pcDuino3 Nano Lite

Fun SBC to tinker on. I picked it up for 1/2 off the normal price so it was a gift to myself. The Allwinner A20 performance is decent, I can see it function as a inexpensive XBMC / Kobi or Octoprint device with little performance issues. I have yet to tinker with the arduino like capabilities.I do however have some negative comments, mostly directed at Linksprite's management of the OS and community. The recent Ubuntu image released in late December of 2015 has a few issues. When you attempt to (sudo apt-get) update and upgrade, there are dependencies issues especially pointing back to Linksprite hosted updates. At times I couldn't connect to their repository or their repository would slow to a crawl transfer wise (single Kbps, not even KBps). I've tried across multiple days and multiple different times, and about the only decent time I did manage to update and upgrade was very late Friday night in mountain time. I decided to scour the Linksprite site for support articles, and in the forums I found a few suggestions. However I was dismayed at some of the responses for support from their "Admin"s which squarely laid the lack of knowledge to the issue on the users shoulder. I can understand that to a certain extent, but I think a better approach to user engagement is necessary. If there is anything to be said about the success of a product, it's the community that grows around that said product. Linksprite has to do much more in terms of community support than the minimums they've accomplished so far to make this a highly successful product. While the raspberry 1B/2 may pale in comparison spec wise, the community around it is what makes it flourish. All that being said, if you have the tech gusto and savvy, this could be your board!

Good news: I bought this for a steal at $15 here on Amazon. It runs Linux and while it requires some work, it's absolutely possible to run your own kernels and userspace software. For me, it was important to be able to run Docker and none of the images had a kernel that Docker would work with, so it was important I could build my own kernel. The specs are great for the price.Bad news: Most of the images for the pcDuino seem intended for the NAND-based models. It's troublesome to get up and running with any pcDuino compared to boards like the Raspberry PI, or any x86 system, but this board (and arguably other A20 boards) is more difficult than it really should be to get up and running. I've also had some trouble getting newer kernels working, with even newer kernels shipped by distributions failing, but this is likely a matter of trial-and-error to build a working kernel. (If this seems contradictory, then I'll note that running older kernels was fine, but the 4.x series seems troublesome on this board - by YMMV, it's likely PEBKAC - problem exists between keyboard and chair)

Model: pcDuino3 Nano LiteThe only two things the Lite does not have vs the Nano are: 1. Onboard flash. 2. IR Receiver (can be added in.)Very fast and capable for such a little device.Software: http://www.linksprite.com/image-for-pcduino3-nano-pcduino3b/Features:Allwinner A20 1Ghz dual core1GB DDR3L 1333 RAM (2x512MB)SATA 2.0 portRealtek gigabit Ethernet PHY on Allwinner A20 Ethernet MACHDMIUSB 2.0 (x2)USB OTG port

Runs Fedora 23 following the same instructions as the pcDuino3 Nano. Great price. Runs great. I wasn't using the built in storage on my pcDuino3 Nano anyway, so the price savings for the lite helps.

An amazing board at an amazing price ($15, on sale). I installed Fedora 23 with the 4.3.3 kernel, and it works great.

It does not have any reference to load os on micro sd , so don't work