Raspberry Pi/clone(s) most ruggedizable for OLPC fieldwork?

[Adam Holt]

Thanks Peter Robinson, Paul Fox and Dogi Unterhauser for your illuminating
2016's evolving and very promising options-

Preliminary conclusion is that we are buying a few $29 http://pine64.com
(includes 2GB RAM) to experiment with.

What is the best mailing list to discuss Fedora (or non-Fedora) firmware,
u-boot, kernel issues for Pine64 and similar, do you know?

(http://wiki.pine64.org is coming to life, which is a great start!)

On Sun, Feb 7, 2016 at 10:55 AM, Adam Holt <holt at laptop.org> wrote:

>
> On Feb 7, 2016 9:59 AM, "Peter Robinson" <pbrobinson at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Sun, Feb 7, 2016 at 2:07 PM, Adam Holt <holt at laptop.org> wrote:
> > > On Feb 7, 2016 3:22 AM, "Peter Robinson" <pbrobinson at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> things like
> > >> the PINE64 above it has a SoC attached network but not storage.
> > >
> > > Both SATA (real TB+ disks) and Ethernet (external Wi-Fi AP antennae)
> are
> > > icing-on-the-cake we will both strongly consider.
> > >
> > >> As is stands at the moment some of the best cheap devices for server
> > >> style devices is AllWinner A20 devices (CubieTruck, BananaPi and
> > >> friends) and i.MX6 devices (Wandboard, CuBox-i and friends)
> > >
> > > Hugely helpful.
> > >
> > > Key criterion for offline/remote deployments: does this accept 128GB
> MicroSD
> > > cards, so 2016's developing world $50-100 "knowledge hotspots"
> increasingly
> > > now become very real?  (Aside: 256GB MicroSD cards will be part of
> this well
> > > before 2020, apparently beyond the capability of most of these SoC's.)
> > >
> > > Peter, does Fedora 24 have a shot to one day run on the "$19" Pine64
> Plus?!
> > > Even if it's ambiguous whether it can truly contain 2GB RAM as
> advertised,
> > > Pine64 claims to run up to 70C which is very promising if true.  ($15
> Pine64
> > > contains 512MB, and $19 "Pine64 Plus" contains 1GB RAM.  Their 2GB RAM
> story
> > > is very attractive, but may be marketing vaporware for now?)
> >
> > Yes, I've got one awaiting for me on my return to London. Kernel isn't
> > upstream, nor is u-boot, I'm not sure how big the patches are, I'm
> > hoping it'll all be landable in F-24.
>
> Profound thanks Peter.  More strategic than Nov 8th's election: we'll
> notify the Nobel committee ;)
>
> > I'm not sure why you'd want to use a
> > 128Gb SD card over an actual SSD or HDD, the later are a lot more
> > robust.
>
> In a perfect world: HDD/SSD robustnesses IS mandatory on the high-end.  We
> need offer both.  On the low-end dirt-poor clinics, libraries, school
> living in crushing poverty demand $15 64G Samsung MicroSD digital
> libraries...downloading as much knowledge (and Sugarizer) into their brains
> before device croaks after a year--or needs a new SD card after heavy use.
>
> Ethics demand that we answer this request for a sub-$50 "knowledge
> hotspot", after our reservoir of recycled XO-1.5 community servers will
> sadly be depleted in the coming year or so.
>
> > There's literally 100s of possible devices that would possibly
> > meet your needs, what would be great is a list of must haves and a
> > list of nice to haves and from that I could give a list of possible
> > options.
>
> Top Criteria:
> - accepts 64G and increasingly 128G MicroSD cards
> - internal Wi-Fi runs AP mode so "knowledge hotspot" can broadcast!
> - runs Fedora 24, if not CentOS sometime in future?
> - sufficient horsepower to deliver dynamic content like offline-searchable
> OpenStreetMap (2G RAM strongly preferred; 1G RAM may suffice for 2016?)
>
> Highly Desirable Criteria:
> - works up to ~70C as Pine64 claims, even in high humidity??
> - tolerates crappy electricity & frequent outages, when external battery
> pack depleted by desperate nearby mobile phone users
> - dust-proof case
>
> Icing-on-the-cake Criteria: (high-end "$100 knowledge hotspots" in larger
> clinics/libraries/schools will kill for this!)
> - Ethernet (100mb/s sufficient) for better Wi-Fi + antennae, mounted up
> high?
> - SATA (2.5 inch 9mm HDD, mountable inside dust-proof case)
> - MicroSD card can be glued in and/or hidden to avoid excess theft.
> MicroSD cards often surpass the value of a month's salary; tragically these
> ARE the conditions we work in :/
>
> --
> Unsung Heroes of OLPC, interviewed live @ http://unleashkids.org !
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/devel/attachments/20160210/55a2324a/attachment.html>