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this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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They're objectively better than the Raspberry Pi in every way and are much more standard ARM devices than the weird boot process of the Raspberry Pi, so generally speaking, more OSes just work.
My Orange Pi 5 actually supports an open source EDK2 port so it can run any Aarch64 operating system that supports UEFI and ACPI or Device Tree which means almost every Linux distro, all the BSDs, Windows, and even more exotic and up and coming options.
I actually bought it to test my own OS development project specifically because it's one of the few ARM boards that supports the common boot and firmware standards.
On the Raspberry Pi 5 which I also have if you want to use anything other than their own officially supported Linux distributions (so far only Pi OS and Ubuntu) then you have to modify your kernel or bootloader to work with its wacky boot ROM, lack of UEFI or U-Boot, and somewhat non-standard Device Tree along with tons of undocumented peripherals.
Oh, and the Orange Pi has twice the number of cores. The RPi 5 has four Cortex A76 cores while the Orange has four Cortex A76 cores and four Cortex A55 cores in a big.LITTLE configuration.
Honestly, any of the Rockchip RK3588 or RK3588S boards are way better than a Raspberry Pi. At this point, the only thing Raspberry Pi has going for it over its major competitors is the fact that the brand itself isn't Chinese (although many of the boards are made in China).
From what I heard, Orange Pi had lots of software problems for instance with drivers, and the quality of distros are not nearly as good as the official for Raspberry Pi.
If all you want to run is their essentially proprietary spins of Linux then go overpay for a Raspberry Pi.
If you actually want freedom of choice for software and universally good driver support then ditch ARM and go for good old x86 based SBCs like the Radxa X4 which is in the same price range and has better performance while also being a completely standard Intel N series (formerly Celeron) based PC.
Shit like this is why I don't have high hopes for ARM based PCs no matter how hard Microsoft, Qualcomm, Nvidia, and MediaTek push for them. x86 and its ecosystem have basically perfected the formula for machines with standardized software interfaces and peripherals with the sole exception being GPUs which will always be a PITA on any platform.
Even if you want to only talk about Linux while the kernel itself may support a fuck ton of architectures all the rest of the software you might want to use is only guaranteed to work on x86. On everything else it may or may not work well and for proprietary stuff it may not even be ported to other architectures at all.
The Orange Pi 5 is a completely standard Rockchip RK3588S board. That SoC has complete driver support in Linux, and pretty support on Windows as well.
I can't speak to any other Orange Pi products as that is the only one I have.
That SOC has a MALI GPU, and last I heard MALI drivers are flaky in Linux.
Meanwhile the Broadcom VideoCore is completely undocumented and only works with their kernels.
Not having "out of the box" support does not make it a problem tho.
All distros are the same, considering they all run GNU/Linux and anyone can configure em at will.
Where did I say it should absolutely work "out of the box?" Compiling your own drivers can be OK too, but obviously less convenient.
No they are definitely not, there are huge differences in availability, quality, configuration and age of packaged software. And finally there are differences in security updates. Also the difference in hardware makes a difference in how well it's supported with drivers.
A general problem with Arm is that the GPU is poorly supported, and if you want stable drivers, you have tro use an old kernel.
Your response reeks of propaganda.