Linux support concerns

[o9guy]

To make this product work more with linux in a meaningful way, Allwinner needs to cooperate with the community and share some vital information.  Until they do, this board will ONLY be useful under Android.   In some ways, I don't think the product oragnizers fully realized the state of linux on these chips or they never would have litsted linux as an option.  While it will run linux, the lack of a current linux kernel coupled with nonexistent video acceleration will be a deal-breaker.

The situation is not so bad. You can still use the board for IoT projects. Video acceleration is a problem with ARM Holdings that make the GPU.
Most other boards have closed-source GPU drivers, either the Mali GPU or the PowerVR GPU.

You are correct!  I do many IoT projects myself and I will continue to do so but I also like playing old school NES/SNES games, video, etc, where accelerated video does come in to play.  You are also correct that many others use closed-sourced binary blobs but only for kernels they support which is a problem in and of itself.  The cooperation of Allwinner is still needed for many non-IoT uses of this board and I'm still hopeful that Allwinner will cooperate more to make this better for all the backers who want linux for multimedia purposes.