.

~~~
pritambaral
That hasn't been my experience during the design our last product. Allwinner
was the vendor we had to pass on because their then-best-offering (H5) had
poor mainline support and fragile, crappy code in the kernel dump. We decided
to go with the slightly more expensive RPi 3B precisely because it had both
usable mainline support and the handful of patches in the RaspberryPi
Foundation's kernel were much better written and maintained.

~~~
StudentStuff
We use H3 based boards, but the H5 seems to be fairly mature. I know its been
under heavy development wrt mainline kernel support for the last year, might
want to take a peek at the status matrix: [https://linux-
sunxi.org/Linux_mainlining_effort#Status_Matri...](https://linux-
sunxi.org/Linux_mainlining_effort#Status_Matrix)

~~~
pritambaral
H3 was already quite old back when we looked. The support offered by Allwinner
for old chips (like the H3) back then was basically "If you're buying a ton,
sure we'll support!", which was very off-putting.

H5's mainline support is still lacking in key areas. I2C, I2S, and cpufreq are
deal-breakers for our product. Of course, combined with the fact that it will
soon be out of support for a not-huge-buyer like us, it is out-of-question.

The status of their latest offering, the H6, in that matrix shows how bleak it
was when we were looking at H5 for our board design. It was when the latest
release of Linux was 4.4. You can see how few H5 features were supported with
4.4, almost exactly like how few are supported on the H6 today.

~~~
StudentStuff
Sure, none of these chips are new, and the older models (which are easily &
cheaply accessible) have mainline support. I wouldn't expect jack from
Allwinner besides their crummy kernel 3.4 branch, but that is the beauty in
mainline support, you aren't limited to what Allwinner supports!

~~~
pritambaral
> Sure, none of these chips are new, and the older models (which are easily &
> cheaply accessible...

The then-older chips were not available with the future volume we needed,
unless we increased our volumes a few times. We had little choice but to build
on their newer chips for the volume bracket we fell into. Perhaps the
situation has changed in two years.

> I wouldn't expect jack from Allwinner besides their crummy kernel 3.4
> branch, but that is the beauty in mainline support, you aren't limited to
> what Allwinner supports!

You can see how that is off-putting, especially when other vendors (e.g., the
Raspberry Pi Foundation) themselves support the latest LTS (and non-LTS)
kernel with maintained patches, and upstream their patches. And their code is
not utter garbage. New RPis have a much easier time getting mainlined
precisely because of these reasons.

~~~
makomk
I'd have thought they'd still be better than the chip in the Pi, which last I
checked wasn't available at all to anyone but the Pi Foundation (and the
proprietary bootloader license didn't allow you to run it on anything non-Pi
anyway).

~~~
StudentStuff
The licensing and supply for the RasPi were pretty off-putting to us. Sure, we
aren't making a custom board, but I don't want to be held captive to a single
supplier that can stop producing boards at any time, whether that is due to a
lack of chips or a lack of desire.

~~~
pritambaral
We were afraid of that too. But Allwinner wasn't willing to give us any
guarantees they'd even continue to make the H5 two years later. Nor was the H5
backwards compatible with either of its predecessors H3 and A64, giving us
more reason to worry about the future.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation (and Broadcom, in contract partnership), on the
other hand, had a proven track record of both continuing to manufacture RPis 1
and 2 and to maintain backwards compatibility when putting out new RPi SoCs
and boards.

Perhaps the situation with Allwinner has changed now. Perhaps they're willing
to support their products for longer for smaller clients. We'd have to look
into that again. But, of course, without mainline support anytime soon (and
the quality of their past code doesn't help a bit) it's very hard for us to
actually build a good product with it.

------
steeve
There are plenty of boards that are much more powerful than the RPi and have
comparable price (ODROID-C2 comes to mind). But the devil is in wether or not
they run the mainline Linux kernel.

I have several ODROID-C2 that I have replaced with RPis because of the poor
hardware support (Amlogic kernel was way late at the time, may still is).

Stick to mainline.

~~~
BlackLotus89
I got my odroid c2 running with the rc kernel for a while now. There were some
problems at first, but it now runs my home automation and DHCP server without
a hitch. I'm running archlinuxarm btw but I will soon try voidlinux as well on
it

(I tried kodi as well and it kinda could play h256 in software, but I now
stick to my raspberry pi as a media center)

~~~
toopsss
You’ve gotta mean hardware. There is no way that arm chip could do h265 at any
useful speed. The amlogic in the c2 can do hardware h265 (not hdr) and it
works with Kodi. I use one this way and have been overall pleased with it
though especially since I didn’t buy the board for this in the first place. It
was a repurpose. I would only get something with 10 bit these days if media is
the primary concern.

~~~
BlackLotus89
Nope I meant software I don't think h265 hardware decoding is in mainline yet
(could be wrong thought)

And yes I explicity tested software decoding and my 720p sample played without
noticeable delay/framedrop and 1080p was uhm kinda running.

------
andrewstuart
Whether or not ever more powerful Raspberry Pi computers is a good thing
depends on why you are using them.

If you're wanting to put it to some practical application then probably more
power is better.

If, like me, it's a hobby, and you enjoy the idea of tiny machines, and the
challenge of pushing a computer to do things a resource constrained
environment, then tiny and powerful machines like RPi that can run full Linux
distros are no more interesting than any other computer. There's nothing
particularly interesting about loading and running Linux.

So for the hobbyist wanting to be challenged, tiny machines/CPUs like the
esp8266 and esp32 are where the fun is really at.

It's a strange inversion because for 40 years I've always found that the most
interesting computer is one that is more powerful than anything else - not so
now when pursuing that old school feel.

~~~
vardump
> So for the hobbyist wanting to be challenged, tiny machines/CPUs like the
> esp8266 and esp32 are where the fun is really at.

While I agree with you, ESP32 is over 1000 times more powerful than C64 and
has more RAM than unexpanded Amiga 500. (Can't wait when my ESP32 arrives in
mail soon. :-))

Doom for ESP32 (running from RAM connected over SPI of all things...!):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb_JFDa0AIo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb_JFDa0AIo)

~~~
ahazred8ta
re: your earlier comment about lightweight embedded crypto libs,
[https://github.com/GaloisInc/gec](https://github.com/GaloisInc/gec) is an
example

~~~
vardump
Thanks.

------
watsocd
Our IoT service uses the RPi2. We will move to the RPi3 when our stock runs
out.

In our B2B application, the Pi's are just headless data collectors and all C
code and data normally runs in RAM with the SSD card only written to as a
backup if the device loses Internet connectivity (rare). The SSD card's system
partition is configured as read only and we have had no problems with data
corruption.

I think many people are trying to use these small computers for things that
were not intended. The RPi's are cheap, well supported, and more than powerful
enough for the price. If you need more power, spend more on some of the other
options or step up to a full computer.

------
sandGorgon
what kind of projects does the Raspberry Pi shine in which a 35-50$ phone cant
do ? let's say this one - [https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3000mAh-Homtom-
HT16-5-0-inch...](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3000mAh-Homtom-
HT16-5-0-inch-3G-Smartphone-MTK6580-Quad-Core-1GB-RAM-8GB-ROM-
Wakeup/32814472811.html)) running Android 6.0 in a 1GB RAM package. You have
access to battery, GPS, wifi, USB, acclerometer and a display out of the box
(which you typically pay extra for on rpi). And obviously... Android.

P.S. remember Android 6.0 has COSU mode to set your device in a single-purpose
single-app mode
([https://developer.android.com/work/cosu.html](https://developer.android.com/work/cosu.html))
just like the rpi3. Which has the pleasant side-effect that you can manage a
ton of these devices using a central enterprise-grade management system.

In addition, you can build custom hardware that interfaces with Android in a
standard way (the AOA protocol) -
[https://source.android.com/devices/accessories/custom](https://source.android.com/devices/accessories/custom).
Which makes doing a hardware startup prototyping easier on the android
platform than rpi.

Is the rpi (or the Asus Tinker Board) merely a consequence of what was
possible at a particular price point some time back ?

~~~
kaoD
\- RPi isn't Chinese, as in, I'm not locked in (by default) into a Chinese
stock OS with god-knows-what spyware installed.

\- It runs Linux as a first-party-sanctioned OS. Great ecosystem for
tinkering. Not locked in to the whims of the manufacturer OS updates.

\- GPIO pins.

\- No built-in screen (which I guess draws less power).

\- HDMI, USB and Ethernet ports.

~~~
sandGorgon
Any Android phone can be rooted and flashed to Lineage os atleast.

For other points, I have mentioned in other comments.

~~~
kaoD
Yes but that's not first party, voids the warranty (messing with bootloaders,
yuck), in my experience has tons of problems with propietary drivers, is still
Android (which is an awful OS/ecosystem for anything that isn't a phone),
eventually stops being updated (as many of my not-so-old phones can attest)...

RPi and Android phones might overlap for some applications but I see them as
very distinct devices.

------
leggomylibro
Wow, they're down to $50 now? I remember seeing these and thinking they looked
cool, but hard to justify at (iirc) $80.

The ODroid-C2 is also mentioned; those look nice. That company also sells raw
EMMC modules as an alternative option to microSD cards, which seems like it
could be useful. Does anyone know if those EMMC modules are less likely to
spuriously corrupt themselves? I haven't run them for any length of time, but
it looks like an ODroid with EMMC would be on a similar price point.

~~~
codetrotter
I own an ODROID-XU3. Haven’t used it for a while now but back when I did —
including using it as desktop computer for several months — I did not have any
data corruption issues with the eMMC module. Meanwhile with Raspberry Pi I’ve
had several instances of data corruption with different SD cards.

~~~
epalmer
The eMMC for me is worth the price. Too many corrupt SD cards.

~~~
StudentStuff
I've only ever had corruption issues on Raspi's, versus with the OrangePi's we
have in production at customers sites, I have yet to see any mSD card issues.
We do screen our Evo+ mSD cards pretty aggressively for issues though!

One nice thing about Allwinner based SBCs is the strong development community
that mainlines support for their chips in short order. Few other chip vendors
have mainline support, which makes their boards abandonware in short order.

~~~
geerlingguy
This is a common theme in these SBC threads, but I've also had a pretty good
experience with microSD cards in the Pi—one time I had corruption after
unplugging the Pi.

Two things that are immensely helpful if you want a stable experience with the
Pi:

    
    
        1. A good power supply.
        2. A good microSD card.
    

Most cheap power supplies (like those you get free with a phone) don't supply
2A or more consistently, which the newer Pis need to run stable.

And as far as microSD cards go, [I wrote an article on that last
week]([https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2018/raspberry-pi-
microsd-...](https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2018/raspberry-pi-microsd-card-
performance-comparison-2018\);) there's a huge gulf between the best and worst
cards, even from name-brand manufacturers.

~~~
flyinghamster
Indeed, I've had nothing but good experiences with Samsung EVO and SanDisk
Ultra cards.

BTW, your link seems to end up on your front page, rather than the card
comparison article.

~~~
geerlingguy
Oops, it gets cut off if I paste the whole thing. Here’s a [text
link]([https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2018/raspberry-pi-
microsd-...](https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2018/raspberry-pi-microsd-card-
performance-comparison-2018)) instead.

------
jagger27
I've been looking at the new Rockchip RK3399 based devboards. Of note is the
$99 Rock960[1]. The major draws for me are the DisplayPort support, so I can
use it with my iPad 3/4 display controller board, M.2 PCIe 4-lane, eMMC,
802.11ac. Firefly makes a similar one as well. [2]

1\.
[https://www.96boards.org/product/rock960/](https://www.96boards.org/product/rock960/)

2\.
[http://shop.t-firefly.com/goods.php?id=45](http://shop.t-firefly.com/goods.php?id=45)

~~~
linuxlizard
I wonder what wifi chipset it has. Supports 802.11ac which I need. I should
investigate this board, see if it allows monitor mode (low level wifi packet
access). The RasPiB+ supports 802.11ac but the Broadcom based wifi doesn't
allow monitor mode.

~~~
linuxlizard
"The wifi/bt module used on ROCK960s is AP6356s from AMPAK Technology."
[https://www.96boards.org/documentation/consumer/rock960/hard...](https://www.96boards.org/documentation/consumer/rock960/hardware-
docs/hardware-user-manual.md.html#key-components)

"AMPAK combines Broadcom Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips in single modules."
[https://wikidevi.com/wiki/AMPAK](https://wikidevi.com/wiki/AMPAK)

Broadcom + Linux is a very mixed bag. Would require more investigation.

~~~
my123
The Raspberry Pi uses Broadcom WiFi and Bluetooth chips too. You need to
install the linux-firmware package though.

------
Const-me
Tinkerboard has amazingly performant GPU. Peak performance is 81.6GFlops,
comparable to mid-range desktop GPUs from 2007 (e.g. GeForce 8400 GS had 67
GFlops, GeForce 8600 GT had 114 GFlops). It also supports 4k HDMI output
resolution.

RPi is more compatible i.e. the software stack supports OpenGL.

But for cases where it’s OK to code against GLES, Mali-T764 is awesome. I once
used NanoVG to build a very nice looking rich GUI, with alpha transparency,
animated state transitions, etc. Moreover, it consumes practically no CPU
time, because everything is hardware accelerated.

~~~
2bitencryption
does it require codes to unlock native x264 processing, like the RBP does (or
did, back when I used it)?

Also, does it have hardware support for HEVC? My poor RBP 2 can't handle HEVC
at all.

~~~
flyinghamster
In my experience with the Pi, H.264 is baked-in, but you need a license key
for MPEG-2 (a necessity if you're dealing with ATSC footage) or VC-1.

------
franciscop
"Once an SBC approaches $100 or so, there are other options (like a used Intel
core i5 desktop) which offer 10-100x the performance and infinite expansion
options"

Anyone knows what kind of board he means? I have been searching and it seems
that the next step from the pi would be something like the Intel NUC, which is
quite a lot more than $100 when considering a full, minimum system build.

Edit: totally missed the "used" in that sentence, which totally changes
things. Thanks for the tips though!

~~~
ocdtrekkie
"Used Core i5" is not buying a NUC. At least, I don't think there's a huge
aftermarket of NUCs at this point. I don't think they sell in the volume that
leads to large aftermarkets, like your average Dell business machine.

A five year old OptiPlex SFF PC though is available for around $100 or so, and
capable of much more than any single-board PC.

~~~
geerlingguy
> A five year old OptiPlex SFF PC

This is more what I'm talking about; I needed a faster option with much more
RAM and a proper SATA SSD for one project. I bought a used Lenovo ThinkCentre
for about $80, put in a small SSD I had on hand, upgraded the RAM to 8 GB for
$20 (one 4GB stick on eBay), and had an i5 with about 100x better overall
performance than a Pi 3 B+ (and maybe 10x more power consumption, so not a bad
tradeoff). All-in $100 for me, though if you didn't have an SSD you can pick
one up for $35-45 if you just need 32 or 64 GB.

Basically, once you hit the $100 threshold, you have to really ask if an SBC
is the right solution—unless you really, really need the small footprint. And
if you need I/O for project stuff, an Arduino or similar project board is only
a few bucks more and connects via USB.

~~~
oceanman888
How do you interface with arduino? serial?

~~~
coryrc
CDC/ACM, so straight bytestream serial over USB.

------
IshKebab
I don't know. I think I take the Hackaday view that the software and community
is way more important than the hardware in this field, and Raspberry Pi has it
all.

~~~
FullyFunctional
It completely depends on what you want to do with it. If it involves a some
quirky sensors etc then certainly. If the IO is simple and the workload is
more traditional server style, then the Raspberry isn't particularity
interesting.

------
X-Istence
Unfortunately this is not aarch64. There is something to be said for having a
single instruction set, makes package building and distribution simpler.

~~~
simias
First thing I checked, I've been looking for a small and cheap aarch64 board
for hacking around. Do you know of one?

I guess as long as they won't ship more than a couple GB of RAM they won't
bother with it.

~~~
Zekio
Pine64 are pretty good for CPU and RAM, but you will be loosing out on the
great support things like Raspberry Pi SBCs have

Edit: forgot to mention Pine64 starts at like 15 usd for 512Mb Ram or 19 usd
for 1GB and like 29USd for 2Gb also from 19 usd up they have gigabit(can be
hard to max out due to various issues IIRC, check forum), and the high end
version is still cheaper than a RPi3 IIRC

~~~
lunchables
Anecdote warning: As the happy owner of quite a few RPi, I had a really poor
experience with the Rock64 (I know, it's not technically a Pine64). Multiple
SD cards, mulitple power supplies and I can't get it to run for more than 5
minutes at a time without locking up. Doesn't appear to be a thermal issue as
far as I can tell. Of course I probably just got a bad board, unfortunately
after multiple emails I can't get a response from their customer service. I'm
ready to just throw it in the trash. Really disppointed because I really just
wanted an RPi with usb 3.0 and gigaibit ethernet, it seemed perfect.

edit: tried both armbian and android

~~~
Zekio
On my Pine64 I use Dietpi from [http://dietpi.com/](http://dietpi.com/) and it
just works, it even has a setup gui where you can install to USB Drive and it
will have bootloader on SD Card IIRC

------
robhu
Also of note:

Tinkerboard has b/g/n 2.4Ghz wifi. Pi 3B+ also has 802.11ac 5Ghz wifi.

Tinkerboard has a superior sound chip, supporting 24-bit, 192kHz audio. Pi 3B+
has a totally garbage mono only analog sound (and presumably fine HDMI digital
sound).

~~~
pishpash
RPi is garbage hardware propped up by overcompensated OS support. Sooner or
later you regret putting the effort in because it's just mediocre at
everything.

~~~
crankylinuxuser
Even though you're gray (modded down), there's significant issues with the
RPi. Here's some.

1\. Boot is still a mystery. It boots from the GPU with "magic registers",
then passes to the CPU...?

2\. There's no specs available for the GPIOs. 5v tolerant? SPI max speed?
Pullups/downs? Nada..

3\. DRM baked in. RasPi foundation cheaped out on the MPEG2 decoder, and you
need to pay $5 to enable hardware decoding.

4\. Needs mystery black box kernel blobs.

5\. No power management. No low voltage detection. Hope and pray method

6\. Everything is on the USB. Bandwidth ends up sucking. They could have did
ethernet on SPI.

~~~
jiggunjer
1\. boot is a mystery with all commercial SoCs? Show me one that doesn't have
an untouchable binary blob in onboard memory.

3\. MPEG2 decoding can be done with software just fine?

4\. Again, show me one without driver blobs. This is mostly the fault of the
chip makers and not the RPi foundation.

5\. Power management is a kernel feature?

6\. agree

~~~
makomk
There's nothing mysterious about the Allwinner boot process at least. While
there's an on-chip boot ROM that can't be modified, it just loads a chunk of
code into SRAM from the boot device and jumps to it at the highest privilege
level supported by the hardware. It's not uncommon for everything after the
boot ROM to be 100% open source code. That simply isn't possible on the Pi,
which is why Debian doesn't support it out the box.

Also, the lack of power management on the Pi is mostly a hardware limitation.
The hardware simply doesn't support any kind of software-controlled shutdown
or suspend.

~~~
jiggunjer
How is a blob not mysterious. The fact that it doesn't use some exotic gpu-
based bootstrap is irrelevant. A black box is a black box. Also I'd argue it
_is_ uncommon for everything the kernel uses to be open source, I don't know
of one where all the drivers are open source (without losing functionality).

~~~
makomk
The Allwinner BROM is about 32KB, almost completely reverse-engineered at
least for the earlier chips, and in any case the only thing it does during a
normal boot is to load a chunk of code from a fixed location on the SD card to
a fixed location in SRAM and immediately jump to it. It's nothing the
Raspberry Pi boot process, where even the initial boot ROM has FAT filesystem
support and it loads a proprietary blob which runs continually on the "GPU"
co-processor with full access to RAM handling various important runtime
functionality.

------
throw2016
I looked at the Tinkerboard when it was released but it is limited to USB 2.0.
The Rock64 is a better option with the same SOC as the Tinkerboard but USB 3.0
ports and decent Linux support.

Even more interesting Odroid is releasing a new board the N1 based on the
Rockchip 3399 SOC that has 2 A72 + 4 A53 processors. It also has 2 SATA ports,
USB 3.0 and 2 Gigabit lan ports. And Odroid software support is significantly
better than most other vendors except the Pi.

Their previous C2 board based on the Amlogic 905 was a great buy at $45 and
plays 4k content without missing a beat while my kabylake desktop on Linux
seems to struggle.

~~~
lunchables
> The Rock64 is a better option with the same SOC as the Tinkerboard but USB
> 3.0 ports and decent Linux support.

I've had a rough time with the Rock64, personally. Also I like to mention that
you cannot power the Rock64 over MicroUSB like you can an RPi, which is really
annoying to me.

------
concrete-faucet
The thing that gets me most of all with the SBCs is that I need to go out and
buy another power supply. I know - they aren't really that expensive, but I
just don't want to do it. I already have so many 5V USB power supplies that I
don't even know what to do with them all. I doubt I am the only one.

I like that the Pi Zero seems to be perfectly stable with any old phone
charger I've used, and they seem to range from 800mA to 1mA. I have a couple
iPad chargers that go up to 2.1A, so I'd be really happy if I could find a
multicore SBC that was good to go with one of those.

------
jburgess777
This website has useful information about the Tinker board and links to some
alternative software distributions:

[https://tinkerboarding.co.uk/](https://tinkerboarding.co.uk/)

------
danielivert
It would really compete against the RPi if it was on the same price category.

Being 15 dollars more expensive breaks the whole purpose of having a descent,
small and cheap computer/board as the RPi has been all this time.

~~~
trishmapow2
I'd pay $10 extra just for the Gigabit functionality. 100Mbps is unacceptable
for any sort of media/file server applications and 230Mbps is only 1/4 of my
Internet connection.

------
throwaway84742
At that price you should get an Odroid C2. A53 is a better core and C2 also
offers 2GB of RAM and a rather large heat sink to avoid thermal throttling.
It’s a no brainer IMO.

------
Kabukks
I'm currently prototyping a product using the Raspberry Pi + GPIO. I've often
wondered - if the thing makes it to market - how I would substitute the Rpi in
mass production (1000+). The SD card is a big point of failure for many Rpi
users for example. So storage is probably something I would change.

Does anyone have experience with a mass produced product that used the Rpi in
prototypes?

I know element14 is offering Raspberry Pi customization for mass production.

~~~
detaro
The compute module has eMMC instead of an SD card, and there should be a few
products based around that to look at.

~~~
Kabukks
I've looked at the compute module. It is positioned as the way to go for mass
production - but the price point seems higher than the Rpi as you still need a
base board for it to function.

~~~
detaro
Yeah, if you don't have a custom PCB otherwise it's probably not the best fit.

------
dtx1
Has anyone got any experience with this one?

[http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code...](http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G151505170472)

I'm thinking about buying two of them and using them as a NAS with offsite
mirroring for critical data/important documents.

~~~
dogma1138
If you are building NAS for critical data just get a proper NAS board.

If you don’t want to go for an embedded X86 then this one is a good option it
comes with ECC memory and decent enough crypto acceleration for full
encryption.

[https://kobol.io/helios4/](https://kobol.io/helios4/)

~~~
dorfsmay
Or use S3 or equivalent. Who will know how how to take care of your personal
NAS when you're dead?

------
digi_owl
The tinkerboard, being backed by a big name like Asus, seems to at least have
as good a distribution network as the RPi has built up.

Many of the alternative boards, for all their improvements over he RPi, are
virtually impossible to get hold of beyond directly importing from the OEM.

That said, i already have an RPI3B sitting around that i have yet to do
anything with.

------
JD557
I actually won a Tinker Board recently and was disappointed to find out that,
unlike the Raspberry Pi, it has no composite port.

I guess that's something to be expected, it's probably not a very used
feature, but I really enjoy being able to play old video games on a CRT, as
they were meant to be played.

------
Karupan
After days of looking around, I purchased the Pi 3 B+ for one simple reason:
cost. The price of the other boards like the Tinker or BeagleBoard Black is
almost twice the price of the Pi here in Australia.

------
nottorp
Say, how well are the various hardware features supported on this tinker
board? For example, I've had trouble with enabling I2C on an Orange Pi and
there's precious little documentation about this niche-ish use.

Since the reason for using these boards is ease of development, as in not
doing a custom kernel, how well the SOC specific bits work is pretty
important.

Note: while externally these boards are all similar (same expansion connector
etc), internally they use different SoCs and different kernels and
configuration utilities. And this sometimes bites.

------
cluoma
I was using a Raspberry Pi 2 as my home webserver for a long time but I
recently switched to a Tinker Board and was really pleased with the process.

Same form factor was very convenient since I could use my old case and hats.
ASUS ported WiringPi as well, so all my Rpi scripts worked without
modification. And finally, a dedicated Ethernet controller means I get way
better speeds than my old Pi 2 could even dream about.

If you care about Ethernet speeds the decision is pretty much a no-brainer.

~~~
ktzar
This article compares the tinkerboard with the raspi3+, which bums the
ethernet wprformancw by a degree of magnitude.

------
mwcampbell
Is anyone running mainline Debian, with the linux-image-armmp kernel package,
on the Tinker Board yet? If so, what hardware is supported and what is not?

------
eeZah7Ux
I'm surprised nobody mentioned CHIP from
[https://getchip.com/](https://getchip.com/) \- when they where available I
paid 10 euros for each including shipping.

It came with WiFi, bluetooth, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of flash, plenty of GPIO

~~~
squarefoot
Nobody mentions them anymore because that platform sadly is gone.
[https://bbs.nextthing.co/t/chip-pro-officially-
dead/20285](https://bbs.nextthing.co/t/chip-pro-officially-dead/20285)

------
noir-york
Maybe someone can help: is it possible to build an SBC can boot Linux and has
just a CPU, gig ethernet and gobs of RAM (at least 8gb)?

Don't need display port, GPU, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPIO pins, etc - just a CPU +
lots of RAM + an ethernet port to get stuff in/out.

~~~
khedoros1
Are you asking if it's possible, or asking for advice on a practical way to
get it done?

~~~
noir-york
If its at all possible, and if so, has someone built such an SBC?

Alternatively, is there a practical way to attach external DDRAM to an
existing 64-bit SBC, perhaps using the GPIO pins?

I have zero electronics knowledge so forgive my questions if they are stupid.

~~~
khedoros1
It's definitely possible. Has someone built exactly that? I don't know; there
are hundreds of variants of single-board computers, and I'm only familiar with
a few. It's not something that you'd build by buying a couple of parts and
soldering them to a breadboard.

As for attaching memory, GPIO probably gives you a transfer rate on the order
of a few MB/s. There are various things like SPI-connected SRAM chips, but
those don't provide a lot of memory (think KB, not GB).

------
k__
I use one on my TV.

HW acceleration (its USP) only works with TinkerOS and it is buggy as hell :/

------
bsder
Is there a reason why everybody just _HAS_ to stick to the RPi's when the
BeagleBone Black/Green/Blue/etc. are:

1) Far more open (you can get documentation and chip supply to build your own
BeagleBone)

2) No more expensive

3) Mainline Debian

~~~
xienze
Well, they are more expensive, though by just a little. The low price really
seems to be the deciding factor for most people. I’m likewise baffled by the
lack of popularity of some of these other boards. Thr RPi is honestly getting
quite long in the tooth and just $10-15 more can get you a way better board.

~~~
Gibbon1
Couple of years ago we were looking for an board to run embedded Linux.
Anything relying on an SD card was a no go for us. Talking to a few friends
with a bunch of experience with SD cards in industrial settings say they
purchase high end ones from specific vendors. Otherwise it's just a question
when it will fail. Industrial grade SD cards cost more than the $10-15 needed
to get an SBC with eMMC.

Bit of warning about the Beaglebone Black. The power controller doesn't have
proper brownout detection.

------
CaptainJustin
This is fantastic. I'm running two Pi 3 Bs with two O-Droids in a docker swarm
cluster. The O-Droids feel a bit experimental.

[https://photos.app.goo.gl/wWTKOLbiXooyYmkA3](https://photos.app.goo.gl/wWTKOLbiXooyYmkA3)

I was disappointed to see that the folks at Raspberry are not interested in
upping the specs by much. For my workloads I wanted to get more RAM on each
node as my processors were not working all that hard.

I've bought ASUS products with confidence for years and I'm glad they have an
offering in this space.

------
gbajson
Has anyone of you seen such fan-less board with PCI express slot? I'd like to
use it in a mining rig.

~~~
Zekio
Some might arrive later this year
[https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=5614](https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=5614)

------
LyalinDotCom
Their website is confusing on this part, does this support Windows IoT Core as
the OS?

~~~
shakna
> 22\. What OS does the tinker board support?

> Currently Debian is the only available OS for tinker board. [0]

[0] Tinkerboard FAQ (PDF):
[http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/Linux/Tinker_Board_2GB/F...](http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/Linux/Tinker_Board_2GB/FAQ-
Tinkerboard_20170425.pdf)

------
jacquesm
With that network speed it looks as if mounting a remote / is a good option.

------
ggg9990
Does the Tinker board have a pinhole camera module like the Raspberry Pi?

------
gyrgtyn
Are you able to use the GPU with OMXplayer (do the drivers work) ?

~~~
duskwuff
No. Omxplayer is specific to the VideoCore GPU -- it only works on the
Raspberry Pi.

------
JBiserkov
While searching for it on Amazon, I noticed I have misspelled it as 'Thinker
Board' :-D

------
znpy
Can it network boot ?

------
senatorobama
What is the cheapest RPi kit containing everything needed to get started?

~~~
awat
If you are willing to splurge a little bit (in the context of rpi) this is
absolutely the best case I’ve used for them.

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07349HT26/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?ie=...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07349HT26/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1524099489&sr=8-5&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=raspberry+pi+metal+case+aluminum+case)

