[Showme-devel] Fwd: ShowMeBox Kick-off

[Jonas Smedegaard]

Hi Ritesj (and others),

[dropping all but Kris from cc]

Quoting Ritesh Raj Sarraf (2015-08-29 18:51:41)
> On Thu, 2015-08-27 at 11:22 +0200, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
>> First alternative I would like to explore is CubieTruck - as that 
>> should be well supported by Debian Installer.  We might want to 
>> explore more alternatives, however, to be better prepared for 
>> surprises in features (e.g. inability to work in heated/dusty 
>> environments or with battery or just having bootup quirks rendering 
>> it unsuitable for non-hw -tinkers).
>
> I don't own this board, but have read up a bit on its support on 
> Debian.
>
> It is a powerful box (2 GiB RAM) but most vendors that sell it, also 
> market a cooling Heat Sink. So I guess it does generate enough heat to 
> melt the pins.

Heat is a real issue, but I don't think heat sink recommendation in 
itself is reason for disqualification.  What I use as weak indicator is 
if boards ship with or is recommended to be used with fan, and stronger 
indicator is boards explicitly documented as "industrial grade".


> And I don't think that all the components in this device are free.

The _components_ are not free in _any_ computer device - I guess you 
mean that the board is not Open Source Hardware¹.

We should IMO treat this as a Debian project - i.e. set the bar at the 
Debian Free Software Guidelines, with OSHW certification being an 
optional bonus.

Fortunately, I managed (since above was posted) to run Beaker on an 
armhf board and found that memory requirement is well below 1GB, so 
there should be enough options even OSHW-certified to choose from.

I suggest we set these constraints:

 * Must work with official Debian system (including kernel)
 * Must have 450MB system ram (excluding gpu needs)
 * Must not require fan or other moving parts
 * Must have a casing (possibly open at the sides)
 * Should work with official Debian bootloader (uboot)
 * Should have 800MB system ram (excluding gpu needs)
 * Should have a closed casing
 * Should provide HDMI output
 * Should cost less than $100
 * May include battery for 3 hours without external power
 * May cost less than $100 incl. battery, storage and casing
 * May be OSHW-certified
 * May support armhf instructions (not only slower armel)

What do others think about those constraints?


Here are some boards, prioritized roughly by above, with reasons for 
lower "scores" in paranthesis:

 * OLinuXino A20 LIME2
 * OLinuXino A20 LIME (less memory)
 * OLinuXino A10 LIME (less memory, single-core)
 * pcDuino 3S (no battery, maybe non-Debian uboot)
 * ODROID C1+ (no battery, non-OSHW)
 * CuBox i2 (no battery, non-OSHW)
 * Cubieboard3/Cubietruck (no battery, expensive, non-OSHW)
 * Cubieboard2 (less memory, no battery, non-OSHW)
 * Raspberry Pi 2b (non-OSHW, slow components)
 * Raspberry Pi 1b+ (less memory, non-OSHW, not armhf)

Anyone knows other boards matching at least the must's?


¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_hardware

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

 [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private
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