[epx]

Wish there was an ESP64 with just enough RAM to run a Debian distro, even slowly, so we could stop waiting for Zeros to get cheaper.

[squarefoot]

You can run Armbian and DietPI (both Debian derivatives) on most small boards; some like the NanoPI NEO are in the same price ballpark as the Pi Zero, but are in stock.

https://www.friendlyelec.com/index.php?route=product/product...

https://www.armbian.com/download/?device_support=Supported

https://dietpi.com/#download

[teleforce]

This new breed of similarly price low cost SoC is an awesome alternative to ESP-32. It has MMU for full Linux installation, NPU for AI processing and network peripherals for IoT [1],[2]:

[1]The $8 Linux Computer:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34024914

[2]Sipeed M1s DOCK development board:

https://wiki.sipeed.com/hardware/zh/maix/m1s/m1s_dock.html

[kevin_thibedeau]

BeagleBone has always been an option. The cool kids just choose to ignore it.

[epx]

It is quite expensive (US$ 50-ish). In 2023 we should have plenty of $2-5 chips capable of running a normal distro of Linux.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

I have a BBB in a drawer somewhere. It's a very nice platform, but I quickly realized that for the $50, I could use a $30 RasPi B+ (back when you could get them) talking to a $2 arduino clone and accomplish the same thing far more easily.