Orange Pi Review - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: cpuerror
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2015, 03:34:14 am
content: My take on the Orange Pi - an inexpensive and promising competitor to the Rasberry Pi.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2015, 05:05:10 am
content: Sounds like the only positive thing about this board is its price. I'd rather pay $10 more for RPi.

author: cpuerror
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2015, 11:37:59 am
content: I think once I get the GPU acceleration to work it will be much better GUI wise.I don't own a RPi to do a direct comparison with, however the CPU on the Orange is much faster at 1.6GHz vs 900MHz and I'm not sure what the GPU speed on the Pi is but this is 600Mhz. A lot of potential on this board it just needs to be tapped and the dists I've tried so far don't do that.

author: mikerj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2015, 12:14:07 pm
content: Is the ethernet hung off a USB port like the Rpi?

author: Deathwish
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 03, 2015, 12:35:59 pm
content: Apple, Blackberry, Raspberry, Banana, now Orange, it's getting to be more like a greengrocers

author: BloodyCactus
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2015, 02:16:56 pm
content: the pi will let me do accelerated opengl WITHOUT X, can this do that too?also this is using an allwinner chip, not exactly the top of the pile as far as arm cores go really.. meh.

author: cpuerror
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2015, 06:48:30 pm
content: I'm interested in doing some benchmarks i think the cpu/gpu could actually be faster

author: Rasz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2015, 02:32:04 am
content: Quote from: cpuerror on November 03, 2015, 11:37:59 ammost likely you wont, and that is a big problem with chinese socs

author: rickselectricalprojects
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2015, 02:40:25 am
content: i saw the orange pi PC (the PC version of the orange pi) on alibaba for $25 (that includes shipping) and it has really good specs(1.6ghz clock speed with 1GB of ram),would it be bullshit or legit?http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Orange-Pi-PC-linux-and-android-mini-PC-Beyond-Raspberry-Pi-2/32448079125.html

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2015, 02:54:30 am
content: Quote from: rickselectricalprojects on November 04, 2015, 02:40:25 amThe link you have provided is the same OPi. "PC" is just Chinese speak for any computing device. There is nothing special about that board.

author: cpuerror
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2015, 03:00:25 am
content: Quote from: rickselectricalprojects on November 04, 2015, 02:40:25 amIt's the exact one in my video. There are several versions of the orange pi, I guess they felt a need to copy the confusing naming convention from the RasPi.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2015, 04:05:18 am
content: Quote from: Rasz on November 04, 2015, 02:32:04 amMost of the newer Chinese SoCs use the ARM Mali GPUs, and work with the normal Mali drivers. Their support is as good or bad as ARM make it.

author: rickselectricalprojects
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2015, 04:26:56 am
content: Quote from: cpuerror on November 04, 2015, 03:00:25 amis it any good? is it better than a raspberry pi?

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2015, 04:28:54 am
content: Quote from: rickselectricalprojects on November 04, 2015, 04:26:56 amHave you actually watched the video? The answer is there. Short answer - no, it is not better than RPi if you don't factor the price into the comparison.

author: rickselectricalprojects
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2015, 04:33:47 am
content: Quote from: ataradov on November 04, 2015, 04:28:54 ami cant watch the video because i am pretending to do religion work because its religion now but i will watch the video when i get home.i always thought that $25 was a bit dodgy for something with specs like that.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2015, 04:46:59 am
content: Quote from: rickselectricalprojects on November 04, 2015, 04:33:47 amWow.Quote from: rickselectricalprojects on November 04, 2015, 04:33:47 amWell, the link above lists it at US$15 + US$3.51 for shipping to US.$25 is the cost of RPi (before shipping and taxes).

author: rickselectricalprojects
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2015, 04:07:48 am
content: Quote from: ataradov on November 04, 2015, 04:46:59 amnot in Australia, there are about $50 here.

author: rickselectricalprojects
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2015, 04:09:45 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on November 04, 2015, 06:00:54 amwhen i mean better i mean performance and usability. i wouldn't be surprised something like this even had a community.

author: rickselectricalprojects
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2015, 08:18:14 am
content: Quote from: ataradov on November 04, 2015, 04:46:59 amsorry, i was reading this post again and i hope i didn't offend you, i was looking at it in religion class only because i dont really care about religion (please don't take offence) ONLY because my religion teacher who is an ass just regurgitates stuff from the bible and we dont actually learn about morality, ethics or other religions so i just focus on other things.

author: rickselectricalprojects
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2015, 08:21:04 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on November 06, 2015, 04:41:19 amill have a look at the Odroid's and i imagine the "banana Pi" would also be very popular in china as well.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2015, 08:21:19 am
content: Quote from: rickselectricalprojects on November 06, 2015, 08:18:14 amI was actually surprised that Australia has mandatory religion classes. I would expect this kind of BS from some third world country, but not from Australia.But that's offtopic.

author: rickselectricalprojects
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2015, 08:33:15 am
content: Quote from: ataradov on November 06, 2015, 08:21:19 amyeah its BS. i am going into grade 8 next year and we get to pick the subjects that we want to do next year... and religion was compulsorybut that's what you expect with a religious school.

author: rickselectricalprojects
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2015, 09:40:39 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on November 06, 2015, 09:02:09 ambecause i was scared i had offended someone then i thought it would be rude to reply to there post.EDIT- sorry i meant to would be rude NOT to reply to there post

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 07, 2015, 04:16:44 pm
content: Quote from: rickselectricalprojects on November 06, 2015, 04:09:45 amThe community and backing of the software/documentation is indeed what makes the Pi's strength, not so much the hardware. Raspberry's job of getting proper support from Broadcom and their large investment in making it an easy and widespread platform to work with is the key.I've had Chinese boards 2 years ago that would run circles around the Pi in terms of performance and hardware flexibility and would have integrated peripherals that were perfectly suited to a project of mine, but... nobody had drivers for those peripherals, and there wasn't even a chance to write them yourself as it was impossible to get documentation. The guys making these open source boards would just buy the chips and implement them in the most basic reference design so you'd get a working system that can run a basic linux/android, but if you wanted anything more (direct GPU access, video encoders or such) you'd be SOL as they had no actual ties to the chip manufacturer who couldn't care less about your application unless you promised to buy a few hundred thousand chips first.Raspberry did that job of getting support and becoming "important enough" to earn that relationship, which is probably more work than actually designing and programming the thing.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 08, 2015, 08:49:24 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on November 08, 2015, 12:08:35 amWasn't aware, but yeah that would explain thingsQuote from: wilfred on November 08, 2015, 12:08:35 amExactly, which is why it's important that the board manufacturer who has direct relationship with the chip manufacturer and thus access to that doc makes use of it and creates/provides as many documented drivers and APIs as possible in their OS distro so the end users can make the most use of the hardware ithout having the priviledged access to the manufacturer's doc. That's a truckload of work and where the Chinese usually don't deliver.

author: true
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2015, 07:46:12 pm
content: ataradov, most of the issues he ran into are also issues on the Pi2 (sd card images, not knowing if there is a hw problem or card problem), or are for features that don't exist on the Pi2 (power button).Pi is documented better, and is more noob friendly. Pi 1 is pretty slow for most modern use...it was pretty slow even when it came out. Being ARMv6 didn't help either.For a headless machine, most of these SBCs work fine, though at this price point I would probably go for odroid-c1 (an AmLogic S805 based SBC). If you are fine using default distributions, many of these SBCs work fine in a graphical mode. Anything custom...forget about it. There are also limitations of the Mali GPU linux driver - an example that affects me is there is no rotation support in X. On my XU4 I couldn't even get the console rotated in Gentoo. All the effort is put into Android and not desktop Linux.This is an Allwinner-based system. Allwinner has been getting better about things but they are still a rampant GPL violator and still have very poor software support.The power button not doing anything seems to be common with ARM SBCs. Often they won't do anything for power off or power on. I'm not sure what it does on my odroid boards for example, it acts the same as on this board.Re: WiFi, check dmesg - maybe firmware is missing?Re: heat, pretty typical of the new fast SBCs. That's surely one of the reasons for part and clock selection of the Pi2.Ethernet is provided by the SoC and is not on USB.Quote from: ataradov on November 04, 2015, 02:54:30 amNot true in this case. "Orange Pi PC" is a specific version / model. There are other models, like "Orange Pi," "Orange Pi 2," "Orange Pi 2 Mini," and so on...Quote from: ataradovYou are being a bit misleading and disingenuous. The RPi 1 Model A is $25USD, yes. That's a VERY slow and undperforming board compared to this one. The closest variant to this (and the most common model sold) is the RasPi 2 Model B, which is $35USD.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 09, 2015, 01:29:05 pm
content: Quote from: wilfred on November 08, 2015, 12:13:49 pmYeah but they can make a wrapper for it, and document that.