(I have decided to call this one the, later I will change the hostname, to ATXpi machine!)
Booting from a 256GB SD card...
Ubuntu v6 kernel. Also did a quick update to see if the upgrades were working ok. And it did work fine... the only thing that failed (because of permissions and for a good reason because it was customized) was the package that usually provides support for the firmware to boot devices in these things.
NMONin it!
This was a simple test transferring a 4GB file (the image to burn on the eMMC chip). And given SD cards are not the super mega performance things... this was super acceptable. Especially because I am already running the OS from the same SD card.
A couple of things...
The heatsink you see in the first picture is sort of the minimum... (ish). Without a fan, that heatsink goes up to 50-60 C centigrade. Memory-wise, probably 10 lower (didn't use a probe yet to check, but just by feel).
The SD card itself though, warms quite a BIT! Hence, for an intensive constant IO device, I would not advise it, at least if constantly doing a lot of high bandwidth things. And eventually, it will wear out.
The next thing is to test a little 5V fan from the feed on the board itself and see how much I can cool down this beast. Note that I haven't even stressed the chip too much yet... so, hence why I think either a bigger heatsink would be required for normal operation without throttling. But running this thing even without a heatsink is possible!
The limits on ARM are pretty crazy! (this is the maximum idle I got with about 20 C ambient and no ventilation)
The interesting thing about these such small devices is that basically, ANY little piece of metal is a source of dissipation, which makes it so much easier to "not kill" these...
Meaning, that the HDMI cable dissipates heat, the USB for the keyboard too, and the power cable itself! Even the wireless antenna! I am pretty sure if one designs a support aluminium board that connects to the 4 legs I have put some stands, it will cool down at least 5 Watts!
More during the week...