MinnowBoard Max Review

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Review of MinnowBoard Max powered by the Slant community.

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Pros

Pro
Completely open source

MinnowBoard is a non-profit backed by Intel. meaning it gets advice for its architecture by Intel. But all hardware and software parts, including all drivers are completely free and open source.

Pro
USB 3.0 available

The MinnowBoard Max has 2 USB ports, one of which is a USB 3.0.

Pro
Great for hacking away

Other than releasing all drivers as open source, Intel has also made the schematics of the board available to download. This way, hackers can give it a try and build anything they want without restrictions.

Cons

Con
Multi-USB hub almost a necessity

Because it has only two USB ports, one of which to be used for charging, a multi-USB hub is needed to connect a keyboard and mouse which are the absolute minimal external devices to be able to use and configure the MinnowBoard.

Con
No official OS images have the kernel with GPIO enabled

Although this is not the board's fault per-se, no official OS image has enabled support for GPIO. But if the kernel is compiled from source, it can be compiled with GPIO and PWM enabled.