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Comment by gspr | Hacker News Reader

I'll hijack this thread to ask: What are some good Pi alternatives that don't need blobs to boot and run, and that use mainline (or more-or-less mainline) kernels?

I don't need any video output, and I'm happy to pay double. What are my options?

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http://www.orangepi.org/ ? https://ameridroid.com/collections/single-board-computer ?

Those look like good sources for a variety of SBCs. Thanks! But how do I narrow the selection down to my criteria?

If you just need a tiny, fanless board that runs linux, like-new Wyse3040 can be had in any quantity you like for ~$30 - $40 (ethernet only, though). Wyse5010 is a bit bigger and more capable (and has built-in wifi) around the same price.

Where are you seeing these for those prices? ebay? It'd be interesting to see what could be done with boards like this

yes. I've picked up a few on ebay:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=wyse+3040

Many listings will not include the power supply, but if you have a drawer full of wall warts, you can probably find something that works.

Can you explain a little more? I don't know what you mean by 'blobs to boot and run'. As far as I know, the latest Linux kernel supports the raspberry pi.

The Pi actually boots from the GPU, which runs a closed-source binary blob. The GPU then starts up the ARM cores, and that's where Linux boots.

The FSF has a page on single-board computers that might be helpful, at least to narrow down your options by discarding the worse options. https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/single-board-computers

>Some have workarounds, but some are fatally flawed and none are fully free.

Pine64 maybe?

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/PINE64_ROCKPro64

Thanks! That's exactly the kind of advice I was looking for!

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