Hey Sup Forums are single board computers the future of personal computing?

Hey Sup Forums are single board computers the future of personal computing?

Other urls found in this thread:

fsf.org/resources/hw/single-board-computers
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

fsf.org/resources/hw/single-board-computers

hmmmmmmm

doesn't look like it so far

Just because there aren't any boards that would give stallman an erection doesn't mean it wont be widely adopted.

>The work to achieve free software support for the Mali GPU was started with the Lima project. Please contribute to help its development.
I would if it wasn't already dead before I had a chance to contribute.

I just wish there was a real open alternative. Full GPL 3 hardware platform when?

When Chinese factories can't just take your GPL'd design and flood AliExpress with exact copies that is 20% cheaper than your board because of zero design and research cost.

Aren't all computers technically single board?

No single board means all the necessary components for the computer to function are soldered on the board.

Sounds pretty bad.

designing and printing your own circuit and soldering in your own components isn't unreasonable

They're also useful for small form factor embedded computing projects.

Locked bootloaders and CPU firmware / spy operating systems in peripherals, they are at a pretty shitty point right now

>single board computers
How the fuck is that any different from a normal motherboard? It even has RAM like a normal board.

see

can you make a rubber ducky with the raspberry pi zero?

>RAM is not required
Brah.

All the consumer needs is a facebook/youtube browsing machine capable of 1080p streaming and running some shitty, low requirement applications like Skype or Word.

There's already no real need to upgrade from a device made in 09/10, so consumers of that type will probably just buy the most aesthetically pleasing device that's proven to work.

then I don't want it.

definitely nice to smarten up your environment, but don't want to size down the main computer

GRAND DAD?!

MBP.

I think they are:
Form factor becomes smaller and smaller. Not just because smaller chips get faster at less energy consumption, but also since we moved a lot of computing to external 'cloud' machines.
This phenomenon was/is slightly held back by the modern ways of writing code that disregards optimiziation and computational complexity in favour of easy programming.
But since the exponential nature of computing power it looks like the SBC chips are finally getting powerful enough to overcome this at an affordable price.
Essentialy, Chromebooks are SBC's with a screen and peripherals. If people are still buying office desktops in 2019 they will probably be fanless and either integrated into the screen or rPi-sized

Yes, mainly smartphones when will be able to plug a keyboard and monitor to it and turn it into a computer.
But yeah, you make a good point, we ate still far from there due to this.

gpl on hardware wont happen untill people can test circuitas at home cheaply (not soon at the nanometer scale needed). But not free open source hardware could already be done if a big company finds a way to make it profitable. That is not as unlikely as they could reward developers that get their contribution to the final design with hardware/money.

Aren't they already pretty big?
>consoles
>set top boxes
>streaming devices
>DIY units
>routers, modems
>etc.

I'm sure OP was talking about single board systems for desktop computers. You are correct, though.

An average modern laptop would count now too, right? Desktop seems to be the one category where SBCs aren't prevalent

o-droid c2

I think some laptops technically count as long as the CPU etc. are soldered in place.

Chromebooks?
Low end ones anyway

Yeah pretty much.

>spy operating systems in peripherals

there is spy OS in my keyboard?

There's nothing stopping your keyboard of having one.

All I want is a cheap x86. Then I'll be happy to migrate from one strong computer to a distributed approach.

lolno
phones are the future for 90% of the population
mini pcs (maybe some single boards) will be used for workstations
then laptops and normal desktops will just slowly start to go away after 10 years

Agree.
Laptops are a more burdensome form of entertainment consumption than tablets/smartphones.
Watch shift towards 1 device, multiple screens. Smartphone comes everywhere, can control big screen(s) with Amazon Alexa-type features at home.
Notebook-form (open/close lid with attached keyboard) is here to stay as a form-factor for output-tasks (work).