The CuBox ?

Does anyone have any first hand experience using the CuBox? And if so what are your thoughts on this device? Also what application were you using with the CuBox?

Hi,

SolidRun just announced a new series for CuBox: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/sol...oid,24121.html

I've been looking at these type of things. CuBox, Utilite, Sabre-Lite, Wandboard, all based on the freescale i.MX6 board. A quad core 64 bit ARM with a SATA option appeals to me. More as a background machine, to encode videos, or other uses that might render my desktop offline, as in can't play games while process X is running. Plus they tend to be low power and fanless.

No actual experience with one yet.

Originally Posted by Shadow_7 I've been looking at these type of things. CuBox, Utilite, Sabre-Lite, Wandboard, all based on the freescale i.MX6 board. A quad core 64 bit ARM with a SATA option appeals to me. More as a background machine, to encode videos, or other uses that might render my desktop offline, as in can't play games while process X is running. Plus they tend to be low power and fanless. No actual experience with one yet.

We have similar agendas for an application of these type of devices.

And as you stated there are piles of different brands and configurations of the quad core ARM boxes all over the internet. I purchased a raspberry pi a while back and it does what it is designed to do, but at the same time it is limited by RAM and other hardware restrictions. The draw for me on some of the newer ARM device is that they have 2 GB RAM and great expandability with SATA, eSATA, or even a Micro SD chip. And for the price it would be hard to go wrong.

My other alternative would be to go with something like the Piston Xi3. But the price is rather prohibitive as the devices range from $500 for a basic Xi3 to over $1,000 for the X7a . And the only real advantage for me is the boxes run a x86 architecture.

Thanks for your input!

Originally Posted by onebuck Hi, SolidRun just announced a new series for CuBox: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/sol...oid,24121.html

Thanks! Yes I have also seen several reviews on the device. But I haven't yet run across anyone who is actually using one in real life.

Hi,

Originally Posted by crazypenguin Thanks! Yes I have also seen several reviews on the device. But I haven't yet run across anyone who is actually using one in real life.

I think a new Cub will be purchased in the next few days, depending on availability & shipping.

I have one on preorder. I've never used one, but it looks appealing. The price is certainly reasonable, but it remains to be seen how useful it would be. Debian has ARM ports, for both armel and armhf, but the software availability is somewhat limited, since not all packages have been ported. My primary concern, though, is getting the kernel to work well with the hardware. I haven't done any kernel compiling, but I might have to start learning the details of it.

It's simple enough to compile a kernel if you do it the distro specific way.

$ cp /boot/config .config
$ make oldconfig
$ make deb-pkg
# dpkg -i ../*linux*.deb

Or something like that. Assumes the -dev things are installed (not by default in debian). And other things like getting and extracting the sources from kernel.org.

I'm also concerned about drivers, for the things not quite out yet like the utilite, it's because drivers are S.I.D.. Or at least that's my interpretation based on the information on the website(s). But I haven't checked recently, I just saw the gadgets on linuxgizmos and fed the curiousity.

I own the 1st ed. CuBox (a pre-production unit, SPDIF not working).

I like it. I setup a XBMC server/client on it. Attached a 1TB USB to hold my media. Worked like a champ. I was using the GeeXboX distro (a lightweight distro for running XBMC).

I still own the device, but I use Roku's now and a heavier handed backend server for Plex (a fork of XBMC) for my own media (need heavier server because my media are mpeg2s that have to be live transcoded by Plex for playback through the Roku's... it only handles H264 AAC).

Now.. If if I transcode my video media to native Roku formats (no transcoding), good chance the CuBox could be something Plex-like, just not sure about getting Plex on it (could be difficult).

While it may be expensive, it's a lot more powerful than the Pi. Of course, I'm not talking about the new low end CuBox.

I have a Roku for watching video. I plan to use the iCubox as a desktop machine, or at least an experimental desktop. I already have the peripherals on hand - monitor, keyboard/mouse, etc. It may be a little underpowered, but I seldom bother to use a desktop machine anyway, and I really don't have one per se. My desktop is an Asus eee-pc, connected to wireless keyboard/mouse and monitor, and external USB HDDs. The Cubox should be at least as capable as that, although several things will be unavailable because of the armhf CPU. It's mainly for use as a playtoy and learning platform. You never get too old to learn, or at least I hope so. I'm certainly not that old yet. ;-)

Don't expect too much, but CuBox does have the horsepower to run a Linux desktop. In fact the default that the 1st Ed. came with is a Ubuntu. It works.

I don't expect all that much, and I really don't need all that much. I don't use a desktop for heavy-duty computing, I really don't even own one, as I said above. The last desktop I owned was several years ago. It started life as a 486-33 machine, and was upgraded several times, but obsolete by the time I decided to abandon it. I've been using portable devices since, and likely won't bother to buy another desktop machine. The Cubox is going to be mostly for experimentation, not a production machine. In truth, it doesn't require a huge amount of CPU horsepower to run a desktop machine that's doing mostly email, websurfing, word processing, etc. I don't often need anything more than that. If the Cubox will handle compiling packages, I'll be happy. There are a number of packages that have no arm binaries available, but for which source code is available. I plan to try doing some of that, and perhaps compiling my own kernel for the box. Beyond that, I don't need much.

I mostly want one to have something desktop that is arm. To learn / know what is and is not available for arm. And well, my desktop is old enough that the beefy cubox is on par with my current desktop spec wise. Actually the cubox has twice the cores and twice the ram if you look at it from that perspective. For the beefy version. Plus the power usage would pay for the unit if I can shut one of my other machines off. Since I always have at least two on when I'm at home. Router, or internet radio / youtube, or browsing game guides while I play the game on the other machine.