Re: [orca-list] pocket chip

[Luke Yelavich <luke yelavich canonical com>]

On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 09:40:24AM AEST, Luke Yelavich wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 06:30:44AM AEST, Kyle wrote:
> > I need to buy one of these. If it can handle a Linux distro that isn't of
> > the manufacturer's own redesign, most of the points in the review could be
> > mostly invalidated. I would love to see the specs somewhere, although if
> > it's like the Raspberry Pi, depending on which version is referred to in the
> > review, the hardware on my Odroid C2 is far superior, although it doesn't
> > include things like the onboard keyboard and touch screen.
>
> On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 06:30:44AM AEST, Kyle wrote:
> > I need to buy one of these. If it can handle a Linux distro that isn't of
> > the manufacturer's own redesign, most of the points in the review could be
> > mostly invalidated. I would love to see the specs somewhere, although if
> > it's like the Raspberry Pi, depending on which version is referred to in the
> > review, the hardware on my Odroid C2 is far superior, although it doesn't
> > include things like the onboard keyboard and touch screen.
>
> Having done a little research, the chip is approximately the same as a 
> Raspbery Pi 0. There are some important things to note however.
>
> * It has onboard flash, at 4GB, and expandable with USB storage. Not sure if 
> can boot from USB.
> * The SoC in the Chip, and the Odroid C2 is an Allwinner SoC, which has a GPU 
> with proprietary bits, and I think there are other binary blobs, and its 
> kernel support is only available for Kernel 3.10, where as all Pi revisions, 
> whilst they do use some binary blobs, have much newer kernel support, and at 
> least so far as I know, more open GPU code.

Slight correction, the Odroid C2 is in fact from based on an Amlogic SoC, but still has a GPU that requires 
proprietary bits to work properly, and the open drive is not currently maintained and not yet finnished. No 
idea how good Amlogic are good with kernel sources and how up to date they are.

Luke