RS stopped manufacturing raspberies

Nice bit of passive-form marketing speak for: we decided that we did not want to extend the licence agreement because we think we can make more money that way. (Or: we=they!)

Not that there's anything wrong with making money.

At the moment there isn't enough chips to keep one manufacturer at full production, never mind two.

---druck

That's hopefully short term, or at least not another 10 years. Also, a licence may or may not include a minimum production quotum. They could have extended with no obligation to build any. Of course that's another commercial decision.

So what I mean is that you are right but I don't think it prevented a new licence agreement.

Perhaps it was RS who did not wish to resume? that press release does not comment either way but RS have started producing their own SBC so may not wish to produce a competing device?

Yes, that's why I added "or: we=they" but that was a bit cryptic, sorry.

Ah good catch, if that's it; I can't seem to find anything about it. Don't think there's mention of it here in the list of press releases on the UK website:

This, perhaps?

Pi showed the way, and this looks set to lumber after it and capture decent market share

Not such a good look to claim to bring an end to shortages, then your online store is out of stock ...

Indeed it did.

Probably, but it is one of many theses days. Hardkernel have been making their Odroid range for some years now for example - then there's Orange Pi, Banana Pi, Nvidia Jetson ...

that I would think depends on the price point & also community support which is by far the Raspberry Pi foundations biggest asset.

Hmm:

Rockchip silicon, which is a bit better than the usual Allwinner stuff of the clones.

The real question is software support - by the looks of their downloads page it's got a long way to do: Android Kitkat 4.4.2 source code - that was released in 2013 Linux kernel 3.0.36 - that was release in 2012

I eventually found

The problem with a lot of these me-too boards is the software quality is about comparable with budget Android phones: they ship a release and call the product done. That's what the Radxa forum seems to confirm. I would be concerned that any me-too product doesn't have nearly as good software as the official Raspberry Pi product line does.

The hardware is a bit better (the Pi hardware has always been a collection of missed opportunities) but it's software that really matters.

Theo

Radxa do have the ROCK Pi X, which is one of the most popular Pi-inspired x86 SBCs. With Intel x86 hardware you don't really need the manufacturer to keep developing their own set of Linux kernel patches and drivers because the mainline Linux kernel developers are sufficiently motivated/paid to do that themselves.

Agreed without hesitation

Yes, Intel writes good drivers for their silicon and maintains them. Rockchip, Mediatek, Allwinner and friends - and let's not forget Qualcomm and Samsung too - don't.

I can't work out what the difference is with the Rock 4 SE advertised by RS and the other Rock Pi 4 versions listed by Radxa. Is it just RS doing their own branding thing?

Theo

Looks like a bit of reworking around the power supply corner and the ethernet chip

Getting rid of the "Pi" name

According to this, it's mostly just a slower version of the Rock Pi 4:

Yep:

"ROCK or ROCK Pi

When first introduced in 2018, the name was ROCK Pi 4. In 2022, we decide to remove the Pi in the name because some people think ROCK Pi is the brand, but actually Radxa is the brand name, ROCK Pi is the product line name. The full name for 4C Plus should be Radxa ROCK 4 Model C Plus. (Note ROCK is always in upper case.) Since the ROCK Pi 4 is widely used already, all the content on the internet can not be changed immediately. So both ROCK Pi 4 and ROCK 4 refer the same product, the model number is what the users should pay attention when choosing images or ask for support. "

And definitely not to do with stealing someone else's trademark, oh no.

Theo

Yeah f*ck that, RS dudes :)

I think those are out of production. The only listing on Amazon has it selling for over $300. Mine was $100 when I bought it from Allnet about a year and a half ago in the maxed-out configuration (4 GB RAM, 128 GB eMMC), but when you go to their website now, all configurations are either sold out or unavailable, and have been for a while.

I bought one to use as a video player, as it'd handle things like LBRY that I hadn't managed to get running on the Raspberry Pi. Since it's AMD64 instead of ARM, bringing up a new installation of Linux (or even Windows, if you're so inclined) isn't much different than doing the same with some random Dell or HP desktop. Mine runs Gentoo Linux, and the only thing I've not gotten working is the onboard WiFi...no big loss as it's on a wired connection.

They're still on Aliexpress, which is where I'd probably go to buy one: