ARM has legs. Real world use.

[TheLinuxBug]

Oh yeah I remember these.  Thanks mate! 

BananaPi M1 is usually cheaper for the A20, while Olimex Boards are nice and open source, they are also a bit more expensive.


In the US you can order from Ameridroid for $34.95 + shipping without case and $40.90 + shipping w/ case.


The BananaPi provides the 1GB of ram as well as composite out header (if you were to need it) for less than the comparable A20-OlinuXIno-Lime2 (45.00 EUR + shipping) which lacks the composite output.


P.S. @wlanboy I had included a link to that exact article in my rant there, you just missed it cause its a link on the text 'here'  However, no harm done giving it a little more air time ;p


my 2 cents.


Cheers!

 

[souen]

Yeah it is that.


I stuck it into the power on holes (Insert "Bow Chica Bow Wow" here) but it's not really secure.  It falls out easily. 


Edit: In other news.  Anyone have a specific board they recommend?  I already have a Raspberry Pi 2 and a POS Pine64+.  I'm looking for something that can actually use SATA as well (which would be cool in all honesty).  

Sorry to hear it still falls out after bending with pliers or other tool. :/


WIll an ODROID-C2 with a USB-SATA bridge fit the bill? http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G145197048960

 

[HalfEatenPie]

Sorry to hear it still falls out after bending with pliers or other tool. :/


WIll an ODROID-C2 with a USB-SATA bridge fit the bill? http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G145197048960

Yeah 100% not worth the time waiting for it and it's an absolute piece of garbage.  Well it's what I get for backing something untested on kickstarter.  You live and you learn.

BananaPi M1 is usually cheaper for the A20, while Olimex Boards are nice and open source, they are also a bit more expensive.


In the US you can order from Ameridroid for $34.95 + shipping without case and $40.90 + shipping w/ case.


The BananaPi provides the 1GB of ram as well as composite out header (if you were to need it) for less than the comparable A20-OlinuXIno-Lime2 (45.00 EUR + shipping) which lacks the composite output.


P.S. @wlanboy I had included a link to that exact article in my rant there, you just missed it cause its a link on the text 'here'  However, no harm done giving it a little more air time ;p


my 2 cents.


Cheers!

Cheers mate.  I've been trying to think of good uses for all of them but so far not a whole lot to go off of until I start looking into embedded systems, which at the moment I have 0 experience in.  

 

[TheLinuxBug]

Cheers mate.  I've been trying to think of good uses for all of them but so far not a whole lot to go off of until I start looking into embedded systems, which at the moment I have 0 experience in.  

You know, I have been looking for some new projects, but if you have something in mind there is usually a board out there that can meet your needs, however, price in some cases is prohibitive for some of them.  


I have found some 'better' SATA solutions (SoC or SBC which has supposedly better SATA throughput) however they are often around the $150.00 USD price point which kinda makes it cost prohibitive in some cases to just 'test' or see if it really fits your needs.  One good example of this is the 'Clearfog Pro' I can't tell you how bad I just want to buy one ($230.00 USD with case).  However, I just can't justify the cost right now for my 'toys' budget.   It could probably easily replace a few other boards and be a very productive network router/switch if i needed as well.   It looks like the perfect board though for running a NAS and supporting a network stack well.  It is also Marvell and not Allwinner, which means better performance for SATA, etc.  The downside though is your limited to Linux 3.x because there is no mainline support, but there is OpenWRT for it which might even be better to use in some cases, I wouldn't know without testing it out my self.


I do believe you would get better stability out of the board though, so it may be worth the cost overall? (you get what you pay for?)


Will check back again later, work is calling...


Cheers!

 

[HalfEatenPie]

You know, I have been looking for some new projects, but if you have something in mind there is usually a board out there that can meet your needs, however, price in some cases is prohibitive for some of them.  


I have found some 'better' SATA solutions (SoC or SBC which has supposedly better SATA throughput) however they are often around the $150.00 USD price point which kinda makes it cost prohibitive in some cases to just 'test' or see if it really fits your needs.  One good example of this is the 'Clearfog Pro' I can't tell you how bad I just want to buy one ($230.00 USD with case).  However, I just can't justify the cost right now for my 'toys' budget.   It could probably easily replace a few other boards and be a very productive network router/switch if i needed as well.   It looks like the perfect board though for running a NAS and supporting a network stack well.  It is also Marvell and not Allwinner, which means better performance for SATA, etc.  The downside though is your limited to Linux 3.x because there is no mainline support, but there is OpenWRT for it which might even be better to use in some cases, I wouldn't know without testing it out my self.


I do believe you would get better stability out of the board though, so it may be worth the cost overall? (you get what you pay for?)


Will check back again later, work is calling...


Cheers!

Hot damn.  That's a nice but expensive board.


So I actually turned on the Pine64.  GREAT NEWS!  It runs worse than my Raspberry Pi 2.  I mean I guess I need to go back to the drawing board with my usecase, however running Debian on it feels incredibly clunky and (as many people might say) "unoptimized".  However, at least it's somewhat stable (so far).


I tried using RemixOS since that's all the rave right now about User Experience with these ARM boards.  Now, RemixOS runs like a potato in a pudding on the Pine64.  Graphics glitch where the window just doesn't show up for an application (e.g. open up chrome, get just a black screen, close chrome, open chrome again, now the browser is actually there, etc.), applications running sluggishly, etc. 


Overall, I'm probably just going to mark this board up as a failure.  What a waste of time man. 

 

[TheLinuxBug]

So, my $9.00 Orange Pi PC actually showed up!











This one actually arrived in slightly better condition than the Orange Pi Plus 2E that I ordered directly from Xunlong did.


Haven't had a chance to play with it yet, so will be back after I get a chance to put it through its paces and see what's good and what's not.


Cheers!

 

[HalfEatenPie]

Moved the thread to it's new home!  

 

[splitice]

I have 4 ODROID XU4's for one of my projects. Great hardware, as long as you dont mind the heat.


One of my current projects is getting them to run over POE+, with their 5V4A (20W) requirements.

 

[HalfEatenPie]

I have 4 ODROID XU4's for one of my projects. Great hardware, as long as you dont mind the heat.


One of my current projects is getting them to run over POE+, with their 5V4A (20W) requirements.

What are they specifically for?  I haven't had a need for POE use yet (from what I can tell, most of those needs are either outdoor WiFi relays or IPCameras).  

 

[splitice]

NDA,,,


But I can say we do some pretty heavy computer vision processing on them.


It's quite a challenge to get them to run on any form of POE, they draw quite a bit of power. Around 3.25A idle, up to ~4A under load (USB devices can probably bring it higher).


Theoretical max output of POE+ is 25W with a 100m cable. Power conversion to 5v + cable losses = pain.

 

[HalfEatenPie]

NDA,,,


But I can say we do some pretty heavy computer vision processing on them.


It's quite a challenge to get them to run on any form of POE, they draw quite a bit of power. Around 3.25A idle, up to ~4A under load (USB devices can probably bring it higher).


Theoretical max output of POE+ is 25W with a 0m cable. Power conversion to 5v + cable losses = pain.

Ahh fair enough mate.


Wish I picked up an ODROID instead of getting this crappy Pine64 2G model.  

 

[splitice]

Ahh fair enough mate.


Wish I picked up an ODROID instead of getting this crappy Pine64 2G model.  

A different price bracket though... The XU4 is $75 USD + Shipping. Ends up costing a bit more too if they don't do your power plug since you will likely want to source one locally.

 

[HalfEatenPie]

A different price bracket though... The XU4 is $75 USD + Shipping. Ends up costing a bit more too if they don't do your power plug since you will likely want to source one locally.

Well since I decided to purchase all the bells and whistles for this Pine64 it came out to be around 80 dollars or so + shipping.  

 

[wlanboy]

My ODROID C2 arrived.


Great device - if you get a working image and type in the correct commands in the right order.
Hardkernel did a great job to build the first stable running ARM® Cortex®-A53(ARMv8) 64Bit kernel. It is even possible to run 32Bit userland to get more pre-compiled packages. Looks like ARM64 is still behind ARMFH.


Chromium and Youtube are running, HDMI sound is working, GB Lan without any hassle. Looks like I have my first real ARM-based desktop system.

 

[souen]

@wlanboy: Which image are you using?


Mine arrived this week, it currently has Arch Linux ARM but haven't decided yet on the setup for desktop use. Looking at pairing it with a C1 or Raspberry Pi 3 (2 VNC sessions like workspaces) to get more RAM and processing power. A cluster Pi Dramble-style would be cool.

 

[wlanboy]

@wlanboy: Which image are you using?


Mine arrived this week, it currently has Arch Linux ARM but haven't decided yet on the setup for desktop use. Looking at pairing it with a C1 or Raspberry Pi 3 (2 VNC sessions like workspaces) to get more RAM and processing power. A cluster Pi Dramble-style would be cool.

For desktop usage their official Ubuntu release is the best one (tested 4 different):


I used this mirror: http://east.us.odroid.in/ubuntu_16.04lts/
and flashed ubuntu64-16.04lts-mate-odroid-c2-20160525.img.xz to my sd-card.


After that you have to run:


1: sudo apt-get update && apt-get upgrade (takes a while!)
2: sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
3: sudo shutdown -r now
4: sudo apt-get update && apt-get install linux-image-c2
5: sudo shutdown -r now


Dist-upgrade is needed for a lot of stuff, but Ubuntu is using the "normal" ARM kernel. Not the patched one for the C2. So everything fails except sd-card and lan (no HDMI output!).
If you do a apt-get update/upgrade after the dist-upgrade you will see that the c2 patch of the linux image is held back. But you should install it only after rebooting because the new kernel modules have to be loaded.


All mali stuff is in the dependency tree of the linux-image-c2 because the binary drivers cannot run without the kernel modifications. (hurray Mali!). After that all things from HDMI, to hardware acceleration is working. Blazing fast compared to my Raspberry Pi 2.

 

[HalfEatenPie]

How do you guys feel about using ARM as a primary desktop setup?  I mean I can see it working for a basic youtube/web browsing + Web IDE coding platform, but for anything higher than that I think it'd be difficult to justify as a proper setup. 

 

[wlanboy]

How do you guys feel about using ARM as a primary desktop setup?  I mean I can see it working for a basic youtube/web browsing + Web IDE coding platform, but for anything higher than that I think it'd be difficult to justify as a proper setup. 

Depends on the usage. Most part of the "slow-i-ness" on SBC are based on the SD-Cards. I use SD-Cards only for the boot partition (read-only), everything else is on a SSD.


The ODROID C2 with a SSD and a 24'' display is quite capable of handling all of my daily work stuff. 2GB RAM are still enough for all Ruby Phyton stuff. My test environment (servers) are running on containers on my A20-OLinuXino-LIME with a 1TB SATA drive. 


It is a different approach to my Quadcore / 64 GB RAM / 600 Watt machine, but for 600 Watts I could run 75 ODROID C2s... and they would have 300 Cores and 150 GB of RAM...

 

[splitice]

Nope. Not Happening.


Primary Reasons:


1. Time is Money, and my i7 laptop is barely fast enough as it is.


2. Lack of support. There is a general lack of binaries already compiled for ARM. Photoshop? Visual Studio? etc

 

[HalfEatenPie]

Depends on the usage. Most part of the "slow-i-ness" on SBC are based on the SD-Cards. I use SD-Cards only for the boot partition (read-only), everything else is on a SSD.


The ODROID C2 with a SSD and a 24'' display is quite capable of handling all of my daily work stuff. 2GB RAM are still enough for all Ruby Phyton stuff. My test environment (servers) are running on containers on my A20-OLinuXino-LIME with a 1TB SATA drive. 


It is a different approach to my Quadcore / 64 GB RAM / 600 Watt machine, but for 600 Watts I could run 75 ODROID C2s... and they would have 300 Cores and 150 GB of RAM...

Yeah fair enough in regards to raw computational power vs power consumed it makes sense.  However then additional time and effort (and management) needs to be taken in to focus on parallelization of  the software + troubleshooting.  

Nope. Not Happening.


Primary Reasons:


1. Time is Money, and my i7 laptop is barely fast enough as it is.


2. Lack of support. There is a general lack of binaries already compiled for ARM. Photoshop? Visual Studio? etc

This is mostly my concern.  I mean raw power and focusing on the bottom line yeah sure, but in regards to the amount of time you have to spend in order to:


1. Compile the binary


2. Troubleshoot dependency issues


3. Troubleshoot the software issues


4. Monitor service is working properly.


(This is of course assuming you're using a piece of software not commonly used on an ARM platform)  it's not worth it.


However, I can see ARM being useful for something that has a physical limitation, either through power or specific areal/embedded purpose.  Now that's an awesome setup and such.  I think if/once ARM matures considerably, it'll be one awesome platform to use.