[kieranhunt]

I was one of the C.H.I.P. kickstarter backers. I actually have two. I've been quite pleased with them. Apart from the issue with early C.H.I.P.s not booting[1], I've been had very few issues with mine.

I really like the idea of these small, cheap, hackable and ubiquitous computers that we can assign to a project and not worry about the cost. One issue with the multitude of different companies making these things (Raspberry Pi, Beagleboard, Next Thing, etc.) is that some systems garner large communities (and subsequently lots of support) whilst others seem to remain small. Most of my endeavours with these computers has been software related but I imagine that the size of the community comes into effect when it comes to hardware support. Is there something that can be done do try to minimize this difference?

[1] https://bbs.nextthing.co/t/c-h-i-p-boot-repair-tool-for-mac/... (that site was having issues with its CSS at the time of posting)

[jdietrich]

Open drivers, open documentation. Trying to work with these cheap SoCs is like pulling teeth, because their manufacturers are completely indifferent to the open source community. Video drivers are a particular sticking point.

[makomk]

They're working on it. The company behind C.H.I.P seems to be paying someone to develop drivers for it and get them into upstream Linux, including non-accelerated video drivers. A lot of the hardware on this era of Allwinner SoC actually already has support thanks to community efforts, too.

[dindin123]

I'll join the community once I could actually buy it. It really helps you know...

[digi_owl]

Yep. Once it can order it locally as easily as i can order the Pi3, i'm game.