La Frite: A Libre ARM SBC For $5, 10x Faster Than The Raspberry Pi Zero

[phoronix]

Phoronix: La Frite: A Libre ARM SBC For $5, 10x Faster Than The Raspberry Pi Zero

The folks at the Libre Computer Project who have successfully released the Tritium, Le Potato, and other ARM SBCs while being as open-source friendly as possible have now announced La Frite...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Libre-ARM-SBC-La-Frite

[You-]

Are there any downsides to choosing this over a taspberry pi?

I assume there is a smaller ecosystem and products targeted at the Raspberry Pi wont work with this?

[m132]

Are Pi's ports fake?

[kpedersen]

I am noticing that kickstarter rarely works for hardware like this.

1st Release - Large number of users back it and potentially they can make a batch for release, everyone is happy.
2nd Release? - Everyone who wanted it, already has one so doesn't need another

2nd Release never reaches critical mass to afford a batch and the whole project fails.

Also, it is not Libre.... It uses ARM and many other things that are proprietary and limited. In 3 years they won't even be able to procure the required components to release another batch!

[willmore]

64 bit cores that you can actually run at 64 bit? Sounds great.

These are the people who paid for the mainlining of the Amlogic chips, so they have some history backing their products.

The only caution for the people without a lot of experience is that *these boards have no uSD slot*. Booting must be over the network, USB, or eMMC. There is a 16MB SPI flash chip which it can boot off of (or load a bootloader from). I'm not sure if that's necessary to be programmed to get something other than eMMC to boot. I've asked a question on the kickstarter page for it.

And, yes, I backed it. These people have supported open source so I will support tham.

[AsuMagic]

Those names... lol.

[Serafean]

Are Pi's ports fake?

Pi's ethernet is connected through the USB 2.0. Making network throughput dependent on other devices connected through USB.

[M@yeulC]

I am noticing that kickstarter rarely works for hardware like this.

1st Release - Large number of users back it and potentially they can make a batch for release, everyone is happy.
2nd Release? - Everyone who wanted it, already has one so doesn't need another

2nd Release never reaches critical mass to afford a batch and the whole project fails.

Also, it is not Libre.... It uses ARM and many other things that are proprietary and limited. In 3 years they won't even be able to procure the required components to release another batch!

The hardware might not be (yet), but the software stack is promisingly libre. And your argument also holds for most boards, and most architectures

[uid313]

How open is it?
Is anything on it not open?

It would be cool with a RISC-V based IoT SoC.

[L_A_G]

Not sure if the Pi Zero is the right point of comparison for this considering it's still the size of a Model B board.

Still, the further upstream you can get on kernel front, the better, but running Mali 4XX-series graphics means it'll never be truly "libre". However what concerns me somewhat is that they're not as clear as they ought to be on some of the exact details of the hardware. Is it the same AMLogic S905X SoC as on the original LePotato (the pictures, when zoomed to extreme graininess, would suggest that) and how is the eMMC memory in the more expensive pledges implemented. Is it soldered on the board or a separate module? Because it would be nice if you could just plonk in eMMC modules you happen to have lying around from before.

I'm asking because after working with both boards that boot off a microSD card and an eMMC module I never want to work with a SBC that boots of a microSD card.

All in all this does look interesting, but doesn't quite fit what I'm interested in a SBC. However their Renegade Elite is pretty much exactly what I was looking for so I backed it when it's campaign was ongoing. As for the future availability of components the only part where this can actually be an issue, the AMLogic S905X SoC was only released in 2016 and these kinds of SoCs tend to be made for donkey's years and thus I doubt that's going to be an issue.