Hi, I am looking for a SBC to self host stuff on. I would like it to be somewhat open hardware (manufacturer provides schematics and drivers are open source). Which is why I initially wanted to buy a banana-pi router but after reading a post in this /c/ I found that mainline linux support is fairly rare in these arm/riscv SBCs.

So I was hoping someone more knowledgeable would help me find some options. Here are my “wants”:

  • Low power drain
  • Open source hardware and software
  • Mainline linux support
  • 2 ethernet ports, at least 1Gb
  • at least 2GB RAM - could do with 1GB I suppose
  • a reasonable way to connect 2 SSDs and 2 HDDs - ie. 4 sata ports or one pcie port (not through USB)
  • EU seller. Not required but I hate dealing with import taxes and I like guarantees
  • Finally I need it to have “wake on power”, so that it can start automatically after power outage

The more I search the internet, the more it seems that this mythical computer does not exist but maybe someone knows more than me. Thanks for your replies.

Edit: I’m likely going to settle with the Visionfive 2 since it has official ubuntu support and I won’t have to rely on some hacky linux image provided by the manufacturer. It has 2 LAN ports and an M.2 NVME which I’m gonna split into 4 SATAs. Also 8GB RAM is plenty for the lightweight stuff I want to host, maybe even Nextcloud won’t be that painful.

Final note: I’m actually not sure how much is the Visionfive 2 open-source but it seems better than intel and AMD stuff so I’m willing to compromise since I actually want to buy something that exists. But anyone reading this in the future beware that I don’t know whether it’s really open source to the last logic gate. (likely not)

    • @TMP_NKcYUEoM7kXg4qYeOPEnglish
      6•1 year ago

      Thank you very much! This is probably the best answer.

      For anyone from the future reading this: From my understanding almost every SBC does not really work with “Linus Torvalds’ Linux” which is why one often sees HW manufacturers also providing their own Linux image with the computer. This is fine for development but honestly not something I would want for self hosting stuff. There are few exceptions like the Raspberry Pi but that one is not that much open source. So imo the best option is to look at https://ubuntu.com/download/risc-v where Ubuntu provides “official” images for few RISC-V boards. (The Visionfive 2 is what lead me there.)