[GTALUG] glittery cheap but useless toy computers

[D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk]

The price of this looks very attractive:
<https://www.zapals.com/nexbox-a95x-tv-box-4k-android-7-1-amlogic-s905w-quad-core.html>
- US$23.99, with free (very slow) shipping, probably no tax
- only FullHD
- 1G RAM, 8G eMMC (a little light)
- Amlogic S905w: quad core Arm Cortex A53 processor; penta core Mali 450MP
GPU.

There are a lot of cheap boxes meant for running Kodi and this is one of
them.

Technically, they run Android and easily hook up to your TV. But they
don't run Android TV (a subtle but important difference). Because of
"Digital Rights Management", they cannot run Netflix at a good resolution.
I don't remember if YouTube also limits them.

So what's left? Unauthorized content discovered through Kodi plug-ins.
I've never tried this. I understand that there is a large turnover in
plug-ins as they get taken down.

For TV use, I much prefer a Xiaomi Mi Box with genuine Android TV
(US$70 from US Walmart).

BUT. The raw hardware for these cheap boxes is interesting. Faster
than a Raspberry Pi. And these come with a box, remote control, and
power supply. Expandability and openness in general is a lot worse.

The worst thing is that all their GPUs are proprietary (and a few other
things too) so you cannot drop an ordinary Linux on them.

I think that they all use uboot and device tree, but in an idiosyncratic
way, adding to the difficulty.

I bought a (less) cheap S912 box that I intend to play with. Apparently
you can run Linux on these if you don't need video output. I won't give
links because I don't know which efforts are the best.
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[D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk]

I'm still tantalized by cheap Android boxes from unknown manufacturers.

The best current chip (SoC)found in TV boxes is the Rockchip RK3399. It
is fast and it has very nice things like USB3.

So I've looked for cheap ones. For some reason, all that have the RK3399
are quite expensive ($150 or more). Like: three times the cost of ones
with the Amlogic 905x, which itself is a reasonable chip. I have no idea
why -- I'm sure that the SoC itself doesn't cost anywhere near $100.

There are a few Pi-like boards being released that have the RK3399. Like
the RockPro64, Khadas Edge, Nano Pi M2, NanoPC-T4, etc. You can read
cnx-software.com for news about these things.

Still another choice is the somewhat old Reaktek RTD1395 / 1396 chips.
These can do SATA and are used in several NAS boxes. But Realtek has been
violating the GPL very badly on these so they are not open enough to be
interesting. This development seems likely to be too little, too late:

<https://www.cnx-software.com/2018/09/23/realtek-rtd1296-u-boot-linux-source-code-rtd1619-cortex-a55-soc/>

At US$54, this would be interesting if you could pour something open into
it:

<https://www.cnx-software.com/2018/09/16/lake-i-home-cloud-tv-box-hdmi-input-discount/>

Anyway, all these seem inferior to some little boxes based on the Atom.
Sad.

| From: D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <***@gtalug.org>
| To: Toronto Linux Users Group <***@gtalug.org>
| Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 13:49:48 -0400 (EDT)

| BUT. The raw hardware for these cheap boxes is interesting. Faster
| than a Raspberry Pi. And these come with a box, remote control, and
| power supply. Expandability and openness in general is a lot worse.
|
| The worst thing is that all their GPUs are proprietary (and a few other
| things too) so you cannot drop an ordinary Linux on them.
|
| I think that they all use uboot and device tree, but in an idiosyncratic
| way, adding to the difficulty.
|
| I bought a (less) cheap S912 box that I intend to play with. Apparently
| you can run Linux on these if you don't need video output. I won't give
| links because I don't know which efforts are the best.

I still haven't played with it.
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