Anyone searching for an alternative to the Raspberry
Pi mini PC may be interested in the Libre Computer ROC-RK3328-CC which has been
developed thanks to a partnership between the Libre Computer Project and
Firefly. Prices start from US$ 35 offering 1GB of DDR four RAM but if your budget
will stretch 4GB are available for US$ 80.
As the name suggests the mini PC employs a Rockchip
RK3328 SoC offering four ARM Cortex-A53 cores running up to 1.5GHz and ARM
Mali-450 MP2 graphics. The mini PC is capable of running Android 7.1.1 and
Ubuntu 16.04 by Firefly, and the Libre Computer Project also has Ubuntu 18.04
and Debian 9 images available that make use of Rockchip’s Linux 4.4 LTS kernel.
Offering a similar size and form factor to the Raspberry
Pi the small development board measures 85 x 56 mm in size and is equipped with
2 x USB 2.0 ports, 1 x USB 3.0 port, HDMI 2.0a, Gigabit Ethernet and micro USB
port for power. For programming the 40-pin GPIO header offers easy access and
the board also offers CVBS display output.
If you enjoy building Pi projects you might be
interested in our comprehensive list of Raspberry Pi displays, HATS and small
screens.
