I think this is probably something for Thomas, but it's a general question. I'm totally confused (old too which doesn't help) as to which board to get for different jobs. I have an RPi B (256) running. Dietpi as a DLNA and samba sever. Slow but effective. An RPi 3 for general work and tinkering since it's supported quite well and a Orange PI PC which is how I got here... Wow, what a great piece of work you have all done.

 

Igor and Thomas I salute you both! Your knowledge and explanations make me sit in awe. Last time I soldered something in anger it was a quad CMOS NAND and it wasn't cheap either!

 

So, is there a general (noobs) guide to which boards are good for "X" purpose?

 

Server, General PC, retro games machine, etc...

 

One thing I'm trying to achieve is a truly silent and very, very low power desktop for my research/writing. (I suspect an x86 machine is required to do the DTP and graphics.) The PI3 is teasingly close but not quite there.

 

As a general-purpose (fixed to the rear of a monitor) machine I also really could use accelerated video and reliable sound.

 

Cost IS a consideration of course but there are so many boards out there it's becoming a real challenge to figure out the good from the awful! Thank goodness we have Armbian to make things at least usable!

You already have: RPi B (256) ; RPi 3 ; Orange PI PC

 

What you want:

Server,

 

General PC, research/writing

 

retro games machine

Don't forget Zador's great work and everybody else of course :-)

 

retro games machine; I prefer something with Bluetooth to connect my PlayStation 3 controller for the Pi you find working images:

@Marc

 

The small arm boards are wonderful for games, entertainment and hand-crafted appliances of all sorts. Pick one supported by excellent Armbian or use a recent Raspi. The boards you own are just fine for that.

 

There is no such thing as "General PC" but you state requirements as

 

- truly silent and very, very low power

- desktop for my research/writing.

- DTP and graphics

- fixed to the rear of a monitor

- accelerated video and reliable sound
- cost IS a consideration

 

Your OPI PC is cheap, silent, low power with accelerated video and reliable sound when hooked up to HDMI-monitor with speakers. You can also use it for research/writing (even DTP and graphics) , but don't expect stellar performance.

 

You do get quite pleasing performance by using OPI PC ( tested on smaller sibling OPI ONE ) as a capable thinclient accessing a physical (cheap old linux-converted notebook or PC ) or virtual ( virtual private server possibly living in the clowd ) linux server running suitable powerful software, keeping vital data centralized and universally accessible. Does this sound like what you want ?

 

The recipe for your "general PC" is explained at  http://forum.armbian.com/index.php/topic/1044-remote-desktop-fun-with-armbian-505-on-opi-one/

 

Enjoy !

Thanks for the suggestions. The OPI PC is providing some interesting challenges. The Pi3 has proven more stable, but Armbian is really blowing me away. I've got a bit Linux batty now... Even converting a friend to Ubuntu from Windows Vista. He's not quite there with an ARM development board yet but who knows!

 

There is so much we can do with these machines... I just wish RPi would sort that I/o bottleneck.

Hi guys,

I own Odroid-U3, BananaPi, BananaPro, Cubietruck, OrangePiOne, OrangePi2mini, Raspberry Pi Model A, Raspberry Pi 2.

And do you know which one is fastest?

Old Odroid-U3 has fastest cpu and it has option for quicker emmc storage like successors Odroid-C1/C1+,C2 or best but not fanless Odroid-XU4.

Forget Odroid-U3 because it is not in production.

Forget Odroid-C1/C1+ because it is slower than my U3 (even it has faster cpu than rest of my boards).

If you want best software support buy Raspberry 3.

If you want quick storage buy Odroid C2 with emmc module but I think system/drivers for this board is still in development stage and you can expect some instability.

 

If you want best buy board bellow:

Odroid-XU4 product page + some benchmarks

 

 

And do you know which one is fastest?

 

Always the one that serves best for the specific use case. Without knowing the latter it's just a waste of time to do comparisons like this.

Ok so in my case I would like to be able to run Kodi and video apps like YouTube