[Arm-netbook] OLIMEX A10 board

[Alejandro Mery]

On 26/05/12 09:18, Tsvetan Usunov - OLIMEX Ltd wrote:
>     Firefox and office if you run a linux desktop.
>
>
>
> running office on OLinuXino is not priority, there should be an browser
> which feel comfortable in 512MB

I believe I found the problem, you don't see a reason for the A10 :)

if you can't answer the "why the A10?" the lines between A10 and A13 
based products gets blurred. Good EEs have the professional 
(de)formation of been spartan and minimalist and even answering "why 
ARM? I can do that task with a microcontroller!" is hard.

EOMA68 aims at a final user (not a hacker) plugging an standardised and 
easily replaceable core card to a device and make it alive while 
olinuxino is more hardcore, been sexy for hacking your own devices.

so let's draw "product lines" around olinuxino.

- cheap board for things you can do microcontroller? enjoy the imx233-mini!
- cheap board for applications that don't need high performance? 
imx233-mini or imx233-maxi are pretty good!

but if you need more power the ilinuxino A1X serie arises in
- cheap board for applications that need more power and some good UI and 
basic video. A13/512MB, VGA, SD and USB
- need more fancy video but same level of applications, just add a HDMI 
module to your A13.

and now the original question, why A10? what may you need that doesn't 
fit in the above. what the A10 gives us. sata, up to 1GB, ethernet, full 
hd hdmi.

so why an A10?
- a hacker *desktop*, running real applications.
- a development platform
- a fancy media center
- a light server

also, RAM isn't only for fat apps, it's for I/O caching.

an A10 board with 512M is imnsho *useless*, just get a A13 instead.