Mele doing A1000 (Quad Core A31) and A200 (Dual Core A20) devices for developers
http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/pipermail/arm-netbook/2013-April/007073.html
i've been contacted by mele of shenzen out-of-the-blue because it
turns out they really appreciated the fact that we used and
recommended their hardware with the allwinner a10 processor as a
low-cost developer system, it resulted in really quite good sales for
them. here's instructions on how people got Debian (armhf) root
filesystems onto it, for example:
http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10/hacking_the_mele_a1000/Building_Debian_From_Source_Code_for_Mele/
they're just about to bring out a couple of other systems, one is with
the A20 (a drop-in replacement for the A10) which is a dual-core ARM
Cortex A7, and the other is a more powerful Quad-Core ARM Cortex A7
with 2gb of RAM.
if there's anybody who would be interested in a group buy of these
boxes as low-cost debian servers, desktops, freedom box development
systems etc. then now's a good time to speak up.
i still have yet to find out if the A20 box has SATA, but the A31 one
definitely does (how is not clear: the A31 doesn't have SATA as far as
i can make out).
the only caveat about the A31 system is that it uses the PowerVR
proprietary GPU, for which starting the reverse-engineering is still
outstanding (the engine's instruction set op codes are known though).
but, as a server or if using straight framebuffer, it'll do fine.
GPL Source code has already been quotes leaked quotes for both systems
so is available publicly; Mele are committed to GPL Compliance so
that's ok; i have copies of the stock android kernel and u-boot as
well as the buildroot environment if people get _really_ stuck, but
you shouldn't.
pricing i've yet to find out - they _really_ should not be a great
deal. A31 retail products really should not be more than $20 more
than A10 retail products.
l.
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