Is anyone else using the Orange pi zero 3 right now?
Because Im currently typing this on mine (1 GiB, android install) and everything is (very surprisingly) rock solid -- page loading is very smooth, youtube playback is smooth as well (it can even play 4k videos no problem) and even gaming works flawlessly well (Haven`t went too far beyond PS1 games, but from PS1 and under it plays everything really well.).
In short -- It delivers a desktop experience at the expense of almost nothing with the power draw at that same level -- 1W (best case scenario) to 3W(worst case scenario).
I have the 4GB model. It's a really nice little board for the price. Currently have Debian 12 installed. I have the Orange Pi camera module and am using it in conjunction with the board, OpenCV, and a wild bird model data set to detect different kinds of birds outside my window at the bird feeder. I don't have a desktop installed so I can't speak to that. I'd say judging by the pics it's about 50% accurate so far. The graininess of the photos from the camera module and the distance from the bird feeder have a lot to do with the poor performance. Using a higher end USB camera should help with this.
A big bonus with this board is it has 4 temp sensors, and you will need them. Like all OPi boards, heat is an issue. You will need sinks and active cooling if you would like to use this for extended periods of time without roasting it.
That's awesome as hell!
I'd love to hear more details about this. I have 3 Raspberry Pis from before they became impossible to come by, and I've looked over the Orange Pis several times. I'd always heard issues with them, something about drivers not being in the kernel or something? Anyway, really great to hear you're having good success with it! Any more information you want to share, I'd be happy to hear.
And that is correct -- Orange pi boards are (mostly) Android-based boards at heart. Anything beyond that, and youll have to deal with lots of tinkering.
Eh...on my first try, I went with debian and everything felt really half-baked. For example, docker is borked (And I think theres a way to fix it -- havent really tried fiddling with it at all.). Sound is also borked (Tried both alsa and pulseaudio, aaand nada.). And I think I managed to "cheat" my way in the "GPU supported land" by installing
mesa-utilswith the --install-recommends flag (Cant really tell what happened, other than both cpu usage and temps dropped a whole lot after installing it.).It might be possible installing pi-hole however (pretty sure it runs on any potato nowadays.) Network "just werks" out of the box (Ethernet). Average cpu temps were at 68 to 72 degrees, w/ cpu usage at 80'ish, all cores. (That is while running an youtube video, at 380p. No case, with two passive heatsinks on both the cpu and memory and a small fan blowing right on both of em.).
Those issues simply do not exist on Android. Aside from the lack of customization options and docker, that is.
Would you say as an Android OS you can still do most of the things you would want to do in a Linux OS? Command line interface? A non-touch screen interface? Because that's always one of the main things that holds me back, I really like Android for certain things, but it always feels a little limited.
Im not an Android expert to be honest (Been fiddling with Linux for some time however, which made my "transition" from 0 to "less-terrible" a rather pleasing one) but I'd say... no. There might be some alternatives to certain Linux-restricted software that might work "out of the box" tho (Like AdGuard instead of pihole) and maybeeeeeee some "voodo magic" can be done with
adb(Which is the closest you'll get of a "Android package manager" of sorts since it allows you to install packages remotely and some tricky things I'm still not aware about.).Unless you really, REALLY need to tweak the kernel with some turbonerd stuff which is completely off my line of knowledge or some other similar stuff... then I'd say that Android will give you an "acceptable" Linux experience.