Asus Tinker Board

[A Former User]

Is there anyone who has an experience with Asus Tinker Board?

I’ve got one today and am waiting for new SD card arrival.

My old one was RPi 3 model B, It worked perfectly, but I’ve felt something insufficient. So I ordered an ATB on Amazon.

Here is a brief comparison

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B	vs.	Asus Tinker Board
35 - 40 EUR	Price in Germany (Amazon.de)	55 - 60 EUR
9 x 6 x 1 cm	Dimension	9 x 6 x 1 cm (perfectly same with RPI 3 Model B)
Cortex-A53 Quad-core 1.2GHz	Processor	Cortex-A17 Quad-core 1.8GHz
1GB LPDDR2	Memory	2GB LPDDR3
HDMI, supports HD resolution	Display Output	HDMI supports H.264 4K resolution
MicroSD	Storage	MicroSD (UHS-I Support)
up to 48K/16bit sample rate	Audio	up to 192k/24bit sample rate
Bluetooth 4.1 Classic Low Energy, 10/100 Ethernet, 2.4GHz 802.11n	Connectivity	Bluetooth 4.0 + EDR, Gigabit Ethernet , 802.11n
Micro-USB	Power	Micro-USB
Linux-Debian	OS Support	Linux-Debian

I have not checked all compatibility issues of Tinkerboard yet. I just hope there would not be any problem. :)
Currently, I consider playing videos on my mirror, that’s why I need stronger. I hope this might be the one as I thought.

[cowboysdude]

No experience with it but it looks like it may be able to handle more than the Pi! Let us know!

[A Former User]

Today, I got a new SD card So I tried.

OS installation was not difficult as I’ve heard. OS is TinkerOS_Debian V2.0.1 (Beta version). I used Etcher for making image on SD with ease. Etcher is a really great tool!

TinkerOS has already lxde and some useful pieces of stuff.(like Fonts, etc) Someone said TinkerOS is not so good as Raspbian. For me, however, It’s pretty enough.

I’ve done some processes necessary like apt-get upgrade, install git, install node…
After then I tried to install MagicMirror by auto-install scripts in MM sites. I made mm.sh for auto-start and reboot.
There was no problem.

It worked without any problem. I’ve installed some modules for test, they worked also well.

Performance is really nice.
Of course, MM doesn’t need so much computing power. But when I opened Chromium browser in Desktop mode, Wow. the performance was almost same with normal PC. (Yup, That’s what I’ve felt.) Moving window was very smooth! Page loading was so fast!
I know the real performance of PC class is very different with these Single-board computers, But I’m satisfied with this new toy. I confirm there is worthy of 20 EUR(the price gap with RPi3B)

[strawberry 3.141]

@Sean would be interesting to see the performance of cpu intensive tasks like offline voice recognition and face recognition and so on

[A Former User]

@strawberry-3.141 Yes, I’ll try something like those. After that I’ll write here.

[Snille]

Just got mine as well. :)
Here you can find the OS (and other stuff), if someone else is looking.
Tinker Board Software

[cowboysdude]

I believe that as MM grows it is out growing the RPI. Hate to say it but at this point it really is… So this new board may be the answer for a few things!

[Snille]

Mmmm… I’m thinking MinnowBoard Turbot… Maybe? :)

[Snille]

@Sean what did you put in your mm.sh?
I can’t get the MM to run… I only get errors… :/ I’m on development branch…

got this in the npm-debug.log:

cat npm-debug.log
0 info it worked if it ends with ok
1 verbose cli [ '/usr/bin/nodejs', '/usr/bin/npm', 'start' ]
2 info using npm@3.10.10
3 info using node@v6.11.2
4 verbose run-script [ 'prestart', 'start', 'poststart' ]
5 info lifecycle magicmirror@2.1.3-dev~prestart: magicmirror@2.1.3-dev
6 silly lifecycle magicmirror@2.1.3-dev~prestart: no script for prestart, continuing
7 info lifecycle magicmirror@2.1.3-dev~start: magicmirror@2.1.3-dev
8 verbose lifecycle magicmirror@2.1.3-dev~start: unsafe-perm in lifecycle true
9 verbose lifecycle magicmirror@2.1.3-dev~start: PATH: /usr/lib/node_modules/npm/bin/node-gyp-bin:/home/snille/MagicMirror/node_modules/.bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games
10 verbose lifecycle magicmirror@2.1.3-dev~start: CWD: /home/snille/MagicMirror
11 silly lifecycle magicmirror@2.1.3-dev~start: Args: [ '-c', 'sh run-start.sh' ]
12 silly lifecycle magicmirror@2.1.3-dev~start: Returned: code: 1  signal: null
13 info lifecycle magicmirror@2.1.3-dev~start: Failed to exec start script
14 verbose stack Error: magicmirror@2.1.3-dev start: `sh run-start.sh`
14 verbose stack Exit status 1
14 verbose stack     at EventEmitter. (/usr/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/utils/lifecycle.js:255:16)
14 verbose stack     at emitTwo (events.js:106:13)
14 verbose stack     at EventEmitter.emit (events.js:191:7)
14 verbose stack     at ChildProcess. (/usr/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/utils/spawn.js:40:14)
14 verbose stack     at emitTwo (events.js:106:13)
14 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:191:7)
14 verbose stack     at maybeClose (internal/child_process.js:891:16)
14 verbose stack     at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:226:5)
15 verbose pkgid magicmirror@2.1.3-dev
16 verbose cwd /home/snille/MagicMirror
17 error Linux 4.4.71+
18 error argv "/usr/bin/nodejs" "/usr/bin/npm" "start"
19 error node v6.11.2
20 error npm  v3.10.10
21 error code ELIFECYCLE
22 error magicmirror@2.1.3-dev start: `sh run-start.sh`
22 error Exit status 1
23 error Failed at the magicmirror@2.1.3-dev start script 'sh run-start.sh'.
23 error Make sure you have the latest version of node.js and npm installed.
23 error If you do, this is most likely a problem with the magicmirror package,
23 error not with npm itself.
23 error Tell the author that this fails on your system:
23 error     sh run-start.sh
23 error You can get information on how to open an issue for this project with:
23 error     npm bugs magicmirror
23 error Or if that isn't available, you can get their info via:
23 error     npm owner ls magicmirror
23 error There is likely additional logging output above.
24 verbose exit [ 1, true ]

[A Former User]

@Snille mine has no problem. In ‘mm.sh’ only npm start is.

[Snille]

Oh, when I tried it with the default “linaro” user it works… :) I used “my own” user at first… Now I’m going to add modules! :)

[Snille]

This post is deleted!

[Snille]

Ah, just figured out how to rotate the screen. When logged in as “linaro”.
Open a terminal and do:

cd ~
nano .xsessionrc

Paste the following in the file and remove the # in front of the row (left or right) you want to rotate the screen. I am using left myself. :)

#!/bin/sh

## To rotate left enable below line.
xrandr --output HDMI-1 --rotate left

## To rotate right enable below line.
#xrandr --output HDMI-1 --rotate right

Reboot to test. :)

[Snille]

All the same modules installed and here is the “nmon” result…
To the left is the “Tinker Board” and to the right is the “Raspberry Pi 3”. :)

And here is the module list:

MMM-Chart
MMM-Globe
MMM-JSONStatusChecker
MMM-Memo
MMM-ModuleScheduler
MMM-Modulebar
MMM-MotionEye
MMM-MyCommute
MMM-ProfileSwitcher
MMM-Profilepicture
MMM-Remote-Control
MMM-Sonos
MMM-SystemStats
MMM-TextClock
MMM-TouchNavigation
MMM-WunderGround
MMM-cryptocurrency
MMM-newsfeedtouch
MMM-plex-recently-added
calendar_monthly
mm-hide-all
mmm-suncalc

[A Former User]

@Snille impressive!

[A Former User]

@Snille MMM-SystemStat should be modified for CPU temperature. ATB write cpu temp on different location.

[Snille]

@Sean Yes, I noticed. I actually disabled the MMM-SystemStats module for now. It’s complaining too much in the log. :)

[Snille]

Hi again. Tried another OS called Armbian. I like the “looks” better to start with. So if you are going to use you Tinker Board for something else then being a MM. Maybe it’s a nicer alternative then TinkerOS. But for MM, it’s not. The over all CPU usage is even higher then on the RPi3… Tough, it seems to be X that’s hogging most of the CPU… It’s running XFCE instead of LXDE so, maybe that’s the reason…

If you want to play with even more OS:es you can find lot’s here.

[A Former User]

@Snille Have you find tvservice equivalent? I cannot find how to turn on/off display programmatically on TB.
Will tvservice building work?

[ranger33]

could use a hand as there doesn’t seem to be much support in the community which is odd!

Got one today, loaded a fresh sd card with a fresh install of their newest os and i can’t get it to boot! It swirls around and around for a while loading different things but eventually just crashing:/ Anyone else have this issue? Power supply?