2023-04-03 19:08
I recently went through the trouble of figuring out how to install Steam on the Orange Pi 5 and it worked really well. Now that I've already gone through the pain of figuring out how to do… Read More
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James A. Chambers - Legendary Technology Blog
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Blog about Raspberry Pis, computers, gaming, Minecraft, Linux, and everything technology!
2023-04-01 00:36
The new RK3588/RK3588S boards have much more power than we've typically had available to us in the past on ARM boards. With a whopping 8 CPU cores and a Mali 610 GPU the Orange Pi 5 is capa… Read More
2023-03-22 06:32
It had been a while since I had given using a wearable device a try. I had not used one since the original Apple Watch all the way back in 2015. I had switched away from Apple many years a… Read More
2023-03-15 00:00
I've been exploring using Adafruit Stemma QT to create really cool DIY prototypes without any soldering here on the site. It allows you to very quickly throw together prototypes and do test… Read More
2023-03-13 23:29
I recently covered the extremely cheap and popular ESP32-CAM here on the site. That is still a good choice but I wanted to evaluate some of the other camera options out there.
One of the c… Read More
2023-03-07 19:15
I've reviewed the Pine64 SOQuartz compute module alternative in the past. While it works great Pine64 is working toward mainline support and doesn't have very many choices available for a w… Read More
2023-03-06 21:04
I've been integrating my entire home into Home Assistant using as much open-source software and hardware as possible. Recently I've wanted to add some additional cameras to my home such as… Read More
2023-03-03 22:13
I've been running my Home Assistant instance on a very old Tinker Board S with a 16GB eMMC. This has been working fine for a month or two but I recently started getting notifications that m… Read More
2023-03-03 01:38
I've covered making a wireless Adafruit IoT button that can run any action within Home Assistant when you press the button using automations. These are great because they also have a RGB LED… Read More
2023-03-01 19:15
I’ve previously covered creating a Home Assistant air quality monitor system using a XAIO ESP32-C3 module and ESPHome / Home Assistant to create a 7-in-1 air quality monitor sensor. My… Read More
2023-02-28 22:32
I've been covering integrating my entire home into Home Assistant here on the site. I want to have the capability to monitor everything going on in my home and control it with an open-sourc… Read More
2023-02-27 20:43
I've been upgrading all of the devices in my home to work with Home Assistant and eliminate subscriptions to proprietary services. One of the last remaining subscription services I have in… Read More
2023-02-25 00:34
I've been investigating ways to make my garage doors on my home "smart". My overall goal is to implement them into Home Assistant. I've been investigating various options to do this includ… Read More
2023-02-23 22:39
I've been doing a lot of coverage of ESP32-related chips lately on the site. One thing that is a bit painful with them though is that they usually require a lot of soldering. That's why I… Read More
2023-02-21 23:42
The Raspberry Pi continues to suffer from supply chain issues. They have promised there are a lot of their very old models that should be coming up for purchase within the next 6 months. I… Read More
2023-02-17 23:50
The Radxa Zero can definitely be set up to boot from USB storage / using a SSD. You can do this trick using both the eMMC and an SD card. Given that the board also has a quad-core processo… Read More
2023-02-17 01:53
I've been documenting my journey building out my smart home powered by Home Assistant here on the site. Home Assistant is an open-source system designed to let you easily manage and automat… Read More
2023-02-16 02:06
I've been building out various sensor arrays for use with Home Assistant in my home using ESP32 modules and ESPHome and it has been working really well. One challenge though is that you hav… Read More
2023-02-14 22:44
I'm certainly not the first to review the Orange Pi 800 computer kit. It has been available for a while now. That's exactly why I wanted to take a look at the Orange Pi 800 as a more matur… Read More
2023-02-14 00:57
I have been ordering a lot of gear from Adafruit lately to help build my Home Assistant sensor array for my home (as well as other projects I have going here on the site). I was very confus… Read More
2023-02-13 00:28
The Radxa Zero has been extremely popular since release and is still pretty hard to find on many major retailers. After trying to get it from a couple of different places I finally received… Read More
2023-02-12 01:46
I recently ordered many of the official Orange Pi accessories for review with my Orange Pi 800 order (also coming up for review). The first of these accessories to come was the Orange Pi 14… Read More
2023-02-09 23:24
I've previously reviewed the Pine64 SOQuartz here on the site and found that if you used Armbian it was a feasible alternative to the CM4. The compatibility with other IO boards varies wild… Read More
2023-02-08 19:38
I've been integrating all of my smart home devices into Home Assistant to have everything managed by an open source system. I have a handful of Philips Hue lights but I had not upgraded the… Read More
2023-02-06 22:54
Recently on the site I've been covering my journey exploring the world of microcontrollers. This has been a fun journey but it has required me to work with technology a lot smaller than wha… Read More
2023-02-01 23:24
I recently covered using the XAIO-ESP32-C3 with the Grove Expansion shield to create a sensor panel to be used within Home Assistant via ESPHome. That shield is only around $7 and doesn't h… Read More
2023-01-31 02:06
64 Pinecil is described as a "smart mini portable soldering iron". It's very popular and has incredible Amazon ratings among a crowd that largely is probably unfamiliar with Pine64 as a com… Read More
2023-01-30 01:19
rototyping kit set up was to try some of the expansion shields for the Seeed Studios XAIO modules such as the ESP32-C3. This will allow me to connect a whole bunch of sensors to a single bo… Read More
2023-01-28 00:10
People have been asking me for years how they can convert a Minecraft Bedrock world to Java edition (or vice versa). The answer in the past was that you needed to use one of the tools that… Read More
2023-01-25 22:29
With the Raspberry Pi 5 delayed until 2024 and older models unable to be kept in stock the single board computer market is wide open for competitors to really shine this generation. I've re… Read More
2023-01-24 23:07
If you've just received a new StarFive VisionFive 2 you may be having trouble to get it to boot with the latest images. This is because your firmware needs to be updated before using the la… Read More
2023-01-24 01:47
The StarFive VisionFive 2 comes with a M.2 M-key PCIe 2.0 slot that we can use with a 2280 NVMe drive. Unfortunately at release it's not possible to boot from the NVMe drive but this is exp… Read More
2023-01-24 01:45
I’ve reviewed several RISC-V boards on the site at this point including the Lichee RV and the Mango Pi MQ Quad. All of those boards only had a single core CPU though and aren’t s… Read More
2023-01-21 00:12
I've had the original Google Pixel Buds buds (first generation) for a couple of years now. That line (and the second generation of it) was cancelled some time ago in favor of the Pixel Buds… Read More
2023-01-11 20:53
I have reviewed the Mango Pi MQ-Pro (a RISC-V board) in the past and I was impressed enough that I wanted to try one of Mango Pi's other boards. Unfortunately this one is not a RISC-V board… Read More
2023-01-04 02:10
Orange Pi has not released the WiFi module for the Orange Pi 5 yet which has left some people in a difficult position. While working on this problem I discovered an adapter that claimed to… Read More
2022-12-28 00:44
When I replaced my old keyboard I decided to get a keyboard with Cherry MX Quiet switches as I love mechanical keyboards but wanted to cut down on the noise. It's still fairly loud but it's… Read More
2022-12-27 22:40
The Orange Pi 5 has a nice M.2 NVMe slot but unfortunately most of the official images will not boot if you try to directly image a NVMe drive. Fortunately there is an easy way to get this… Read More
2022-12-25 02:00
The Lichee RV 86 Panel is a RISC-V powered Linux computer complete with screen! It comes as a low cost kit with everything you need including the Lichee RV module.
In this guide I'll show… Read More
2022-12-13 23:44
The Orange Pi 5 has finally arrived! I received my pre-order and the board is great. So should you go out and buy it? Probably, but there are some things you should know first that you ma… Read More
2022-12-01 21:13
Recently I've been trying to learn more about options to set up my own sensors within the house. What kind of sensors? All of them. I want gas sensors to tell me the indoor/outdoor air qu… Read More
2022-11-23 23:07
The support for open-source RISC-V hardware continues to improve across the board as more board manufacturers continue to adopt them and ship high quality boards powered by RISC-V. Today we… Read More
2022-11-22 22:33
The Orange Pi 5 is on the horizon with my order scheduled to arrive around the end of the first week of December. I'll definitely be covering it as soon as I can get my hands on it. So why… Read More
2022-11-21 22:41
The Banana Pi P2 Zero is a single board computer that has a quad-core processor as well as a 8GB eMMC and 512MB of RAM. It's equivalent in power to roughly a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 or a Orange… Read More
2022-11-11 00:34
The ODROID N2+ is a single board computer available in 2GB and 4GB options. It has the Petitboot loader which easily supports booting from flash drives, SSDs, and other types of storage. I… Read More
2022-11-08 00:19
Libre Computers is a company making single board computers that are much more open-sourced than the Raspberry Pi (especially when it comes to hardware). They are offering a USB 2.0 model (t… Read More
2022-11-01 03:05
The Rock Pi 4C Plus is a bit different to boot with a SSD than it's predecessors. It does not have a SPI flash (nor can you solder one onto the board) so to use the NVMe slot for our root f… Read More
2022-11-01 02:37
We continue to see a storage technology evolution take place with single board computers. NVMe slots are becoming more and more prevalent on newer models. This is great news for consumers… Read More
2022-10-29 00:57
I recently reviewed the BIGTREETECH CB1 alternative to the Compute Module 4 and I was very surprised how well it worked with my existing I/O boards. Today we're going to review my second on… Read More
2022-10-27 00:08
Recently Ubuntu has received official preview images for some RISC-V boards. One of those boards is (indirectly) the MangoPi MQ Pro! RISC-V boards have been available for a while but the… Read More
2022-10-25 22:58
I've recently been reviewing many different single board computers that are outside of the Raspberry Pi ecosystem due to the ongoing pricing and availability issues with the Pi. Today will… Read More
2022-10-15 02:10
The "Renegade" by Libre Computers is a $50 single board computer. You actually get USB 3.0 with the "Renegade" which is going to make it even more worth it to use a SSD with than the "Le Po… Read More
2022-10-15 01:55
Recently I reviewed the Libre Computers "Le Potato" and I really like it. Libre Computers offers very up to date images (and takes pride in it) and the build quality on the board was rock s… Read More
2022-10-13 22:48
In the past I've written about my rechargeable handheld dust removal tool I've used to clean dust from electronics. This has completely eliminated "canned air" from my life and paid for its… Read More
2022-10-10 17:52
The Banana Pi M2 Zero definitely has a very familiar form factor. It looks just like the Raspberry Pi Zero but is a much cheaper alternative in these market conditions. Would you actually… Read More
2022-10-06 22:06
The "Le Potato" by Libre Computers is a $45 single board computer. That is incredibly cheap in 2022 as anyone who has tried to buy a Raspberry Pi recently can tell you. There aren't a lot… Read More
2022-10-05 23:12
The ODROID XU4 and XU4Q can be a bit more tricky to boot from USB drives such as a SSD due to them not using the fantastic Petitboot bootloader like many of their newer boards have. It is s… Read More
2022-10-05 17:17
The "Le Potato" single board computer available from Libre Computers is an alternative to the Raspberry Pi. It is modeled after the Raspberry Pi 3 and is largely compatible with the Raspber… Read More
2022-10-04 21:08
I recently wrote a getting started guide for the Tinker Board as even though the newer models tend to be quite expensive the older models can often be found for a lot cheaper. In this guide… Read More
2022-10-02 19:52
Recently I reviewed the ODROID M1 and it's a fantastic board. One problem with it though is that the image available for it is still only Ubuntu 20.04.
It's possible to upgrade the server… Read More
2022-09-23 17:55
It's no secret that there's a massive Raspberry Pi shortage right now for consumers due to the Raspberry Pi Foundation's strategy of allocating boards to business and IoT projects first and… Read More
2022-09-03 00:05
This is a new Docker container to automatically set up and run a Minecraft server that both Java and Bedrock players can connect to! This allows everyone to play on your server no matter wh… Read More
2022-08-31 02:48
During my recent coverage of SBCs I've been benchmarking them using SSDs. The process for booting from a SSD varies across different boards. I've found the documentation for some of these… Read More
2022-08-30 04:47
Configuring the ODROID N2+ for USB booting can be a little bit tricky. There are guides out there that will both use a SD card to bootstrap the SSD booting and other guides that use Petitbo… Read More
2022-08-29 21:47
The ODROID Go Super is the latest model of the popular handheld retro gaming consoles made by ODROID. It was recommended by a regular reader that I should check these out and I'm really enj… Read More
2022-08-25 05:39
I recently received several ODROID products I wanted to review and benchmark in my quest to explore the rest of the SBC world outside of Raspberry Pi. Today we're going to cover the ODROID… Read More
2022-08-23 06:59
I've covered eMMC modules on the site before as being a fantastic performance option. Today I received some Hardkernel eMMC modules that I wanted to do some performance testing to see how t… Read More
2022-08-19 22:07
I just received a very exciting upgrade for my HackRF One. It is called the PortaPack H2. It essentially gives your HackRF a rechargeable battery, a touchscreen display and many new capabi… Read More
2022-08-19 00:26
Today I'm very excited to review the ODROID M1 board. I bought this board for a couple of reasons. The first was that it is one of the top rated (and the top rated) boards on my Pi Benchma… Read More
2022-08-16 21:26
When installing Ledger Live on Ubuntu 22.04 I ran into an issue where during the genuine check it would not find my device. It was not even prompting for a PIN or showing any activity and w… Read More
2022-08-15 22:20
I've previously covered getting your HackRF set up in Linux and getting the firmware updated. In that guide we installed the very easy to use CubicSDR application and were able to easily tun… Read More
2022-08-13 19:52
My wife got me a Tinker Board several years ago as a gift and I always meant to cover it on the site. Due to the ongoing Raspberry Pi shortage and high prices I've been reexamining boards f… Read More
2022-08-10 21:26
When my wife and I were trying to play Cyberpunk 2077 on our last-gen console it was extremely painful and not just because of the bugs. It was painful because every time I died it would ta… Read More
2022-08-09 19:47
Chances are if you own a vehicle at some point you've experienced a check engine light on your vehicle. When this happens it's common to stop by an auto-parts store or the dealership to hav… Read More
2022-08-06 20:11
This is a new Docker container to automatically set up and run a Minecraft server that both Java and Bedrock players can connect to! This allows everyone to play on your server no matter wh… Read More
2022-08-05 22:17
Recently I reviewed the Orange Pi Zero 2 and thought it was a fantastic board. I really like the amount of polish that the Orange Pi line of products have as it is the closest I have seen t… Read More
2022-08-03 20:43
It's quite a bit more tricky to install Android on the Orange Pi than Linux (which is as simple as writing the image to the SD card with Etcher).
As long as you know the right software to u… Read More
2022-08-01 21:27
The eMMC to SD card adapter shows up a lot in IoT devices. I have owned one for my Raspberry Pi for a while and they are fantastic.
In this article I will explain what these devices are, t… Read More
2022-07-29 22:33
One of my favorite things about the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 is that you basically get to choose your own IO board that the Compute Module 4 plugs into.
For illustration purposes imagi… Read More
2022-07-29 17:06
I won't lie. When I opened the Nebra Outdoor hotspot I was annoyed. Like many, many Helium hotspot owners I paid hundreds of dollars and waited many, many months past expected delivery for… Read More
2022-07-27 22:13
This guide is meant to help get an environment configured to work with the Raspberry Pi Pico. It's intended for Linux as even if you don't use Linux as your main OS you presumably have a Pi… Read More
2022-07-27 17:31
The Raspberry Pi Pico and Pico W boards are quite different from other Raspberry Pis. The price tag is very alluring at $6 but you will want to make sure you understand what it is and how i… Read More
2022-07-19 16:26
I've been mining cryptocurrency for a very long time. I've been recently building out my ASIC farm and I wanted to get an idea of how secure these are as I have a significant investment in… Read More
2022-07-14 01:01
Recently for my storage benchmarking site I had a GitHub issue opened about the Orange Pi Zero 2 not being able to complete the storage benchmark successfully. We were able to get the board… Read More
2022-07-12 18:20
It has been a while since I covered storage benchmarks on the Raspberry Pi because every time I sat down to write it I ended up adding new features to the SBC storage benchmarks web site and… Read More
2022-07-09 22:28
The term "software defined radio" simply means that parts of a radio that were traditionally hardware are implemented in software. This means that functions that used to require knobs, dial… Read More
2022-07-06 16:57
A "pwnagotchi" is a device used for wireless security auditing / hacking that captures the handshakes of any WiFi access points in range of the device. These handshakes can later be cracked… Read More
2022-07-01 05:54
For many years configuring a headless Raspberry Pi usually involved creating a bunch of text files on the SD card. Some of these were more commonly known (such as creating the "ssh" file to… Read More
2022-06-24 20:46
When attempting to determine storage performance on Linux there are common tests such as doing a DD write command and measuring the speed of that. These methods leave a lot to be desired an… Read More
2022-05-24 20:33
The Raspberry Pi shortage is extremely bad. As a site that covers a lot of topics related to the Raspberry Pi I've actually seen a major decline in traffic because people are having such a… Read More
2022-05-11 00:50
This is a containerized version of my Paper Minecraft Java server. The image works great on all Docker platforms including Raspberry Pi!
Source Read More
2022-05-10 18:05
I've been getting asked to put this together for years including in official GitHub issues. I always knew it would be a great idea but it turned out even better than I expected. This image… Read More
2022-04-19 19:33
For quite some time now Kadena (KDA) has been topping the charts for mining profitability. There are many other altcoins though that are power efficient to mine such as Starcoin (STC) and S… Read More
2022-04-14 19:03
PiBenchmarks.com is now several years old. It has over 31,000 identified benchmarks. Previously only results from the Raspberry Pi would show live on the site.
like to announce that over… Read More
2022-03-23 21:05
It has been a long-running meme in the Linux community that each new year would be the "Year of the Linux Desktop" for decades now. This never happened. Why? A big reason is compatibility… Read More
2022-02-19 00:21
One way I keep up with the developments in cryptocurrency is I do watch some of the YouTubers since the YouTubers are generally following the juiciest developments to farm views. With the c… Read More
2022-01-27 23:11
One reality of cryptocurrency mining is that you are almost certainly going to need multiple units to reach whatever goals you have. The way most people do this is pay for / ROI on their ex… Read More
2022-01-23 22:36
Recently Goldshell released the 2.2.0 update which includes the new "Goldshell Hub" (featured above) which is basically a cloud control center for your miners. I was able to upgrade 23 mine… Read More
2022-01-21 20:27
There are few things I dislike more in this world than getting questions on my setup guides that I don't know the answer to, but thanks to an investigation by Bill Schatzow we can strike one… Read More
2021-08-07 00:57
The Bobcat 300 Helium Miner finally has an interface you can use to be able to tell what it's doing! Better yet, it lets you do a few things like conduct an internet speed test. You can ev… Read More
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