First experiences with the Pine64 2GB + Wifi/BT module: looks good!

[rookieone]

Ordered the Pine64 2GB about mid April and after waiting patiently I received it this week here in the Netherlands. I bought it without giving it much thought, just thinking to use it as a replacement for an old laptop that acted as a Linux server before. Sounded great to run Android on it as well.

I started reading some forum entries and other first experiences after I ordered and read quite some negative experiences, even about just getting it booted. So while waiting for it to arrive I spent a bit of time reading here and there and prepare the images. 

I used 32GB cards to write the 32GB rooted Android image and a 8GB Ubuntu image (resized the partition to use the rest of the storage) of which I read had most chance to work.

So when the Pine64 arrived on Wednesday, I tried both Android and Ubuntu images and they both booted up just fine. 

So my first impression is that it is looking good and it works. Can’t say much about performance things yet though.
 
So it seems to work fine and looking forward to spend some more time working with it on both Android and Linux!

Please share your experiences, for example if you also just started booting your Pine64, I am also curious about your experiences after booting

[MarkHaysHarris777]

Welkom !

[ssvb]

I started reading some forum entries and other first experiences after I ordered and read quite some negative experiences, even about just getting it booted. So while waiting for it to arrive I spent a bit of time reading here and there and prepare the images. 

I used 32GB cards to write the 32GB rooted Android image and a 8GB Ubuntu image (resized the partition to use the rest of the storage) of which I read had most chance to work.

So when the Pine64 arrived on Wednesday, I tried both Android and Ubuntu images and they both booted up just fine.

Well, it is not uncommon to sometimes make a silly mistake during a simple procedure. And while most people would just repeat all the steps more carefully and succeed on the second try, a small fraction of users somehow assume that they couldn't have possibly done anything wrong and that the board must be at fault. Then they complain loudly because they are strong believers in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_custom...ways_right mantra.

Ironically, this is less likely to happen with the Raspberry Pi. Because an unreasonable complainer would come across as a sore loser, who failed doing something that even small kids have no troubles with :-) Maybe it's just a matter of time until Pine64 earns a similar reputation.

PS. I'm not talking about a tiny percentage of really defective units (which happens with any hardware) and about the cases when the board did not manage to live up to somebody's extremely high expectations (a perfect supercomputer for $15, do you believe in fairy tales?).

[MarkHaysHarris777]

So when the Pine64 arrived on Wednesday, I tried both Android and Ubuntu images and they both booted up just fine.

 ...  Because an unreasonable complainer would come across as a sore loser, who failed doing something that even small kids have no troubles with :-) Maybe it's just a matter of time until Pine64 earns a similar reputation.

PS. ... and about the cases when the board did not manage to live up to somebody's extremely high expectations (a perfect supercomputer for $15, do you believe in fairy tales?).

Apparently, $1.7 million dollars worth of folks like myself believed ...

... who knows what 'perfect' means. It may not be perfect, but its pretty fabulous ! My wife can even use this thing ... the PineA64 bolted to the back-side of an LG hdmi monitor is a pretty fabulous one-design ! (with Logitech wireless combo, low footprint, great performance, inexpensive layout)

(super computer on an index card)

[ssvb]

Apparently, $1.7 million dollars worth of folks like myself believed ...

I mean that some people may try to interpret the "supercomputer" marketing promise quite literally rather than figuratively. And then complain about the GFLOPS numbers being much lower than their unrealistic expectations. Though if we compare the Pine64 board with supercomputers from 1980's, then it is surely going to wipe floor with them :-)

BTW, some people are having fun trying to replicate ancient supercomputers - http://www.chrisfenton.com/homebrew-cray-1a/

[MarkHaysHarris777]

Apparently, $1.7 million dollars worth of folks like myself believed ...

I mean that some people may try to interpret the "supercomputer" marketing promise quite literally rather than figuratively. And then complain about the GFLOPS numbers being much lower than their unrealistic expectations. Though if we compare the Pine64 board with supercomputers from 1980's, then it is surely going to wipe floor with them :-)

BTW, some people are having fun trying to replicate ancient supercomputers - http://www.chrisfenton.com/homebrew-cray-1a/

Yes, and I must admit that I'm from back in the day when computer did not exist at all... not commercially, anyway. When I was a teen I worked for a lab that had an IBM 360 model 44 on the 2nd floor... several disk drives all the size of washing machines, a card reader, and a selectric typewriter for console ! ugh.  

The PineA64 is literally thousands of times more powerful than that 360 mod44. (super computer on an index card)