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Geek Culture / Raspberry Pi vs Cubieboard. Which to buy?

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AbdulAhad
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Joined: 1st Feb 2010
Location: Karachi, Pakistan
Posted: 11th Oct 2012 06:44 Edited at: 11th Oct 2012 06:46
Hello everyone!

I'm in need of a little help here deciding which platform to go with. I am aware of both their pros and cons, yet I can not decide which one to go with as I have no experience with neither of the two. I want to get into Linux and robotics in general.

Raspberry Pi costs $35 for the model B version. Runs on a 700MHz Broadcom ARMV6K which can be overclocked to 1.0GHz, safely, from what I have heard. It runs many popular Linux distributions and has a very large community.

The Cubieboard, on the other hand, costs $49. Runs on a 1GHz AllWinner A10 Coretex A8 processor and can easily be overclocked up to 1.5GHz. It features a Sata port, (HUGE PLUS FOR ME) has 4GB of flash storage, and has 1GB of DDR3 ram.

The disadvantages that the RPi has are that it`s running on older hardware, has lesser memory, you need a SDCard for the Linux image and anything stored on it. The only advantage I am seeing is the strong community support and amount of resources available for the platform.

The disadvantage that the Cubieboard has is that it just shipped its beta boards, and lacks the community support which the RPi has. The advantages are great though. It has a faster processor, more RAM, AND a Sata port, as well as built in 4 GB of flash memory.

I just wanted to know which one is more 'future proof.'

So yeah, any input on this? Which would be a better investment and why?

Abdul Ahad

MrValentine
AGK Backer
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Playing: FFVII
Posted: 11th Oct 2012 13:27 Edited at: 11th Oct 2012 13:31
RPi simply because you have minimal limitations, forcing you to become a better craftier coder...

Funny enough I was in a book shop yesterday and came across a fairly cheap book on the RPi... sadly buying the actual product is not so clean slated... so I did not buy the book... shame really I too am keen to delve into this area...

My verdict... never heard of the other one...

And that could spell disaster...

And you can never feel hungry when talking about the RPi

bitJericho
21
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Location: United States
Posted: 11th Oct 2012 14:00 Edited at: 11th Oct 2012 14:00
Just get 2 rpi's

Visit my blog http://www.canales.me. Also yes I changed my name. It was time for a change.
Libervurto
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Location: On Toast
Posted: 11th Oct 2012 17:15 Edited at: 11th Oct 2012 17:16
I'm just going on your descriptions here but unless you specifically need the sata port I would go with the rpi because it has exactly what you need for its purpose. I don't think performance really comes into it for a homebrew cheapo PC like these, the community support is more important. I hope they ship a tonne of them out to poor countries.

Shh... you're pretty.
AbdulAhad
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Location: Karachi, Pakistan
Posted: 12th Oct 2012 00:11
Quote: "RPi simply because you have minimal limitations, forcing you to become a better craftier coder..."


But you DO get limited in aspects in the future. I do realize that you become craftier and try doing things in ways of perception, kinda like how reflections are done in games nowadays.

Quote: "And you can never feel hungry when talking about the RPi"




Quote: "Just get 2 rpi's"


I was thinking of doing that. That way I believe you could link them like render farms. I`m not sure if it`s possible though.

Quote: "I'm just going on your descriptions here but unless you specifically need the sata port I would go with the rpi because it has exactly what you need for its purpose. I don't think performance really comes into it for a homebrew cheapo PC like these, the community support is more important. I hope they ship a tonne of them out to poor countries."


The only reasons I see myself getting the cubieboard are that it runs Ubuntu, which I have had some experience with, and that it could easily be used as a home theatre system with the addition of a Sata compliant SSD. Anyway, I guess Raspberry Pi it is then. I heard they ship them to India. I`m just going to have to wait for the shipment to arrive here in Canada.

Abdul Ahad

AbdulAhad
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Location: Karachi, Pakistan
Posted: 16th Oct 2012 06:21
Sorry about double post but now the newer RPis are shipping with 512MB of RAM! Another great reason to buy one of these! Definitely going for the RPi now! It's still $35!

Abdul Ahad

MrValentine
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Playing: FFVII
Posted: 16th Oct 2012 23:18
Quote: "Sorry about double post but now the newer RPis are shipping with 512MB of RAM! Another great reason to buy one of these! Definitely going for the RPi now! It's still $35!

Abdul Ahad"


Glad I persuaded you to wait now?

Kevin Picone
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Location: Australia
Posted: 17th Oct 2012 03:01
Buy both... try them... put the less useful one (or both ) on ebay.

nonZero
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Location: Dark Empire HQ, Otherworld, Silent Hill
Posted: 17th Oct 2012 10:00 Edited at: 17th Oct 2012 10:02
It's a pretty academic point this. Just look at 2 things specs and peripheral support. The superior one wins.

Personally I'd rather have a Toradex Topaz than either because the Topaz - a little bulkier than Pi - boasts an x86 cpu. That's right, it's a shoddy Intel Atom E6 series which only runs at 1.6GHz iirc, but for a tiny Single Board Computer thats amzing. Why X86 is better - just my opinion, feel free to disregard - is that there are many distros of Linux - and other non-Linux OSes - that only support x86 architecture. With an ARM cpu, you'd essentially be limited in your choices to distros that have been ported. Sadly, the list doesn't include Puppy, Tiny Core, or Damn Small Linux - afaik. Anyway, just things to think about.

ultimately I'd do some research if î were you because these decisions are tough to make and I speak from someone with experience: I bought a tablet and was really excited after seeing demos of Android OS and hearing all you could do with it and that it was "developer friendly". Well if developer friendly means you have to root your device using a hack that voids the warranty then we're alreeady living the dystopian future. Not tryna be negative here but I'm trying to encourage you to write down exactly what you want out of this machine, do thorough research and then see how many items on that list it can satisfy.

Good luck with your decision

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