Linux Desktop: Vim3 vs Vim1

Would the Vim1 be powerful enough for using it as a Linux Desktop PC?
Or is the difference so huge, that a Vim3 is the better option? The Vim1 is a lot cheaper.
I think the Vim2 is not so much of an upgrade so I think its not really a good option I guess.
But the Vim3 get a lot compatiblity with other modules as well.
I saw the Vim1 Basic for just 45$, while the Vim3 Basic is at 99$ and the Vim3 Pro at 130$.
Or would the Vim3L be capable as well?

Performance of the board are is order.

Vim3
Edge/Edge-V
Vim3l
Vim2
Vim1

Now it depends on your use case, if you just want to test them go with vim1, vim2 or vim3l which ever you find the cheapest.

Do not expect it to replace your x86 device yet.

Good luck

Updated and yea I completely forgot that edgev exist coz I use it for freebsd build device hahaha.

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I am curious where the Edge-V basic would fit in that list of VIMs. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I look for doing more basic stuff on it. But if even navigation and typing or browsing and video streaming is a hassle on the vim1, I would probably go with the vim3 anyway. But I thought of maybe just basic stuff like office and browsing might run smoothly on both ones. And well Im not so into cpu knowledge. But i thought x86 is older than the 64bit proccessors(?). And wow, it surprises me that the vim3 is even more powerful than the edge(v). I think the edge has more module compatibility.

EDIT: I couldnā€™t find any linux testing videos on youtube about the vim1, thats why Iā€™m asking.
Most people seems to use it as an android tv box.

VIM1 came around at a time when SBCs were just getting popular,
and ā€œtechā€ youtubing wasnā€™t a thing yet :wink:

if you really want the closest to a desktop experience,
the best two opinions would be the Edge-v and VIM3,
both are performance wise on-par, but the VIM3 has a slight performance gain over the Edge-V,

VIM3 pro is the best ā€œdesktop classā€ contender for nowā€¦

but if you need a really good machine, fast and snappy, you should wait for the RK3588, its expected to be a revolutionary for the open source community, as this is the next biggest SoC releaseā€¦

though it only comes out next yearā€¦

but for now, you have these choices and its your pickā€¦

Yes, you can see its capabilities here ā€¦ :slightly_smiling_face:

Thank you very much, that gives me a good idea. I will have a look on the RK3588 as well, but I might be fine with the vim3 then and I really like the shape too.

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I went with the VIM3 (hopefully to replace my desktop) but havenā€™t tried it yet. The edge-v looks quite good, specially the dual display. With the VIM3 Iā€™d miss that feature. (unless thereā€™s a converter from MIPI-DSI to HDMI? is something like this possible? that would be cool)

Looking forward for the Edge2 with RK3588ā€¦ That one really sounds like a suitable desktop replacement.

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there isnā€™t specifically a ā€œDSI/LVDS to HDMIā€ convertor,
but the latter can be achieved with some slightly complex FPGA arrangement, and it has been done in the community, definitely a project for a rainy day :slight_smile:

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I use Vim3 for desktop, with some caveats:

  1. Modern, bloated websites often require supercomputers (in the 1980s scale) to display a page of text and images. That is insane abuse of computing resources. They are a problem. Terrible technology. If your definition of ā€˜desktop useā€™ includes ā€˜CPU abuseā€™ then arm SBCs may not be for you.

  2. Some new video codecs are too CPU intense for normal CPUs. They require dedicated video decoder hardware and drivers. These need to be written at great expense and are mostly not available to Linux Vim3 users.

The term ā€˜desktop useā€™ is too broad. It may include hundreds of tabs of bloated websites and playing HEVC (in a browser no less) which requires vast computing power.

A little arm SBC doesnā€™t provide vast amounts of computing power.

Modern ARM cpus are quite powerful for the sorts of desktop use I grew up with: Sane websites, spreadsheets, word processing, compiling, SD video playback, even SD video and audio editing, digital audio workstations, image editing with gimp etc etc.

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What operating system are you using for desktop class usage?

Ubuntu/fedora/Manjaro etc? Which one? And what is your kernel version and specific settings for it described sane usage? I want to know and try your choice.

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Excellent performance and so far it is holding up to ā€œrealā€ world testing very well. Its also a very good platform for native compiling.
On the desktops it is kernel 4.9
Servers are running 5.17 and 5.16 kernels