Both my desktop PCs are about 11 years old, both quadcores both 8 GB RAM Windows 10 Pro. A lot of TLC went into these and they run like tops.

But... it would not surprise me -11 years being a few Moore's Laws- if soon or now there are system on a chips to replace these at much lower energy cost. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. I could see the main OS connected with SATA, but making bootable OS USB sticks sounds pretty fun.

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JoeyPogoPlugE02 Wrote:
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> Both my desktop PCs are about 11 years old, both quadcores both 8 GB RAM Windows 10 Pro. A lot of TLC went into these and they run like tops.
>
A PC with that specs is still good, especially when running a compact Linux desktop, i.e. KUbuntu, etc. Heck, I am still using an old AMD {henom II X3 with 4 GB system with KUbuntu and it works great.

> But... it would not surprise me -11 years being a few Moore's Laws- if soon or now there are system on a chips to replace these at much lower energy cost.
>
One thing comes to mind is any inexpensive ARM S912 octa-core Android TV Box system with at least 4 GB RAM + a USB3 port + a Gbps RJ45 port that can run any ARM Linux desktop system will do, especially coupled with any big HQ LED TV screen that can support a minimal 60 Hz refresh rate. This probably won't be as fast as your 11 years old 4-core system, but will conserve a lot of electricity, AFAICS.

habibie Wrote:
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> One thing comes to mind is any inexpensive ARM
> S912 octa-core Android TV Box system with at least
> 4 GB RAM + a USB3 port + a Gbps RJ45 port that can
> run any ARM Linux desktop system will do,
> especially coupled with any big HQ LED TV screen
> that can support a minimal 60 Hz refresh rate.
> This probably won't be as fast as your 11 years
> old 4-core system, but will conserve a lot of
> electricity, AFAICS.


I remember you mentioning that TV box a few times; I ask how much it cost?

My Windows here is mostly for Windows-only apps and for 80% of other computing I'd feel safer in Linux. After using an Android smartphone for 5 months I'm quite scared of Android after watching settings turn themselves on and off and all kinds of indications...

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JoeyPogoPlugE02 Wrote:
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>
> I remember you mentioning that TV box a few times; I ask how much it cost?
>
This really depends. I usually shop such product from eBay and a few months back bought an S912 with 2/16 GB RAM/eMMC storage around US $12 (IIRC). I just use this device with CoreELEC for video streaming purposes. If it had a 4 GB RAM, I certainly would use it as a Linux desktop computer.

Easy, Raspberry Pi 4 with 4GB of RAM. Dual HDMI outputs, loads of availability, and good community support (even if it is in some ways inferior to other products).

It doesn't (yet) boot natively off of USB3, but just slap in the smallest micro SD card you can find and use that with a bootloader to boot from USB: https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/109546/boot-raspberry-pi-4-from-usb

It looks like the RockPro64 also supports booting from USB3 (u-boot on SPI), however you should ensure your USB3 device has an external power source: https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-build/issues/257

The RockPro64 also has a PCIe slot, though you should be aware that external GPUs are not supported.

+1 for the Fruit named device

wouldn't normally have recommended a Pi for anyone, before now, but the current configuration has finally started to come of age.

All of that looks fantastic and I'll be keeping an eye out for sales. For a while I've felt that money spent at the $50 point should be a x64 SOC and under $50 the money was best spent on one of the items on this page you guys listed.

I finally bought my 2 revisions of Reaper license which can last 7 years including all of the updates, and I'd like to pitch this and ask you Linux guys if the units on the page mentioned ought to support Reaper ARM version?

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the ones mentioned by "hmartin" should be able to run the software you mentioned.... its there on the page you linked @Joey

Gravelrash Wrote:
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> the ones mentioned by "hmartin" should be able to
> run the software you mentioned.... its there on
> the page you linked @Joey

Fantastic. I really like the Pi4 4GB and case. I'd probably just use that for low wattage computing, because the one I'm typing on is about 100 watts and is so programmed with Windows specialty apps (not to mention Windows 10 destroying my metered connection cellphone tether without telling me). The fun distributions boot on x86 or x64 though and that's a minus. But if this ever goes down to $50 < I'll definitely do it.

Gents, this is one of the pages at RaspberryPi: what is it?

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Joey,

> Gents, this is
> one
> of the pages at RaspberryPi: what is it?

It is basically rPi 3 B+ computer in a module. You would plug it in another computer that has a bus that accomodates this.

Not exactly the same, but pretty much simliar to the old day of PCs, you would plug graphics coprocessor in PCI bus. That graphics processor is a computer ittself.

-bodhi
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/2020 11:04PM by bodhi.

See https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B081NDDTHC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1 for an example of a Baseboard that takes one of these modules. There are many others.

Ray