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Add to SafariWhen comparing MinnowBoard Max vs Olimex A64-OLinuXino, the Slant community recommends MinnowBoard Max for most people. In the question“What are the best single-board computers?” MinnowBoard Max is ranked 29th while Olimex A64-OLinuXino is ranked 33rd. The most important reason people chose MinnowBoard Max is:
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.
Specs
Question Ranking
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.
Pro Designed using KiCad
This board is designed using completely free and open source software that may be run on Linux, Windows, or OS X.
Pro Open source hardware
The design files for this board are available on GitHub!
Pro OLIMEX Ltd. provides active support
OLIMEX Ltd. regularly scans the support forums and provides assistance.
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.
Con Limited number of supported operating systems
Few operating systems are officially supported, but community-provided ones may be found.
Con Small community
The community is small, so existing project designs and references are limited.
