[Arm-netbook] Some Pine64 Experiences (via Planet Debian)

[Paul Boddie]

Hello,

I saw this on Planet Debian today:

"Once more this is where, once again, the story turns bleak. We find a very 
pretty website but no obvious link to the software (hint scroll to the bottom 
and find the "support" wiki link) once you find the wiki you will eventually 
discover that the provided software is either an Android 5.1.1 image (which 
failed to start on my board) or relies on some random guy from the forums who 
has put together his own OS images using a hacked up Allwinner Board Support 
Package (BSP) kernel."

http://vincentsanders.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-pine-stays-green-in-winter-
wisdom.html

I wonder what the licence compliance situation is with the vendor's own 
software. And some of the other experiences, particularly involving 
reliability, give a depressing sense of déjà vu to anyone with any moderate 
amount of experience with ambitious single-board computer efforts where the 
vendor shipped hardware without proper software support, arguably to get 
"bottoms on seats" and to drum up business.

The author also makes some pertinent remarks about form-factor proliferation 
which seems appropriate to mention here, too. :-)

Paul