pcDuino Lite WiFi

Ordered two, works well. Can't find replacement images other than the Ubuntu one they recommend though, but it works right out of the box.Also - see attached image. Notice that while they soldered one of the pins on one of the headers, whoever hand-soldered this board missed the rest of the pins. That might be an issue for some users.

this mini computer is a good way to start learning about unix system. It has wifi so you can make wireless connection. Since all components are on 1 board it's easy to learn which is what, a good learning for a beginner.

Not super powerful but at the price a nice SBC with some good features.

pcDuino Lite WiFi LinkSprite's pcDuino series boards are billed as the "mini PC + Arduino", an ARM-plus-Arduino hybrid SBC (single board computer) with much promise. The pcDuino Lite WiFi holds down the low end of the pcDuino product line, combining a Cortex-A8 based Allwinner A10 SoC with Arduino-style expansion and HDMI ports. I love discovering new SBCs, so I ordered this pcDuino out of curiosity.=================FIRST IMPRESSION=================At first glance, pcDuino Lite WiFi looked minimal. It has- Cortex-A8 @ 1GHz (ARM v7) Processor- Mali400 GPU- 256MB RAM @ 408MHz (two 128Mx8 DDR3 SK Hynix H5TQ1G83BFR)- 2GB NAND flash- WiFi 802.11b/g/n (Realtek RTL8188CUS)- 1 USB 2.0 port- 1 micro USB port (supplies DC power 5V @ 2A)- 1 USB 2.0 OTG port- 1 HDMI port- 1 SD card slot- 5 green LEDs- Header pinoutThe onboard NAND flash storage was already pre-loaded with a version of Ubuntu 12.04 (based on Linaro 12.07). The moment I powered it on, everything worked out of the box.This is the 5th non-mainstream SBC I've bought from Amazon, and it's the easiest to set up. I was prepared to spend several days tweaking the code and hacking the drivers in order to get it to work, but that turned out to be completely unnecessary. This little thing is a plug-and-play.I hooked up the board to a computer monitor through HDMI, and graphics on the screen looked great for such a low-end board. After connecting a powered USB hub (via the Micro USB port), I was able to use the USB keyboard, USB mouse, and USB WiFi dongle right after plugging them in. It doesn't have a fan or heatsink, but I haven't noticed any overheating issues after having it running continuously as a web server for a few days.==========UPGRADING==========Hardware without software is pretty much useless. Like many other SBCs, the pcDuino is lacking on the software and documentation side, plus there aren't many pre-built images available. LinkSprite-provided images (released in 2013) all run on a horribly outdated 3.4.29 kernel -- there is little need to fiddle around with such unless you fancy retro-computing or reminiscing about the old days.So, is it possible to bring the pcDuino up-to-date? When you search for publicly available information about pcDuino's online, you will find that forum posts are a treasure trove of badly dispersed information and misinformation.However, if you are willing to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty, you CAN run the very LATEST mainline Linux kernel and distro on the pcDuino! Truly DIY-from-scratch.Thanks to the awesome linux-sunxi community (which I regularly contribute to), Linux mainlining efforts for Allwinner A10 and A20 SoCs have been progressing very nicely. This little board is already supported by an upstream Linux kernel and mainline U-Boot! [https://linux-sunxi.org/LinkSprite_pcDuino_Lite_WiFi]I compiled a mainline Linux kernel 4.9.0-rc6 straight from source (https://www.kernel.org) and installed Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS on the pcDuino. If you don't know much about GNU/Linux, compiling a kernel and building an image could be challenging -- but it's not rocket science. (I first cross-compiled on my Linux desktop and then natively compiled on the pcDuino itself. Both tries worked out well, although the latter took significantly longer.)Anyway, the revitalized pcDuino has been working really well. WiFi, USB, HDMI, etc. all work on the new kernel. The fresh install used less than 500MB of the 2GB onboard NAND flash. (I could insert an SD card for extra storage but there hasn't been a need for it.) On startup, the system always uses less than 10% of RAM (on the pre-flashed image it used nearly 100% on boot). $ uname -a Linux pcduino 4.9.0-rc6 #2 SMP Fri Nov 25 15:05:07 EST 2016 armv7l armv7l armv7l GNU/Linux $ free -h total used free shared buff/cache available Mem: 244M 14M 145M 2.9M 84M 211M Swap: 0B 0B 0B $ dmesg ... [Fri Nov 25 18:29:49 2016] Booting Linux on physical CPU 0x0 [Fri Nov 25 18:29:49 2016] Linux version 4.9.0-rc6 (user@pcduino) (gcc version 5.4.0 20160609 (Ubuntu/Linaro 5.4.0-6ubuntu1~16.04.1) ) #2 SMP Fri Nov 25 15:05:07 EST 12016 [Fri Nov 25 18:29:49 2016] CPU: ARMv7 Processor [413fc082] revision 2 (ARMv7), cr=10c5387d ...=========PROJECTS=========1. Web serversI used the pcDuino to host a personal RSS server, a blog (Pelican + nginx), a source code repo (Kallithea), a wiki/bug tracking system (Trac). Yes, all running at the same time with a 512MB swap. I was also able to get a Jenkins server and a SonarQube server running on it -- painfully slow.2. Deployment environmentI deployed several Python-based Twitter bots, Telegram bots, and proof-of-concept Deep Learning algorithms on the pcDuino. This little board was able to handle them all.3. Secure web gatewayI plugged in a Ralink USB WiFi dongle (as access point) into the pcDuino, installed hostapd and udhcpd, and turned the board into a WiFi "hotspot" running VPN, proxies and iptables. (It's more like a WiFi router that combines the functionality of an AP, a router, and an advanced firewall). $ sudo lshw -C network *-network:0 description: Wireless interface physical id: 5 bus info: usb@4:1 logical name: wlan1 serial: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx capabilities: ethernet physical wireless configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rt2800usb driverversion=4.9.0-rc6 firmware=0.29 ip=192.168.2.1 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11 *-network:1 description: Wireless interface physical id: 6 bus info: usb@3:1 logical name: wlan0 serial: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx capabilities: ethernet physical wireless configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rtl8192cu driverversion=4.9.0-rc6 firmware=N/A ip=192.168.1.9 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11The board alone consumes about 250mA @ 5V (1.25W). With USB WiFi dongle, it uses ~350mA. With everything else (USB keyboard, USB mouse, HDMI, etc.) plugged in, power consumption goes up to ~550mA. Temperatures tend to stay in the mid 20s °C. (It peaked above 30 °C only when I was compiling stuff natively on the board.)Then I used a 12,000mAh Jackery solar battery (https://www.amazon.com/Jackery-Portable-External-Panasonic-Aluminum/dp/B00AANQLRI) to power the pcDuino, and it kept the board up and running continuously for almost 25 hours. I have a WiFi router range extender that triples the WiFi coverage of my home router to approximately 150 meters. So I can take the pcDuino and solar battery with me to hang out at the shopping plaza across the street, and still be able to enjoy my secure web gateway. When I'm in a car, I can use a 4G dongle or a Mi-Fi pebble to feed Internet connection to the pcDuino and keep the gateway working. I like this kind of portability.========ARDUINO========pcDuino gets brownie points for having hardware headers to interface with compatible Arduino shields, i.e., 3.3-volt Arduino Uno R3. (Note pcDuino is not the same as Arduino, which outputs 5 volts.)You can boot up Linux and program the Arduino right on board. The pcDuino has pinout pretty similar to the Arduino and implements an Arduino-style API (in C/C++), and there is a custom version of Scratch on the pcDuino that utilizes the unique analog and digital interfaces not found on a PC. (Scratch has access to Arudino-compatible hardware interface on pcDuino when Scratch itself runs on pcDuino.)However, the pcDuino is not perfectly compatible with the Arduino platform. Generally the Arduino ADC reference voltage is AVCC = 5V, so its range is also 5V. However, the pcDuino ADC reference voltage is 3.3V, so pcDuino ADC range is only 3.3V. It works well with a 3.3V Arduino Uno R3. To measure a 5V signal with Arduino, you need to use a voltage divider.There is a little learning curve involved with the pcDuino if you are coming from the Arduino world. If, however, you are comfortable with Python, you will love the transition from Arduino to pcDuino.==========NEGATIVES==========1. Form factorThe pcDuino measures 105mm x 53mm, almost as big as an iPhone 5s! Both the Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone Black are much smaller, and size does matter in some projects.I wish the pcDuino's form factor could have been more compact. There's a lot of space on the board that's not being utilized.2. Onboard WLANThe pcDuino comes with Realtek RTL8188CUS 802.11n WLAN Adapter, which requires either mainline in-kernel drivers ("rtl8192cu", "rtlwifi", "rtl_usb" and "rtl8192c-common") or Realtek-supplied driver ("8192cu"), in addition to the "rtl8192cufw_TMSC.bin" firmware.A little history for those interested:Realtek has been shipping these chipsets since 2010, and the last upstream version of the proprietary "8192cu" driver (4.0.2_9000) was released on October 29, 2013. (They released the "official" driver under GPL, so we have many community ported and patched versions publicly available, such as the "rtlwifi" and "rtl8xxxu".)Around 2012 (~3.2.x Linux), the "rtlwifi" and "rtl8xxxxu" drivers weren't up to the task, so the developers decided to import the proprietary Realtek driver instead and disable "rtlwifi". Fast forward 4 years, "rtlwifi" and "rtl8xxxu" received hundreds of commits, left staging, and are now the default upstream supported driver for RTL8XXXXU chipsets. The proprietary "8192cu" driver still uses old legacy code, and some wireless commands simply don't work with it (e.g. "iw phy", which is part of OpenWRT, etc).My pcDuino's onboard Realtek WiFi module simply refuses to work with the proprietary "8192cu" driver (at least on mainline kernels 4.9.0-rc6 and 4.8.7), while it works fine with the upstream drivers included in the mainline kernel. (Ubuntu started shipping the upstream mainline driver with 15.04 Vivid --> https://git.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-kernel/ubuntu/+source/linux/+git/vivid/tree/drivers/net/wireless) $ modinfo rtl8192cu filename: /lib/modules/4.9.0-rc6/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtlwifi/rtl8192cu/rtl8192cu.ko firmware: rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw_TMSC.bin firmware: rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw.bin description: Realtek 8192C/8188C 802.11n USB wireless license: GPLThe mainline in-tree rtl8192cu/rtlwifi drivers work well on a PC and include other features like AP, monitor mode, P2P-GO. Unfortunately they don't work so well on the ARM port of Linux.This is what I got on the pcDuino with the mainline in-tree "rtl8192cu" driver:wlan0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:"MYWIFI" Mode:Managed Frequency:2.457 GHz Access Point: XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX Bit Rate=73.2 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm Retry short limit:7 RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr:off Power Management:off Link Quality=67/70 Signal level=-43 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:28 Missed beacon:0... UPLOAD speed [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 3] 0.0- 1.0 sec 2.75 MBytes 23.1 Mbits/sec [ 3] 1.0- 2.0 sec 0.00 Bytes 0.00 bits/sec [ 3] 2.0- 3.0 sec 512 KBytes 4.19 Mbits/sec [ 3] 3.0- 4.0 sec 128 KBytes 1.05 Mbits/sec [ 3] 4.0- 5.0 sec 0.00 Bytes 0.00 bits/sec [ 3] 5.0- 6.0 sec 2.62 MBytes 22.0 Mbits/sec [ 3] 6.0- 7.0 sec 896 KBytes 7.34 Mbits/sec [ 3] 7.0- 8.0 sec 0.00 Bytes 0.00 bits/sec [ 3] 8.0- 9.0 sec 1.00 MBytes 8.39 Mbits/sec [ 3] 9.0-10.0 sec 0.00 Bytes 0.00 bits/sec [ 3] 0.0-10.7 sec 8.00 MBytes 6.28 Mbits/sec DOWNLOAD speed [ 5] 0.0- 1.0 sec 894 KBytes 7.32 Mbits/sec [ 5] 1.0- 2.0 sec 307 KBytes 2.51 Mbits/sec [ 5] 2.0- 3.0 sec 0.00 Bytes 0.00 bits/sec [ 5] 3.0- 4.0 sec 0.00 Bytes 0.00 bits/sec [ 5] 4.0- 5.0 sec 1.59 MBytes 13.3 Mbits/sec [ 5] 5.0- 6.0 sec 0.00 Bytes 0.00 bits/sec [ 5] 6.0- 7.0 sec 1.23 MBytes 10.3 Mbits/sec [ 5] 7.0- 8.0 sec 60.8 KBytes 498 Kbits/sec [ 5] 8.0- 9.0 sec 304 KBytes 2.49 Mbits/sec [ 5] 9.0-10.0 sec 0.00 Bytes 0.00 bits/sec [ 5] 0.0-10.5 sec 5.38 MBytes 4.30 Mbits/secAs you can see, the "rtl8192cu" driver (6 Mbps/4 Mbps) is intermittent and unusable. What's more, it randomly disconnects every few minutes: [Sat Nov 26 11:25:58 2016] rtlwifi:rtl_watchdog_wq_callback [rtlwifi]:<0-0> AP off, try to reconnect now [Sat Nov 26 11:25:58 2016] wlan0: Connection to AP xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx lost [Sat Nov 26 11:25:59 2016] wlan0: authenticate with xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx [Sat Nov 26 11:25:59 2016] wlan0: send auth to xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (try 1/3) [Sat Nov 26 11:25:59 2016] wlan0: authenticated [Sat Nov 26 11:25:59 2016] wlan0: associate with xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (try 1/3) [Sat Nov 26 11:25:59 2016] wlan0: RX AssocResp from xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (capab=0x1411 status=0 aid=3) [Sat Nov 26 11:26:00 2016] wlan0: associated [Sat Nov 26 11:37:09 2016] rtlwifi:rtl_watchdog_wq_callback [rtlwifi]:<0-0> AP off, try to reconnect now [Sat Nov 26 11:37:09 2016] wlan0: Connection to AP xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx lost [Sat Nov 26 11:37:10 2016] wlan0: authenticate with xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx [Sat Nov 26 11:37:10 2016] wlan0: send auth to xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (try 1/3) [Sat Nov 26 11:37:10 2016] wlan0: authenticated [Sat Nov 26 11:37:10 2016] wlan0: associate with xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (try 1/3) [Sat Nov 26 11:37:10 2016] wlan0: RX AssocResp from xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (capab=0x1411 status=0 aid=3) [Sat Nov 26 11:37:11 2016] wlan0: associatedI've owned probably 5~6 USB WiFi adapters of various types with Realtek chipsets, and pretty much every single one of them results in intermittent, laggy, dismal, and frustratingly unreliable network connectivity on Linux. What's to blame? Realtek's hardware? Broken firmware? Linux drivers?At work, we use laptops with built-in Realtek chipsets (because there's almost no laptop or even desktop that doesn't use Realtek for WiFi and Ethernet), and we have to keep the laptops wired on RJ-45 cables laid out across the office -- with a bunch of switches under the desks -- so that the team can connect to the Internet and meetings can start on time.By the way, if you really want to see how awful Realtek can get, find a motherboard with RTL8723AE WiFi chipset. It gives you 18Mbps maximum despite being an N card. Furthermore, it works only on kernel 3.12+, and even then it has a tiny, tiny range.I spent days and weekends reading through forums, compiling drivers with every patch and fix that was ever published, messing around the codebase of "official Realtek drivers", modprobing, running around the house testing different physical locations, only to finally give up on Sunday at 2am, a little more frustrated, a little more bitter. [http://stackoverflow.com/search?q=realtek]A quick search on Amazon brings up countless fancy-looking WiFi devices that all look awesome, but don't be fooled -- they all have Realtek chipsets. If you care about your productivity and well-being, I would suggest avoiding Realtek-based WiFi adapters. Atheros chipsets seem much more reliable, in my experience.3. Heat dissipationThe pcDuino is made of a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) that shows inferior heat dissipation. The HDMI port, USB port, micro USB port, WiFi module, SD card slot, and USB OTG port all cluster on one side of the board, so this side of the board usually gets much much hotter than the other side. This heat imbalance cannot be made any more obvious. Also, once you start running heavy benchmarks at clock speeds higher than 360MHz, thermel throttling kicks in.===========CONCLUSION===========The pcDuino Lite WiFi, in my opinion, is a great platform for learning. However, if you would like build serious projects, you might want to consider getting the pcDuino 3B (with Ethernet port) instead.