what sbc do you reccomend?

what are your experiences with sbc's ? (single board computer)

is there something useable as a desktop?
powerful enough for desktop/youtube/kodi(1080p/h264)?

it must have
ugly/light de/wm like icewm, the lighter the better
debian based or at least a light distro without systemd


something open would be nice, but i assume any decent video performance would imply a binary blob
also dont know about the bootloader

x86 boards seem to be big and/or expensive, although would be nice

i have looked at raspberry pi (out of the question cause rasbpian includes java)
is there any raspberry pi distro without java?


chip pc $9 , seems nice, even though its pretty weak, any opinions?
https://getchip.com/pages/chip

eoma68 seems interesting, rather slow, heard bad stuff about creator
but i dont really care, if he can deliver
https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop

udoo x86 its a little big and pricey
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...ker-board-ever

lattepanda is also a little pricey
http://www.lattepanda.com/product-detail/?pid=1

You don't have to run rasbian on the pi.

There is also the beaglebone's, banana pi's, orange pi's, etc.

I have a BananaPi running Debian because the alternative distros took more than an afternoon to set up. I'm quite happy with the BananaPi in terms of performance, etc. Running it as a desktop is not something I normally do, but I did a few experiments with it, and it can easily handle Fluxbox, if you just have to have a GUI.

I also own the PocketCHIP. I take it to tech conferences as my sole computer. Here's a pic someone took of it in a meeting I was at in Raleigh: https://twitter.com/vmbrasseur/statu...14451285344256

It's great on the plane and at the conferences. I highly highly recommend it. Hooked up to a monitor it should be fine (although I normally use it as a stand-alone box, since it obviously has a screen attached; there's an HDMI adapter included.

I also have the Raspberry Pi model B. I find it slow for daily desktop usage, but I understand the newer ones are faster.

how is bananapi working
does it boot from sdcard?
how easy it is to make a bootable sd?
are images already available? what distros?
is it unbreakable, like a pc? or is it more like android?

same questions for pocketchip

is there any chance to get linux working on cheap chinese arm/x86 tablets?
where is the bottleneck, on chinese tablet producers blocking access
or chipmakers like broadcom,mali,qualcomm,allwinner,mediatek,rokchip,realtek for drivers?

Originally Posted by zpimp bananapi

are images already available? what distros?

BPI-M3 distro images

is it unbreakable, like a pc?

PC's aren't unbreakable. Last exploits found for Intel/Amd processors prove it

Or you go berserk mode and create your own distro using yocto on the platform of your choice: https://www.yoctoproject.org/

I occasionally run a Raspberry Pi3B as a desktop system, works OK for most things.

(My main system is AntiX, & sometimes OpenBSD.)

I have a bananapi m3 (octacore). It's basically raspbian + a bananapi kernel. But that kernel lacks a lot of modules like snd-usb-audio. And does the usual raspbian annoyances like nfs IN the kernel and NOT a module. And doesn't even use the distro's package management system for that kernel. So you can't even get the -headers- to compile against it. It's a perform-ant machine for a small sbc, but runs hot, draws a lot of power, and not that useful out of the box. But it's an sbc, if you're planning to use it as your main and only machine, you'll be feeling left out in the cold.

I recently got a pocketchip and I find it very useful. But not ideal. When it has it's own screen, keyboard, and battery, they're a lot more useful than just an sbc. A noodle-pi and other options in "more" useful sbc type things. Otherwise I find most sbc's more of an appliance. Setup my router-ing so I don't have to deal with it on my main machine. Setup my printer-ing so I don't have to deal with it on my main machine. Setup my mass storage, so I don't have to deal with it on my main machine. Look out my window because I'm too lazy to get up. Turn off my lights for basically more of the same. As a main machine, they're still too slow to be that useful. To the point that you need two so one of them can be super optimized by compiling everything for it's arch, while you still have one to "USE" while you wait.

Originally Posted by fatmac I occasionally run a Raspberry Pi3B as a desktop system, works OK for most things.

i'd be interested in media playback?
does it work flawlessly?
what do you have hooked up to it, and what distro did you choose?

personally, i purchased a pinebook half a year ago, and mediaplayback is patchy.
running armbian pinebook edition.
battery life is great though.

for media playback (especially videos) kodi is suggested, which will not use X. You can install openelec, osmc, libreelec or max2play (for example) see: https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/. Also you can find pages on how to compile VLC for maximal speed (=using hw acceleration).

Originally Posted by pan64 for media playback (especially videos) kodi is suggested, which will not use X.

is this in answer to my question?
so, it would playback media how - log out of X first, direct framebuffer playback?
and how are people's experiences with that - does it work for all media (codecs)?
in other words, no bad surprises after downloading a movie?

Hm. Kodi is just an icon on the desktop. You can start it, but it will somehow reach the videocard without using X server. It has its own desktop/menu, and you will return to X only when you exit kodi. It can reach nfs/smb shares, local drives, usb, but you can mount anything - obviously - before starting kodi, for example in /etc/fstab. It will play almost everything. On rpi3 full hd videos played very well, I have no info about 4k resolution.

pan64 has a better answer than I can give.

I use mainly an mp3 player, & occasional Youtube video watching, it has been OK for me doing that.

sorry, i got curious about kodi, but really my question was about personal experience/convenience with video playback on a raspi3b desktop.

Originally Posted by fatmac I use mainly an mp3 player, & occasional Youtube video watching, it has been OK for me doing that.

so you do not use it for "watching TV" or whatever that's called these days?
are you forced to adjust resolution to get stutter free youtube video playback (via html5 i assume, not flash)?

to illustrate, on my pinebook, local video playback only works up to a certain resolution, it paints directly to the framebuffer, so there can't be anything on top of the video, whether it's fullscreen or not, and some codecs will not display correctly.
of course this is all about the GPU and its linux driver (mali/sunxi are the keywords here). not sure what the raspi3b uses; better linux support maybe?

additionally i'd like to ask those that are using a SBC as a server:
is it suitable for 24/7 operation?
maybe some models more than others?
does one have to pay special attention to the power supply in that case (since that is also ON 24/7)?

(i hope i'm not derailing this thread; i think my questions are on topic)