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by makomk 3448 days ago
The Orange Pi PC is $15, roughly comparable to the Pi 3 performance wise, and doesn't require any of this hilarity to boot with open source code.
3 comments

See my other comment about Allwinner, but basically my biggest issue is that they lock down their bootloader with signing and do not allow you to execute code in EL3/Secure mode without exploits.
This is very sad because those H3/H2 based boards are SO much more interesting than the RPis. I can't but wonder why Allwinner is so hostile to OSS.
Not sure why this is downvoted.

The OPi chip maybe for not cone from a "respected" western company but it is in all regards a more open chip.

While the datasheet is almost as thin as that of Broadcom it is mostly because they use standard components where the full datasheet is available from arm.

There are also far less magic blobs and crazy boot gymnastics in there.

> The OPi chip maybe for not cone from a "respected" western company

This isn't some petty nationalist agenda like you're claiming. AllWinner's lack of respect stems from their pathological refusal to cooperate with the Linux kernel and their many GPL license violations. They throw out new hardware cores very frequently, but the hardware is impossible to keep updated (and is thus insecure and hard to use) because AllWinner won't release hardware documentation or source code. I've got a few AllWinner devices, and they're poorly suited as general-purpose computing devices if you need both graphics and a recent kernel. They collect dust with my other nigh-unusable hardware.

Most of the AllWinner support in the kernel has been added despite the company's deplorable position, and the major community repository of information is highly critical of them (http://linux-sunxi.org/Allwinner). It's sad for a company when your major users and developers think so poorly of you.

Broadcom also acted like this for many years, and was similarly hated. The Raspberry Pi has been a bit of a paradigm shift in corporate policy which has earned them a lot more respect. And it's still been a rather slow journey.

If AllWinner wants respect, they can earn it by making their hardware easy to use for the hobbyist and non-commercial developers they're courting with all the cheap knockoffs they're releasing (e.g. Orange Pi, Banana Pi, etc which try and profit off brand name similarity). Blaming it on Western propaganda is just pitiful self-deception.

> This isn't some petty nationalist agenda like you're claiming

That's not what I am saying. I'm saying Broadcom is getting a pass because they are a household name.

Is it just me or the downloads on the Orange Pi site have no checksum attached?

http://www.orangepi.org/downloadresources/orangepipc2/2016-1...

The OrangePi Zero is $7, same H3 SOC with the same software stack, plus it has ethernet, wifi & POE.