> the Ubuntu 24.04 distro is missing from the list, and this is a shame, since this is a board released late 2024. I contacted OrangePi and they mentioned that they would eventually release a 24.04 version, but there was no clear timeline for that.

Pretty much that is where most of these SBCs fall off my list. Without an active OS development its only 1/2 of the puzzle.

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joz1-k a day ago | parent | next [-]

> * Without an active OS development its only 1/2 of the puzzle.*

And this is an unfortunate state of the general purpose ARM64 computing. This board, with 16 GB of RAM and M.2 slot, would make the perfect Linux desktop machine. However, you only receive one or two major distribution updates from the hardware vendor, and then you're stuck with it.

	▲	antonkochubey a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		>However, you only receive one or two major distribution updates from the hardware vendor I like your optimism. Some boards literally get no updates. Massive shout out to Raspberry Pi team - Raspberry Pi 1 launched 12 years ago with Debian 7, and currently can run Debian 12.
	▲	troyvit a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Man it sounds like an android phone where the vendor only supports a few releases. Is that the model they're trying for or did they just land there?

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margalabargala a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Am I the only one who is enormously sketched out by pretty much any SBC requiring an OS put out by the hardware vendor, active support or no?

A lot of these vendors are overseas, do not share my values around open source, and may well look at my computing activity as a potential data mine to be sold.

Maybe I have trust issues. But if I can't install some community OS out of the box without relying on vendor binary blobs, I don't buy the SBC.

	▲	tdrz a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I have the same issues with trusting whatever random vendor. Unfortunately even Raspberrypi OS'es come with some blobs...
	▲	serf a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		imo it's more a driver thing than an os thing. I can get arch/slack to work on weird hardware, what I can't do is get the promised hardware performance without specific (usually semi-closed) hardware drivers. If you're relying on , say, rockchip features -- then you're boned without their support -- this is already a big enough heartach without the malware/data-mine angle (which is likely just as valid.)