<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto">Looks promising but the video support seems like a big gap…<div><br></div><div><div role="note" class="template-box" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; display: table; min-width: 16em; min-height: 1.6em; margin: 0.5em 0px 1em; padding: 0.5em 1em; border: 1px solid rgb(221, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(254, 231, 230);"><strong>Warning:</strong> Software for the Quartz64 is still early in development, and therefore currently lacks features such as the ability to produce video output. You are strongly encouraged to procure a 3.3V UART serial adapter capable of running at 1.5 mbauds, such as <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://pine64.com/product/serial-console-woodpecker-edition/" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url("data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns=%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22 width=%2212%22 height=%2212%22%3E %3Cpath fill=%22%23fff%22 stroke=%22%2336c%22 d=%22M1.5 4.518h5.982V10.5H1.5z%22/%3E %3Cpath fill=%22%2336c%22 d=%22M5.765 1H11v5.39L9.427 7.937l-1.31-1.31L5.393 9.35l-2.69-2.688 2.81-2.808L4.2 2.544z%22/%3E %3Cpath fill=%22%23fff%22 d=%22M9.995 2.004l.022 4.885L8.2 5.07 5.32 7.95 4.09 6.723l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z%22/%3E %3C/svg%3E"); padding-right: 13px; background-position: right center; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">the woodpecker</a> if you want to use a Quartz64 at this stage.</div><br><div dir="ltr">Francisco <div><span style="font-size: 13pt;">fxdoming@gmail.com</span></div></div><div dir="ltr"><br><blockquote type="cite">On Dec 7, 2021, at 2:29 PM, Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> wrote:<br><br></blockquote></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><span>Quoting Ronald Barnes (ron@ronaldbarnes.ca):</span><br><span></span><br><span>[Pine64 Quartz SoC, https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Quartz64 :]</span><br><span></span><br><blockquote type="cite"><span>That PCIe expansion slot is intriguing!</span><br></blockquote><span></span><br><span>In sub-model A. There's also sub-model B, which offers M.2.</span><br><span></span><br><blockquote type="cite"><span>The value of which cannot be overstated. Adding expansion storage</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>to my rPi 4 would be more expensive than anticipated and somewhat of</span><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><span>a hassle.</span><br></blockquote><span></span><br><span>The 8GB LPDDR4 RAM option is likewise getting up into real-computer</span><br><span>territory, and I note that sub-model A also has one (1) SATA 3.0 header.</span><br><span>The immediately preceding ROCKPro64 SoC</span><br><span>(https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/ROCKPro64) also merits respect, but maxes</span><br><span>out at 4GB LPDDR4 RAM.</span><br><span></span><br><span>I keep watching the ARM single-board computer marketplace for units</span><br><span>fully suited to home-server usage, and ideally want the hardware to</span><br><span>include:</span><br><span></span><br><span>o 8 GB or greater RAM, so that I can comfortably run a pair of VMs</span><br><span> under a hardened small host system. There are certainly other</span><br><span> ways to do this, but the two-VMs model provides a production server</span><br><span> host alongside an in-development beta host that will be rolled out</span><br><span> on flag day by simply promoting (re-IPing) the beta to production, </span><br><span> and starting a new beta VM.</span><br><span></span><br><span>o RAID1 redundant main storage on something better/faster/more-reliable than </span><br><span> USB 3.0-attached or microSD or eMMC storage. Like, guys? NVMe SSD</span><br><span> storage on an M.2 slot is a terrific idea, but why not two slots, please? </span><br><span></span><br><span>o Fanless, silent, and low-power, which is where ARM64 helps.</span><br><span></span><br><span>The generally meritorious hardkernel.com ODROID SoCs mentioned upthread </span><br><span>share with the Pine64 being less limited than the RPis, but to my</span><br><span>knowledge none of their units yet ticks all of my checkboxes for an</span><br><span>in-home server platform.</span><br><span></span><br><span>The marketplace doesn't recognise the existence of a home-server niche</span><br><span>(which is understandable, as those of us who want robust computing</span><br><span>infrastructure at home are "rara avibus". Over the last decade, the</span><br><span>niche that seemed closest to filling home-server needs, it seemes to me,</span><br><span>has been the HTPC (home theatre PC) one, like low-power AMD-based</span><br><span>mini-ITX boxes with a pair of SATA drives. With the rise of ARM64 /</span><br><span>aarch64, we are now seeing additional possibles.</span><br><span></span><br><span></span><br><span></span><br><span>_______________________________________________</span><br><span>kwlug-disc mailing list</span><br><span>kwlug-disc@kwlug.org</span><br><span>https://kwlug.org/mailman/listinfo/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org</span><br></div></blockquote></div></body></html>