Howard Chu (hyc.delete@this.symas.com) on February 28, 2019 3:26 am wrote:
> none (none.delete@this.none.com) on February 27, 2019 10:49 pm wrote:
> > Howard Chu (hyc.delete@this.symas.com) on February 27, 2019 6:19 am wrote:
[...]
> > > Get a HiKey 970
> > >
> > > https://www.96boards.org/product/hikey970/
> > >
> > > I have a HiKey 960, have been using it for a couple of years.
> >
> > How is the Linux support on it? Is kernel mainline or is it some obscure fork? What is
> > the GPU driver status?
> >
> > I have skipped all 96boards boards because most of the interesting ones for me come with
> > only Android support and some of them promise Linux support in the future.
>
> Standard Debian distro is available. Works fine for me.
> http://www.lemaker.org/product-hikeysecond-download-64.html

Yeah... but again, drivers? Namely the GPU. I have the much less expensive RK3399-based FriendlyElec NanoPC-T4, and GPU support is minimal and painful to enable (using Armbian, as it provides a reasonably generic distro with an easy path to boot from the EMMC and stick root on an NVME SSD) - the number of packages you have to install and configure is hilariously large, and the only real support is for full-screen accelerated video. Oh, and mainline kernel support for the RK3399 is kinda iffy.

And how about a distribution other than Debian? Generic support is almost nonexistent and rolling your own is pretty involved. At least the kernel support is getting better, but the embedded mentality (i.e. expecting no CPU power, RAM, decent storage, or a BIOS) is still prevalent.

As for the HiKey 970, four A73 cores and 6GB of RAM looks pretty nice, but the standard CPU heat sink is junk (which may not be a serious issue*) and the $300 price tag is a bit high. And the bottom M.2 looks pretty short... It'd be nice if someone would ditch the Pi-like design ideal and make a decent Mini-ITX board. You could still have all of your phone-y tablet-y interfaces on the inside, with a nice standard PCI-e slot (as appropriate) and PC-style IO panel. Heck, I'd integrate an AC power supply.

Which comes first? Commonly available server hardware, single-user hardware, or generic software support? Which is the chicken, which is the egg, and what the hell is the third thing?

*It is with the RK3399, but I have a solution of sorts: http://www.tailbone.net/p1000325.jpg