Meet MinnowBoard MAX

Agree, looks a bit underpowered for the size; it would be nice if it was smaller. This is still quite larger than an Odroid.

It will be fun to see what interesting applications arise from the Edison type platform, having full-blown Linux capability in such a tiny form-factor.

There's a good write-up of MinnowBoard Max at LinuxGizmos: http://linuxgizmos.com/intel-unveils-tiny-x86-minnowboard-max-open-sbc/

It sounds like MB Max has much better software support than the original Minnow.  It also has SATA: one dedicated connector and a second off the high-speed connector, which also provides PCIe.  [Update #2: You also get SATA and PCIe with original Minnow, but not with RasPi or Beagle.]  MBMax can have dual core for US$129.  The MB Max cores are 64-bit, if that's of importance.

Update #1: They've also cut way back on the number of passives that they had on the original.  IMO the original board must have had inner layers that looked like Swiss Cheese, or else so many blind vias that the PC board itself was a major product cost.

The original MinnowBoard was nothing more than a learning exercise for both Intel and Circuitco. Intel needed to learn a few things about open hardware, and circuitco needed to learn about x86 hardware. this was stated early on for the release of the original Minnow....

john,

yes indeed the plains on the original minnow were swiss cheese..... you can download the gerbers for a view if you'd like, hehe

the Max indeed supports more standard distributions such as ubuntu and fedora as compared to the original minnow which was somewhat specific to the angstrom builds...

John Beetem wrote:

 

There's a good write-up of MinnowBoard Max at LinuxGizmos: http://linuxgizmos.com/intel-unveils-tiny-x86-minnowboard-max-open-sbc/

 

It sounds like MB Max has much better software support than the original Minnow.  It also has SATA: one dedicated connector and a second off the high-speed connector, which also provides PCIe.

Actually I don't think that's a good write up at all. I have an original MinnowBoard. It has SATA, it has PCIe, it has uSD, it doesn't have NAND, it doesn't have micro-hdmi (does have normal hdmi though).

Really, you'd have to think linuxgizmos have never even seen the original Minnow...

David Anders wrote

the Max indeed supports more standard distributions such as ubuntu and fedora as compared to the original minnow which was somewhat specific to the angstrom builds...

Not sure I understand that comment, I booted angstrom on my original minnow for all of about a minute - just long enough to prove that it booted, before switching to a sensible distro. Other than UEFI there's nothing much unusual about the original. Whatever way you look at it, x86 is just x86.

selsinork,

there were a lot of special kernel aspects to the original minnowboard, but the biggest issue is the stock distributions that do support UEFI only support 64-bit UEFI which made it much more difficult to install stock distros. we've specifically made sure that stock distros will work out of the box for minnowboardmax..

shabaz wrote:

 

Agree, looks a bit underpowered

The original certainly was noticeably underpowered. This one should be better.  Whether it can match a Wandboard Quad which can be got for the $129 that the dual core version is set to cost is a more interesting question.  Being 64bit might help, some of the earlier Atom processors were a lot better in 64bit mode.

selsinork,

i can assure you it IS better than the original minnow. as reminder, Intel and circuitco have only been the x86 open hardware platform business for less that 18 months, and already we've brought the price down considerably. it took ARM SoC vendors over 10 years to get to the current price point for open hardware platforms based on ARM...

Dave

David Anders wrote:

 

there were a lot of special kernel aspects to the original minnowboard, but the biggest issue is the stock distributions that do support UEFI only support 64-bit UEFI

Not entirely sure I agree, sure there are things on the Minnow you don't tend to find on more 'normal' x86 boards, so the distros don't tend to include them. So you need to be prepared to do a bit of work yourself.

UEFI being 32bit is only really a problem if you're the sort of person who just wants to install from CD and have everything handed to them on a plate and I suspect very few people who bought one were in the "I have an RPi and can't work out Win32DiskImager" category.

You might have guessed that I'm fairly self sufficient in these sorts of things