Any low power mini PC you guys can vouch for? Looking for something a bit less primitive than a raspberry pi...

Any low power mini PC you guys can vouch for? Looking for something a bit less primitive than a raspberry pi, budget $50-250

Some of the things I'd like
- ARM
- no fan
- 2 - 3 usb 3 ports
- good support for some linux distribution, don't really care which

Attached: MECOOL-M8S-PRO-Amlogic-S912-Android-7-1-Smart-TV-Box-2GB-3GB-RAM-16GB-32GB.jpg (1000x625, 70K)

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ebay.com/itm/Mint-HP-Elitedesk-800-G1-Mini-i5-4590T-8GB-120GB-SSD-WiFi-BT-Windows-10-Pro/173377767502
solid-run.com/
hardkernel.com/main/main.php
gearbest.com/mini-pc/pp_009591678621.html?wid=1433363#goodsDetail
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

Never heard of a mini pc with ARM thats on par with a x86 model, so I would go with that

Odroid XU4Q with the case you like.

Alternatively, use an x86.

I'm not dead set on ARM, but I tend to associate it with lower power usage and less heat generation, so that's why I was thinking about it over x86.
You guys think I'll get better linux support with an x86 model?

Search for thin clients on ebay. Fuck ARM. Go with Intel or AMD.

You can get one for ~$10-$50 easily and much stronger than any ARM in that price range. Just do your research properly. Youtube/etc.

the support for 86x is loads better, going out of your way for ARM is not a good idea if you want normal desktop software

No, but you can get more processing power, and ultimately some onboard atom or pentium or whatever doesn't use all *that* much more electricity.

Still, the Odroid XU4Q might work, too.

Maybe on Windows. This is not a huge problem on Linux, though. Most packages work on ARM.

Odroid Xu4.
Has officla android support, usb 3.0, real gigabit NIC, EMMC, (faster and more durable vs sdcards)seperated NIC and USB controller bus, newer decoders included in the purchase. (rpi requires extra for codec licenses)

Install Armbian, librelec or the Android image with f-droid and kodi.

OP here, that's also my experience.
I used ubuntu on an ARM chromebook for some time, and I could install just about anything from the repository and it would work flawlessly as it would on some x86 machine.
Hardware support was horrible though so I gave up after a while. But laptops are trickier in general.

HP Elitedesk 800 G1 mini or usdt secondhand on ebay. i5-4590s/8Gb is perfect. Good for windows, linux and hackintosh.

Attached: ElitedeskMini.jpg (300x224, 10K)

okay here is the thing do you want this mini pc as a new toy or just an extra pc?
If the later go with x86 and stop being autistic

Any NUC

That costs twice as much as the upper end of the indicated budget?

Seems like overkill in terms of hardware, it soundls like a $80 Atom or whatever should do the job if he isn't interested in a gaming machine.

You can find them for less but this is a good example.
ebay.com/itm/Mint-HP-Elitedesk-800-G1-Mini-i5-4590T-8GB-120GB-SSD-WiFi-BT-Windows-10-Pro/173377767502

Any case you can recommend? I can only find the official ones, they look quite cheap but no big deal.

Sounds good. Decoders are SoC then or am I misunderstanding you?

That's overkill for me but great specs for the price.

The decoders are burned into the soc just like a x86 gpu/cpu

For example if you are watching a stream your CPU/GPU can offload it into hardware decoding instead of doing it all in software.

This makes your CPU usage go down by like 30%(heat and power consumption too) while being able to stream without skipping or lags.

As new formats come out like av1 you need a newer cpu with a decoder to take advantage otherwise you are forced to use software decoding.
Like if you used a computer from 2005 with a newer codec that it doesn't have.
A ARM SOC from 2018 with the new codec could watch a 4K stream despite the GPU being less potent.

RPI makes you pay for a license key to flip a bit in the GPU to allow hardware decoding of mpeg3 for example while Odroid includes it by default.

Ataribox

Makes sense, thanks.
I just found out about the cloudshell case they sell with the odroid, I guess that settles it, that's exactly what I need.

is there any way to "pirate" this bit flip?

I'm also looking for a low-power SBC that has the following:
- at least 2 cores
- dual-band wifi card that supports AP mode in 2.4 AND 5GHz
- (potentially) supported by OpenWRT/LEDE
- at least 512 MB of RAM
- no need for video output, or if there is, RCA output at low resolutions is enough
- integrated storage or space for external storage (speed doesn't matter much, long-term reliability does)
- HW supported in the kernel
suggestions? anyone knows if such thing exists?

I'm not sure what the user base is like, but these Solidrun router boards looks slick as fuck.
solid-run.com/

Hardkernel has some really great support for their new products, but they kinda forget about them when the new boards come out. The Odroid C2 will probably be supported awhile longer because it's a lower priced model meant to compete against Raspberry Pi 3.
hardkernel.com/main/main.php

I should note, the Odroid U2 that I bought in 2013 is still faster than anything the Raspbarry Pi foundation has come out with. It and the U3 have been depreciated though.

anyone knows if there is a list of SBCs (incl the most shitty chinese SBC one can find) that shows hardware specs?

Does anything stop you from using a Odroid HC1/2 or XU4Q or such?

they are too expensive for what they are, IMO. I don't need that much power, and there are some chinese routers with less powerful SoCs but better specs for my use-case

There are too many at this point. What you need to know is that all of these companies license ARM cores then rename them. Look at the specs for the ARM Cortex cores, then Google whatever name the manufacture calls it so you can find out what it really is. For instance, Allwinner's A10 is really an ARM Cortex A8. There are many other companies which licence the A8 and then rebrand it like Allwinner did. It is the most confusing part of trying to compare ARM hardware and the companies who do this should be shot.

> there are some chinese routers with less powerful SoCs but better specs for my use-case
I'd also have proposed these if there wasn't the >=512MB RAM requirement that seems somewhat harder to meet.

I know about ARM CPUs being part of families of CPUs, I care more about specs as in wifi/graphics chipsets being used and their support on linux

>better specs for my use-case
*except for the RAM... there are not many cheap routers that have 512MB of RAM

shit, I hit send right after you replied...
yeah, it's kinda hard to get a cheap device with 512MB of RAM and ac wifi. I got some cheap orange pi zeros, but those don't support ac, the linux support and their wifi chip is complete shit, though I still managed to make it work in AP mode under openwrt..

>*except for the RAM... there are not many cheap routers that have 512MB of RAM
Yea, exactly.

The ODroids are some of the cheapest "known good" devices that meet this requirement.

Maybe some BananaPi or Rock64 or something would also work, but they got less distros and less reviews and the reviews are more mixed overall.

Why do you need 512MB RAM + two cores but not actually a faster machine anyhow...? Going to run a MooseFS storage node or something on it?

for running shitty PHP webapps + cache plugins or some kind of caching server

Ah yes. If it's PHP bloat like Nextcloud or some such and then a cache server on top, I guess I'd just throw 1-4GB RAM at it myself.

[There's a good chance that I'd not want it combined with the LEDE/OpenWRT Router or AP though, PHP webapp cache requirements bloating shouldn't require me to redo the networking in general, too.]

Adreno, Vivante, VC4/5, Mali, PowerVR are the big 5 GPUs used with ARM. ARM and Imaginationtech have thrown shit fits with people trying to reverse engineer Mali and PowerVR GPUs. Adreno has Freedreno drivers, but they are specific to Qualcomm. VC4 has been reverse engineered, but that is specific to Broadcom. This leaves Vivante as the only freeagent which is used with various manufacturers and has open sourced drivers.
Just assume every Wifi chip in ARM SBCs will need proprietary firmware to work.

>Nextcloud
nah, meant to say some CMS like wordpress

>[There's a good chance that I'd not want it combined with the LEDE/OpenWRT Router or AP though, PHP webapp cache requirements bloating shouldn't require me to redo the networking in general, too.]
I don't get it, why would I need to redo the networking?

let me explain: the idea is to serve dynamic content to a few people at a time (say, 5-10 people connected to the AP, 5-10 requests per seconds at most). while that shouldn't require much power, I haven't found a CMS as featureful as wordpress and similar PHP webapps.
I mean, if I could run a whole site on static content, that'd be great, but...

I said GPUs that as an example, but, as I mentioned in the requirements list, a shitty RCA output would be more than enough

I have that box there. Using Android TV on it, it acts as my smart TV. Hardware is good but not sure how good linux support is though.

Beelink S2
Intel Gemini Lake 4100 Intel HD600
4GB DDR4 + 128GB M.2 2242 SSD
Dual Band AC wifi + Bluetooth 4.0, Gigabit Lan
Type C USB + 2 USB3.0 + 2 USB 2.0
Dual HDMI
Did I mention dedicated 2.5" sata bay?
All for two fiddy USD.
gearbest.com/mini-pc/pp_009591678621.html?wid=1433363#goodsDetail

Attached: Beelink-S2_3[1].jpg (800x536, 81K)

>Intel

Attached: (((intel inside))).jpg (512x318, 52K)

>Implying AMD makes anything remotely competitive to this form factor.

The architecture is relatively new and they're focus right now isn't in mini-PCs. It would be great if they threw a bone, though since Ryzen is incredibly power efficient