stronger Raspberry Pi 3 Alternatives

Snille

All, I have got the Libre Computer now. Trying my best to get the mirror up. Ran in to a small hitch. There is no chromedriver for arm64 yet. They are working on it and there is a PR but it has not yet gone completely through it seems. I’ll see if I can figure it out some how anyway. :)

I’ll come back to this thread as soon as I gotten MM up and running.

stacywebb

@Snille
I’ve gotten it working a Pine Rock64 (arm64 also).

Downloaded electron-v1.7.5-linux-arm64.zip listed under electron’s PR

One thing to note: when downloading from the link, the site’s cert has expired.

From terminal:

// Since the cert for the site has expired (but is safe)

wget --no-check-certificate https://www.hamidx9.ir/dl/electron_arm64/electron-v1.7.5-linux-arm64.zip

// Important make sure to unzip to your electron path

unzip electron-v1.7.5-linux-arm64.zip ~/MagicMirror/node_modules/electron/dist/

Once done just started as usual (npm start).

Snille

@stacywebb Thank you! I’ll try it out as soon as I got some time. Have you compared with a Pi3?

stacywebb

@Snille

I haven’t done any benchmarking as of yet. Once I do, I’ll post the results.

Mykle1

@stacywebb said in stronger Raspberry Pi 3 Alternatives:

I haven’t done any benchmarking as of yet. Once I do, I’ll post the results.

If you could do some comparisons using nmon between a Pi3 and the Rock64 I’d really be interested in the results, as they pertain to this topic.
https://forum.magicmirror.builders/topic/4684/electron-cpu-usage

Otherwise, I’m looking forward to your results on the Rock64.

cruunnerr

@Mykle1

https://youtu.be/FjbzKfeHB_8?t=8m10s

As i understood, u were able to use GPIO commands the same way u do on a raspberry. Seems to be a nice option

Benchmarks at 08:10

Mykle1

@cruunnerr

No WiFi? NFW!

ninjabreadman

@Mykle1 The b/g/n adapter is a further $7, and will also give you an antenna for better connectivity. The more robust (and likely excessive) b/g/n/ac dual-antenna is $22.

Has anyone tried running MM on an Intel Compute Stick? I’m not normally a fan, but it seems it would suit the form factor and be easily placed behind a mirror, and has more fulsome specs to accommodate advanced modules, media streaming, etc.

Mykle1

@ninjabreadman

No, but I’ve used, and am using, old laptop boards (and one netbook) with ubuntu. They can be gotten on the cheap and come with everything you need. :-)

cruunnerr

Well, i need to say that especially for me, the ability to use GPIOs is important. Unfortunately the power of the raspi’s & co is not as good as x86 systems.

Does anyone know if it would be possible to use MagicMirror on a x86 system and uses external GPIOs? I installed an MM instance on a virtual machine running Linux. When i add a module which uses GPIOs i get errors. Is there a possibility (maybe with server-client)