MarsBoard

[bmarkus]

There are more and more ARM boards. I just found MarsBoard:

http://www.hotmcu.com/marsboard-dev-kit-c-33.html

[wmeertens]

I just received 5 of these boards for testing purposes.
They now also sell a a20 version as the a20 is an almost drop-in replacement for the a10.

You could also look at the cubieboard (this one has a power connector for the sata port onboard, marsboard doesn't have this )

If you opt for the marsboard, don't forget to buy a mini-hdmi cable, because it's not supplied with the board.

[bmarkus]

Which operatings ystem are you running on? Boards are interesting specially with the many I/O conenction possibilities at the side of board, including line in. Please share your experience.

[wmeertens]

They are pre-flashed with an android version, which isn't really stable, and actually is quite unusable, apart from browsing the web.

On the marsboard site they offer some ubuntu flavours. I will probably give these a quick try. And afterwards either invest some time to get it working with either Debian or TinyCore.

I also bought these boards because of all the I/O options, and especially the line in. I hope I will have some time to play with the boards this week. As soon as I have some interesting results I'll give some feedback.

[bmarkus]

wmeertens@

Did you take the free shipping?

[roberts]

The Mars board is an Allwinner A10 board and should be supported with existing A10 Core.
Likely a uboot and friends will be needed. See: http://tinycorelinux.net/4.x/armv7/hardware/
and in particular http://tinycorelinux.net/4.x/armv7/hardware/README-bootloader.txt

[roberts]

I now see support of u-boot for marsboard see: https://github.com/linux-sunxi/u-boot-sunxi/wiki
This should allow the a10Core image to boot.

[roberts]

The marsboard is now supported!

• u-boot.bin
• sunxi-spl.bin
• script.bin

These specific for the marsboard are now posted.
See:  http://tinycorelinux.net/4.x/armv7/hardware/

[persian]

Hi,
Woulde you please describe for me,
how can I change or define the Marsboard pins setting for gpio or SPI functions?
Thank you

[vinceASPECT]

Hi

While all these tiny computer boards are more than welcome and real interesting I must point out to you that .........in no way shape or form are these "cheap" devices.

You can buy apple iPad mini clone tablet computers with 5 times more CPU power and 4 times more GPU power for about 89 dolars

That tablet has dual front and back cameras every connection required and wi fi and blue toothe  and high quality screen and good life battery and microphone and the very latest android and also supports Linux microsd booting..............16 gigs of ssd and 2 gigs of ram....even with case and stylus and otg cable...and power brick

(Rock chip rk3188 running at 1.6 GHz per cpu core.....700mhz for each of 4 GPU cores).....the cpu cores are cortex a9 running are 1.6ghz by quad....

Infact......

mini board computers are VERY highly priced for what they are.......  it should be a quarter of what they charge....

V