Toluene

I have a need for a low-cost machine for my daughter. I could buy a Raspberry pi and run Ubuntu on it, but
I have a few Amlogic boards at hand, and for the most part they work perfectly with Armbian (OK I know
they are not a supported board, and I don't run an official build).
 
My concern, though, is that lack of hardware support (audio, video decoding) which makes low-profile
hardware quite sluggish to use in the daily life.
 
My point is that I am tired of seeing perfectly usable (in theory) electronic products to to landfill (and create
an environmental disaster) just because software is falling short. Not even software in fact, but rather the
configuration of it. This is very frustrating because everything I'm talking about is supposed to be mainlined
and I believe I'm not attempting something unreasonable.
 
I need to learn more about those subjects, and reading this forum helps, but there are hundreds of messages
out there, most of them obsolete. So I don't know who to turn to, if you know a good place, please let me
know. The user that goes by the name of Balbes in this forum has done a fantastic job of putting out new
images as releases appear in the Linux tree, and elsewhere. I would like to sincerely thank that person. I
wish I has a tenth of their knowledge.
 
I have seen many related discussions in the LibreElec forum, but then my intention is not to run kodi. I am
not aware of any Amlogic-specific mailing list.
 
This post will quite likely be seen as a troll,  which it isn't, really, and brutally closed,  but at least it gives
me an opportunity to speak my mind.
 
Anyone knows a good place to start ?