Are there any Raspberry Pi competitors that people like? I've see a few referenced in different articles but I don't have any idea how reliable or useful they are.
That will depend on what your project requires. There are a large number of Pi users that could get by with a simple x86 desktop-class PC or thin client [1] which, as the article points out, can have pretty similar wattage and compute power compared to say running 3-4 Pis.
It gets a little tricky when you start talking about GPIO requirements. There are things like the ASUS tinkerboard [2] but it's much more expensive than a Pi.
The boards from Libre Computer are great because they work with mainline Linux and EFI, meaning you can boot any distro, be it Fedora, Debian etc. and directly use the latest distro kernels. You don't need a special image e.g. with a bootloader setup or some custom kernel that gets outdated quickly and never updated. It's really great to be able to not worry about the OS and kernel updates because you can follow what you would also do on your laptop or x86 server.
I'm having success with Orange Pi One using Armbian to build images. Not going to be as performant as a Pi 4 by any stretch but at $25 a pop I can't complain
treesknees|3 years ago
It gets a little tricky when you start talking about GPIO requirements. There are things like the ASUS tinkerboard [2] but it's much more expensive than a Pi.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11/used-thin-client-pcs...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WPVVZNH
destitude|3 years ago
Klasiaster|3 years ago
https://libre.computer/products/
jazzyjackson|3 years ago