# ARM board recommendation



## Criosphinx (Jul 2, 2017)

I want to spend no more than $50 in one. But there are so many options.

Currently I'm looking at the NanoPi M1 and looks quite good:

http://www.friendlyarm.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=109

But I've found reviews about a similar one (OrangePi One), on amazon from users that report lots of issues, specially heat problems. "Does not have hardware safety thermal shutdown" says one. I really doubt that.

wiki.freebsd.org shows NeoPi(same board without GPU), and OrangePi(seems to be the same or almost), as supported

I know the Raspberry Pi is the most common but, with accessories and shipping is closer to $80

For now I only want it to run a git server, maybe install apache, firebird later. Just for experimenting nothing really important.

My question is: Is this a good option, will it work for BSD with a bit of tweaking? 
If it isn't what else would you recommend?


----------



## SirDice (Jul 3, 2017)

This might be useful: https://wiki.freebsd.org/FreeBSD/arm and https://wiki.freebsd.org/arm64#Running


----------



## Criosphinx (Jul 3, 2017)

I think I'm gonna buy it (the NanoPi M1), I have been reading more about it and seems its just as good as any other.


----------



## Phishfry (Jul 3, 2017)

I think the Raspberry Pi 2 is the best supported on FreeBSD. It costs $35 US.

There is a newer RPi2 revision 1.2 that is 64 bit so it is not supported.
Version 1.1 RPi2 is my preference and it is 32bit. Version 1.2 is using a newer 64bit CPU and needs some work to install.
So its a minefield. I just ordered some more RPi2 off ebay and half were older and half were the newer 1.2 revision.

The OPi board you cite I am unfamiliar with. Plus some include a wifi chip that will probably never be supported by FreeBSD.
I like my BananaPi M1 too.

I would not let price be your guide here. Use what is supported best.
Do not be swayed with features that will never be implemented on FreeBSD.


----------



## Phishfry (Jul 3, 2017)

If your new to FreeBSD I would seriously only consider using the boards which have an image available on the FreeBSD download page.
Otherwise you have to deal with stuff like this:
https://framkant.org/2017/07/running-freebsd-on-nanopi-neo-or-orangepi-zero/


----------



## Criosphinx (Jul 5, 2017)

I'm far from being an expert. But I believe the things described in the article linked are within my abilities . 

Also there seems to be a mistake in the NanoPi M1 description, first says "Connectivity: 10/100M Ethernet" and later on the same page "Ethernet AP6212 Wireless and Bluetooth, 802.11 b/g/n, AP mode, BLE 4.0, HS mode" it should have the same ethernet network as the NanoPi Neo I will contact them to confirm.


----------



## uchman (Jul 5, 2017)

Hi! Im the author of the article mentioned above and Just tell me if you need any help. But please note that I have no idea if this will work for the M1 board.


----------



## ronaldlees (Jul 11, 2017)

The Odroid C1 is not as well supported, but has Gigabit Ethernet.

But, Phishfry is correct - the Pi2 is by far best supported ...


----------



## ronaldlees (Jul 11, 2017)

getopt said:


> Yeah! There must be a difference between buying a feature and using it.
> Do you run FreeBSD on your C1?



Yes.  But, I've never measured the thru-put on the Gigabit ethernet, so don't know if the driver really can do it.  Guess I should check that before recommending anything.  Did I recommend something?  LOL  I usually try to avoid that!


----------



## Phishfry (Jul 11, 2017)

My Arm stable looks like this
3) RPi2 v1.1
2) RPi2 v1.2
1) RPi3
1) BBB
2) HummingBoard Pro Quad
1) BananaPi M1
1) Odroid c1+
1) Nvidia Jetson TK1

All but the last two run FreeBSD.
(*EDIT**My RaspberryPi2 1.2 are 64 bit and I have not run FreeBSD on them yet.**)


I am looking forward to some of the upcoming Marvell boards. I want I/O options and a PCIe bus.
https://www.netgate.com/blog/lord-vader-your-firewall-is-ready.html


----------



## Criosphinx (Jul 11, 2017)

I still have not made a decision between the NanoPi M1 and Raspberry Pi 2 or 3.

Haven't considered the Odroid because is in the "Boards with unknown support" section of wiki.freebsd.org but looks interesting.

Shipping cost is killing me, its almost as much as the package itself, but I hope I can made the choice and get one by the end of the month


----------



## ronaldlees (Jul 11, 2017)

Criosphinx said:


> I still have not made a decision between the NanoPi M1 and Raspberry Pi 2 or 3.
> 
> Haven't considered the Odroid because is in the "Boards with unknown support" section of wiki.freebsd.org but looks interesting.
> 
> Shipping cost is killing me, its almost as much as the package itself, but I hope I can made the choice and get one by the end of the month



Have you subscribed to the FreeBSD ARM mailing list?  You'll find that the conversation is about 5:1 towards the Pi family.  Meaning that's where the fixes happen first.


----------



## SirDice (Jul 20, 2017)

Robert Buaas said:


> There is a wrinkle noted elsewhere that V-12 for these platforms does not have a Ports tree, so you have to tell "pkg" to use the V-11 ports


All versions on all architectures use the same ports tree. A ports tree is only relevant if you build from ports, it's not needed or required if you use packages. But note that 12-CURRENT is an unsupported development version and therefor doesn't have an official package repository.


----------



## diizzy (Jul 22, 2017)

I'm under the impression that broadcom (rpi) is on par with allwinner and allwinner having better overall performance?


----------



## Criosphinx (Aug 4, 2017)

Just to post an update. I chose the Orange Pi One, its not as popular as the Raspberry Pi but has good support too. Found more details about the heat problems and the issues seems to have been solved.

I bought a kit from amazon, the board, case, power supply, heatsink and microsd.

Now I just have to wait for it to arrive in a couple of weeks hopefully.


----------

