puavo-os VS build

In Finland, a Linux distribution called Puavo OS based on Debian is quite widely used in primary and seconday schools. It is an open source project of Jyväskylä-based Opinsys Oy and it is sold as a service where pre-owned laptops and desktops are sold with a maintenance contract for a monthly price per student. Puavo OS is a very reasonable solution for schools, because it has a strongly integrated management software, synchronization of usernames and directories from the server, and all programs pre-installed. Pre-owned Thinkpads and HP Elitebooks are significantly more affordable than new Windows machines and their maintenance costs are only a fraction of Windows machines. In addition to Finland, Puavo OS is also used in some schools in Switzerland and Germany. Here's a good video about Puavo OS.

https://github.com/armbian/build

There isn't any hypervisor running on that and still no SVE

The number of boards supported by these two distros is astonishing:

https://www.armbian.com/download/

https://dietpi.com/#download

The NanoPC-T6 is already supported by Armbian build system:

https://github.com/armbian/build/tree/main/config/boards

It's my understanding that https://www.armbian.com/ has quite broad hardware support, and there are boards from Orange Pi and Pine64 that boast actual mainline kernel support, so this is more a case of a fragmented ecosystem than there being zero competitors that can meet or exceed pis.

The normal Raspberry Pi OS Lite is pretty okay.

https://www.armbian.com/ is also pretty awesome and also supports bunch of other RaspberryPi clones for cheaper price.

git clone https://github.com/armbian/build cd build ./compile.sh BOARD=orangepi5-plus RELEASE=jammy BUILD_MINIMAL=yes KERNEL_GIT=full BUILD_DESKTOP=no BUILD_ONLY="u-boot,kernel,armbian-config,armbian-zsh,bootstrap" KERNEL_CONFIGURE=no

If the SBC is supported by Armbian then the software support is usually pretty good.

https://www.armbian.com/

I use an old Android media player, repurposed with Ubuntu OS instead of Android (https://www.armbian.com/). Works fine, cost me nothing ($40 originally AFAIK, but it was being retired anyway). It has low power consumption, good reliability, more-than-adequate performance for HA and Plex media server. Equipped with multiple USB ports, ethernet, WiFi, HDMI.