
Best Single Board Computers of 2019 - peter_d_sherman
https://www.seeedstudio.com/blog/2019/11/20/best-single-board-computers-of-2019/
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g82918
I feel like there are a lot of these types of articles that verge on blogspam.
Literally 60% of the content is just specs from the manufacturer regurgitated
in one spot. It would be nice if the author had done some actual comparison or
tried some benchmark on each. Even if they just booted up each one and saw how
easy it was to write a blog post on each it might be enlightening beyond the
specs which anyone could gather.

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Havoc
Yup pretty weak article.

In their defence seeedstudio has done good stuff for the sbc ecosystem so
inclined to give them a free pass

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theamk
It's a pity the most important info is often omitted:

\- Can it run mainline Linux kernel? What about a major Linux distribution?

\- How good is the documentation?

\- Which major peripherals (audio input, audio output, camera, HDMI, USB on
headers) are available?

\- Are there GPIOs with usable levels (not 1.8V!) and with large pitch
(2.54/1.27)?

\- Are there embedded low-level peripherals, like I2C, multiple serial ports,
PWM generators, ADC, DACs?

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baroffoos
Its a little disappointing that after all of the years and revisions of the
rpi. It still requires untrusted proprietary drivers to simply turn on.

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ksaj
To be fair, Linus, you and everyone who develops the board bitch about that
same thing. Some people even parrot it without understanding the underlying
issues at even a basic level. So let's see their models that compete with the
rpi at the same price point. Until I see those, I am left to see a whole lot
petty whining. The rpi is very much in front of the pack when it comes to
their clearly stated mandate.

Remember the purpose, and not lean too heavily onto your personal ideology.

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baroffoos
I haven't used it personally but I was told that the RockPi
([https://rockpi.org/](https://rockpi.org/)) is similar to the rpi but runs on
totally free drivers. Having a backdoor with full system access is just not
acceptable in 2019.

~~~
ksaj
What are you referring to?

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ggm
ZFS eats memory for breakfast. All thats stopping a Pi being a really great
BSD+ZFS filestore is the USB bound disk access and the lack of memory. The
sweetspot would be north of 4GB, but probably 8GB would be enough. SATA would
totally rock because you can get SATA enclosures which handle all the hot swap
you need, and the bandwidth is fine.

So.. you _can_ get a SATA Pi-Hat. But.. you can't boost memory north of 4GB.
(sigh)

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avgeek23
Also a added gigabit Nic would mean a nice firewall.

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Havoc
Rasp 4 already has gigabit and does work as a firewall

Been using that for past couple months

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mahalol
My understanding is that he meant having a total of two ports, so that you can
use one for WAN and one for LAN.

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Havoc
Just add a USB3 ethernet adapter. Works fine

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skybrian
How about for real-time audio?

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wankeler
[https://bela.io](https://bela.io)

