It’s sad because I desperately want a raspberry pi or two for some projects I’ve been kicking the can on, but I simply can’t get them for anywhere close to MSRP. The shortage hurts.
I haven't closely monitored the situation for years now, but it used to be the case that OS/software support for anything than a Raspi was often spotty at best.
With a Raspi, you not only have Raspian/RPiOS that fully supports all models back to the first one from 2011, but a decent number of really good alternatives like Fedora, Ubuntu and special appliance variants, e.g. for console emulation etc.
In contrast, my last experiments with some other SBCs consisted of downloading some ancient ISO files of questionable provenance from some shady .cn domains. It might have gotten better, but one should carefully investigate the software situation before buying a non-RPi SBC.
This is getting significantly better and fast - largely due to RPis being unavailable for 2 years and growing (and won't get better anytime soon). Odroid's ecosystem is quite a bit better these days. I highly recommend getting an XU-4 from Ameridroid or HardKernel themselves (my last order arrived within 10 days from South Korea to the west coast with zero customers issues) for a fraction of the RPi 4 MSRP cost (much less what it actually costs now) and tinker.
It depends on your level of expertise and how comfortable you are straying from an online guide. It's just a small matter of computer engineering, for different difficulty values of "just".
Ya know, I just realized I missed the Thursday batch of Pi4s and got to thinking about my ODroid C1. I have generic USB cables and chargers laying around but I still don't know where my non-standard C1 charger went.
The last time I made this sort of comment one of the top replies was that Pis are notoriously picky about their power supplies. Be that as it may I've not run into any trouble with my Pis (Zero W + 3B). Hence I'm using my Pis while my C1 sits unused.
I have one or two I’ll sell you below MSRP. I don’t use them anymore (barely did did to begin with). Email is in my profile. I just sold a Remarkable2 eink tablet to another HNer this way!
