Linaro are making good on their promise of cheap ARMv8 boards this year. Description and pictures in LinuxGizmos.com:
Linaro launches open ARM SBC spec, and an octa-core SBC
At $129 I don't think the wife will complain too much
It is called the HiKey, it has an octo core A53 from HiSilicon and 1Gbyte of memory, and follows a new 96Boards consumer board specification from Linaro.
The 96Boards specs looks good, they're hoping to allow interfacing to various maker board via mezzanine boards so appealing to the maker community as well.
The 96Boards Consumer Edition (CE) Specification v1.0 is now available - 96Boards
I noted a paragraph in the consumer specification
Accelerated graphics drivers need to be fully supported either with open source code, or through royalty free binary drivers. If binary drivers are utilized, the vendor will provide support to provide updated drivers/libraries to support new mainline Linux kernel features.
Hmm. Interesting I though. Anyway 96Boards have a forum where they ask that any questions on things like that be posted:
