Developers: How PINE64 is creating a community to compete with Raspberry Pi's
One of the consequences of the explosive popularity of the Raspberry Pi is the flourishing of competing ecosystems of single-board computers (SBCs). Aside from the accessibility a $35 price tag offers, the foremost benefit of the Raspberry Pi is the community—the proliferation of projects and integrations that center around the Raspberry Pi, and the ease-of-use that creates, makes competing products that look better on spec sheets a disappointment when taken out of the box.
PINE64 has attempted to head this off by fostering an involved community; the PINE64 website explains their philosophy as "the community gets to actively shape the devices, as well as the social platform, of PINE64 from the ground up. The goal is to deliver ARM64 devices that you really wish to engage with and a platform that you want to be a part of." The first-generation Pinebook was available in an 11.6" or 14" configuration, with a quad-core Allwinner A64, 2GB RAM, 16GB eMMC, and 1366x768 display for $99, beating Nicolas Negroponte's OLPC XO-1, a decade after that project sputtered.
PINE64 is differentiating itself by building not just SBCs, but notebooks, tablets, and phones with community input and feedback. Ahead of the release of the Pinebook Pro this summer, a Rockchip RK3399-based ARM laptop with 4GB LPDDR4 RAM, 64GB eMMC, and a 14" 1080p display, TechRepublic interviewed PINE64 community manager Lukasz Erecinski about the Pinebook Pro, and the PINE64 community philosophy.
Previously: Kickstarter: Pine A64, Cheaper and More Powerful than Raspberry Pi 2 Model B
PinePhone Linux Smartphone Priced at $149 to Arrive This Year
Pinebook Pro Update: The $199 Linux Laptop is Almost Ready to Go
Related Stories
Tom's Hardware is highlighting a Kickstarter project for the Pine A64, a 64-bit computer board competing on specs with the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B:
Essentially, the Pine A64 can be viewed as a more powerful next-generation Raspberry Pi device. The Pine A64 contains a quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU clocked at 1.2 GHz. Compared to the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B that was released earlier this year and uses four Cortex-A7 cores clocked at 900 MHz, not only does the Pine A64 have a higher clock speed, but it also has a more advanced architecture, which consumes less power and achieves greater performance.
For graphics processing, the Pine A64 uses the dated Mali-400 MP2 GPU. Although we cannot compare the performance of the GPU inside of the Pine A64 to the VideoCore IV inside of the Raspberry Pi without testing both devices, Pine64 stated that the Pine A64 will be capable of 4K video playback, whereas the Raspberry Pi is limited to a resolution of 1920x1200. This gives the Pine64 an edge and should help to attract users planning to use it as a small HTPC system.
The two main options, Pine A64 and Pine A64+, cost $15 and $19 respectively. The A64+ comes with double the RAM (1 GB DDR3 vs 512 MB DDR3) and three additional ports for camera, touch panel, and LCD accessories. Other price tiers come with 2 GB of RAM, and 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
Smartphone users are usually torn between the two choice — Android or iOS. Their dominance is such that other competing OS like Windows, BlackBerry OS, or Symbian have almost been abandoned.Those who don't want either of them can opt for Pine64's Linux phone dubbed the PinePhone which offers good hardware and software at an affordable rate of $149.
The phone's specs aren't great, but it does include a headphone jack (I wonder if it's capable of using the JACK audio system?) and the article notes that it may provide physical switches for disabling various components. The company behind it, Pine64, also produce the PineBook Linux laptop, which also use an ARM processor.
Source: https://fossbytes.com/pinephone-linux-smartphone-149/
Related: Kickstarter: Pine A64, Cheaper and More Powerful than Raspberry Pi 2 Model B
Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
After unveiling plans to launch a $199 Linux laptop with a Rockchip RK3399 processor earlier this year, the folks at Pine64 have been hard at work designing the hardware and software for the upcoming Pinebook Pro.
Now the team has posted a YouTube video showing off the latest prototype, and demonstrating that it has improved hardware, and support for 4K video playback (something the company's original Pinebook couldn't handle).
Pine64 still has some kinks to work out — audio isn't working on the current motherboard, and there are problems with charging, suspend and resume. But it looks like the Pinebook Pro could be ready to ship within months.
Source: https://liliputing.com/2019/05/pinebook-pro-update-the-199-linux-laptop-is-almost-ready-to-go.html
If you missed out on the last pre-order for the BraveHeart release of the PinePhone that shipped last January, you have another opportunity to buy now. What is it? According to their Wiki:
The PinePhone is a smartphone created by Pine64, capable of running mainline Linux and supported by many partner projects. The "BraveHeart" edition was the first publicly-available version of the phone, though it came without a fully functional OS (factory test image) and was geared specifically towards tinkerers and hackers. People looking for a stable consumer-grade phone should wait for the final release...
The "Community Edition: UBports" Limited Edition PinePhone is aimed primarily at UBports community members, willing to run their OS on a mainline Linux and provide feedback to UBports developers.
The "Community Edition: UBports" Edition PinePhone comes with UBports OS build installed. Please note that the OS build is still in a beta stage, and while most core functionality (phone calls, SMS messages, LTE, GPS and GPU acceleration) works, some elements remain a work-in-progress.
The phone seems to be the same hardware as the Braveheart and the same price $149.99 + shipping. Pine will donate $10 to the UBPorts Foundation for every phone purchased.
It comes pre-installed with UBPorts, but there is nothing keeping you from re-flashing to whichever OS you want. Currently there are several ports in progress like, Debian, PostmarketOS, SailfishOS, Maemo Leste, etc. Some of these can even make phone calls and sms texts already :)
Pine64 unveils Quartz64 SBC powered by Rockchip RK3566 SoC
We may just have written about Geniatech RK3566/RK3568 development board, but as expected, Pine64 has now unveiled more details about Quartz64 SBC powered by Rockchip RK3566 SoC.
As we'll see below, the design is very similar to RK3399 based RockPro64, but the new model adds a native SATA 3.0 port, an integrated battery charging circuitry, an ePD port for e-Ink displays, and supports more memory with up to 8GB LPDDR4 RAM.
[...] It's nice to have SATA, but as I understand it, the board relies on one of the multi-PHY Interfaces from RK3566 processor with SATA and USB 3.0 being multiplexed, meaning you can use SATA 3.0 if you don't use USB 3.0, and use USB 3.0 if you don't use SATA.
Pine64 is also working on a ~$15 RISC-V single board computer, using the XuanTie C906.
Pine64 Blog - February Update: Show and Tell.
Related: How PINE64 is Creating a Device-Design Community to Compete with Raspberry Pi
PinePhone Pro Linux smartphone to feature a power-optimized Rockchip RK3399S processor
Pine64 has now announced the PinePhone Pro Linux smartphone with a Rockchip RK3399S hexa-core processor clocked at 1.5 GHz, that's a power-optimized version of the popular Rockchip RK3399 processor. It will provide a noticeable upgrade to the PinePhone Linux smartphones launched in November 2019, which, by today's standards, is quite underpowered.
Besides the faster processor, PinePhone Pro also comes with 4GB RAM and 128 GB storage which should make it a better candidate at mobile desktop convergence, as well as a 5.95-inch display with 1440×720 resolution, a 13MP rear camera, a 5MP front-facing camera, and more.
[...] Pine64 collaborated with Rockchip to fine-tune the RK3399 SoC's performance so that it meets the necessary thermal and battery-consumption envelopes, as and as a result, RK3399S was born. Pine64 also explained Rockchip helped a great deal in enabling the PinePhone Pro's suspend state, which allows the smartphone to receive calls and SMS messages while preserving the battery.
[...] Just like most Pine64 products, the PinePhone Pro will rely on work from the community for software support, and the first PinePhone Pro devkit is up for pre-order for $399 plus shipping and eventual import taxes now with a clear focus on developers and established contributors, although newcomers with an established development record can also pre-order. Tech enthusiasts without a developer background are asked to wait a couple of more months for the second batch of PinePhone Pro "Explorer Edition" that is scheduled to be manufactured before the end of the year, and ship in early 2022. Additional information may also be found on the product page.
Also at Phoronix.
Previously: PinePhone Linux Smartphone Priced at $149 to Arrive This Year
How PINE64 is Creating a Device-Design Community to Compete with Raspberry Pi
PinePhone Braveheart Linux Smartphone Begins Shipping
Another Opportunity to Purchase a PinePhone
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 05 2019, @06:03AM (1 child)
Call me when this is green: linux-sunxi.org/Linux_mainlining_effort
Not even cpufreq is working in mainline, that's not an ecosystem, it's the standard swamp of shitty SoCs you only want to use in a phone you never update the kernel in and throw away in 2 years, or something you buy now and dig out after 5 years when it might have started to work.
Only for people who enjoy wasting their time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 06 2019, @06:25PM
yeah, it's for idiots who just want to throw android on a tv machine or tablet. it's too bad because if their stuff was open enough and they listened to input they could put out configs that other companies are ignoring like good firewall/nas/switch/nvr boards where you don't have to use a bunch of usb adapters to get the job done. package that with cheap metal cases and you'd have those markets largely to yourself, even if they were small at first.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 05 2019, @09:51AM (3 children)
The people at PINE64 may be well intentioned but they are simply impossible to deal with. They rarely answer emails, when they do the response in incomplete or simply off base, any information is lacking, etc.
I've tried to pre-order a Pinebook Pro, and even a 14" Pinebook, but can never get in their BTO queue (because it's not available when I've tried), and ETA's - if I can get a response - are "we'll let you know" or "we'll get back to you", but they never do.
I just tried to look at their website but the navigation doesn't work on my tablet.
I'd love to support them, but if their products are the same quality as their customer support then I'd be throwing my money away.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by RamiK on Friday July 05 2019, @11:14AM (2 children)
Does it matter when at any given day their local EMS [wikipedia.org] could end up booked full and they'll have to go with a more expensive one? Or maybe when you asked it they were 29k/30k. But by the time it reached 30K their parts supplier said he can do 25K and the rest will have to wait for the next 25k-30k build...
Buy off-shelf next time. On-demand electronics logistics under the 100k units isn't for the faint of heart.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 05 2019, @06:06PM
But this different because a customer shouldn't have to care about that stuff if they don't want to do so. From their perspective, they reach out to the business, the business responds to a reasonable period of time with some sort of answer to their question. So, not having a B.T.O. queue or time estimate (even something as vague as "the manufacturing cycle usually takes nine months and the last happened two weeks ago.") of some kind is terrible for both sides. The customer doesn't have a solid answer of any questions and can leave frustrated. The business burns some good will and loses a potential sale.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 06 2019, @04:05AM
Not to sound disrespectful, but I don't care. If they are offering it (e.g., the 11" or 14" Pinebook) for sale on their website then they should have some sort of information regarding availability. For the Pinebook Pro I understand that they may not have a good ETA, but if they suggest I sign up for their newsletter so I can receive more information when it becomes available then at the very least send me the newsletter. I have signed up twice (both times last year) yet never received anything.
Faint of heart? I want the Pinebooks a semi-disposable laptops for some 1st and 2nd grade underprivileged kids who won't have the opportunity to own a computer without some assistance. The 11" is a great size for them, but too small for me to examine for performance and build quality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 05 2019, @08:28PM (1 child)
I can't help but wonder what a Beowulf cluster of these would be like . . .
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday July 06 2019, @03:16AM
Less Grendel than a Beowulf cluster of RasPi 4s.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by dacut on Saturday July 06 2019, @11:20PM
I own both Pine64/Rock64 boards, as well as various flavors of Raspberry Pi. I like them for different reasons; none of them are about mobile devices, laptops, or tablets.
The RPi "user experience" is better defined as long as you stick to the contract: use NOOBS or Raspbian, use the signals defined in the header, and you can get hacking away. The moment you start asking questions about the board or processor itself, though (e.g., schematics), people start clamming up. Broadcom is notoriously secretive (and generally a pain to deal with; they usually won't give you the time of day if you're not a big name planning on shipping billions of dollars worth of their kit in your products). The folks behind RPi are ex-Broadcom, though, and have an "in" here.
Everything about Pine64 screams: "Hey, we just got this bit of kit working; hope you can use it." When I started using the Rock64, they didn't even have a properly working Linux image (video drivers were busted). Their Wiki pages were (and mostly still are) pointers to a bunch of third-party repositories saying, "Hey, these folks have code that they got working on our boards." But, in response, they've given up schematics for all of their hardware. This makes it far more hackable/debuggable at a lower level, and (if you can get sources for the components) you can potentially clone/refine their designs.
I've largely given up on trying to get these into a mobile(-ish) device, even a laptop. HID devices need to be polished; little bugs (taps that register inconsistently, keys that don't register or repeat consistently, oversize trackpads that don't reject palms resting on them, etc.) make the result an exercise in frustration. Getting this right probably means going through 15-20 design iterations. These projects are all trying to hit a crazy-low price point (usually $100-$200) with a small audience. Of course, the math doesn't allow for that, and the result is... lacking.
At least, this was my experience when I backed and received a NexDock [indiegogo.com].