Nice to see adafruit recommending armbian in his projects:

 

https://learn.adafruit.com/circuitpython-on-orangepi-linux/initial-setup

in case the adafruit people follow this one...

• enable i2c etc. can also be done with armbian-config, you don't even have to know how the overlays are named.. @martinayotte  spends quite some time to keep it working with it. even then.. please educate your users to read the related README.sunXi - it's not fun to explain again and again why ds18b20 on one-wire "doesn't work", whereas the proper question should be: how-to configure W1 on different pins.
• pip on debian is prone to mess up stuff (well in fact the user messes stuff up ), IMO a proper way is to use virtualenv (https://virtualenv.pypa.io/en/latest/) once you got fooled enough by lib dependencies which mess up your python installation on debian and you got it properly working on virtualenv you don't want to go back
• sudo i2cdetect -y 0 only for debug purposes - happened once to me that it messed with the pmic --> freeze (if I've it right in mind i2cdetect actually warns you that you shouldn't use it when devices are on the bus which are currently running.. check schematics if the wired out i2c aren't used for pmics as well it might lead in funny stuff happening )
• if they still sell a bunch of their stuff for 5V and 3.3V (didn't follow adafruit boards for a while) tell your users that GPIOs and i2c on those boards are 3.3V, some 'tolerate' 5V by mistake but I wouldn't count on it.. (at least the W1 pin survived my last harakiri-attempt )

• Quote

  Once powered correctly and with the right SD card you should get a login prompt

  powered correctly and with the right SD card means a quality one for both ('my old phonecharger' is quite often not in this category, similarly: the cheapest SD-Card I found on aliexpress).. Otherwise threads of your users will quite often end here: https://forum.armbian.com/forum/31-sd-card-and-power-supply/  - spread the word Armbian (and the RPi guys since a while too) recommend etcher.io

but one good thing: they link to their 10$ USB-UART cable It's a bit pricey but on this part they might become friends with the Canadians.. 

I'm going to poke at it and try to add a Tritium board to it since I have them.  Then maybe a Duo or Neo/core.  I have enough gadgets to test it out ok.

 

 

14 hours ago, chwe said:

@martinayotte  spends quite some time to keep it working with it.

@zador.blood.stained spend even more time than me on the overlays. I've worked more on the CONFIGFS side for RunTime-UserSpace overlays ...

15 hours ago, chwe said:

if they still sell a bunch of their stuff for 5V and 3.3V

in opposite to the 'cheap copy' from AliExpress, Adafruits hardware comes more often than not, with a voltage regulator. So you don't 'burn' your precious sensor while being a Maker. This is good, so you can focus on what you wanna do.

 

18 hours ago, Tido said:

So you don't 'burn' your precious sensor while being a Maker.

I don't care towards my sensors.. but burned boards cause the SoC pins aren't 5V tolerant is a bigger issue..

 

18 hours ago, Tido said:

in opposite to the 'cheap copy' from AliExpress, Adafruits hardware comes more often than not, with a voltage regulator.

normally, they put exact the same stuff on the board than adafruit or who ever released it first... Why? It's probably easier to design the pcb.. Only difference I spot.. they mostly don't care towards resistors.. E.g. putting a 5% resistor as a shunt which should be at least an 1% one..

 

It was never an issue that adafruit boards arent 3.3/5V capable.. But the SBC might not be..