Asus Vivostick - it's finally here in the US

[Zahir]

http://store.asus.com/us/item/201604AM200000016?gclid=CjwKEAjwya-6BRDR3p6FuY2-u3MSJAD1paxTKuNk2YKIAk1y-8A6DkLUpOToRM9nKhhgldKU7ZKq_hoCyznw_wcB

http://www.vivostick.org/

Now available from Asus Store, BH Photo, Amazon and Newegg for $129. May well pip Intel Compute 2 at the post.

Fast emmc, wireless AC, USB 2.0 and 3.0 plus 3.5 audio, and all style in this market niche. LED power button too.

Fan noise to be tested, but some early reviews suggest it's not a big worry. No SD card, but a good 64gb USB 3 Flash drive (Samsung Fit?) can handily supplement that 32gb under Win 10.

[trebor]

Looks very Interesting, and those Samsung Fits are good, don't get as hot like other mini USB sticks
CPU new number no difference ? maybe cheaper to make.
Cheers

A little found here,

[Zahir]

http://liliputing.com/2015/11/intels-new-cherry-trail-chips-are-a-little-faster.html

The Vivostick comes with the latest Cherry Trail update, which seems to translate into minor improvements in CPU burst speed, graphics management and heat. I like what I'm reading about the BIOS - apparently full-featured and capable -but is it 64 bit UEFI?

[trebor]

Ok Thanks, The Intel-Ark missing those numbers...looks ok with a slight improvement.
Cheers

• x5-Z8300: 1.44 GHz chip with 1.84 GHz burst and Intel HD 400 graphics
• x5-Z8350: 1.44 GHz chip with 1.92 GHz burst and Intel HD 400 graphics
• x5-Z8500: 1.44 GHz chip with 2.24 GHz burst and Intel HD 400 graphics
• x5-Z8550: 1.44 GHz chip with 2.4 GHz burst and Intel HD 400 graphics
• x7-Z8700: 1.6 GHz chip with 2.4 GHz burst and Intel HD 405 graphics
• x7-Z8750: 1.6 GHz chip with 2.56 GHz burst and Intel HD 405 graphics

[Zahir]

Quick update: my Vivostick arrived this afternoon (6/4/2016 - and mmm... it's nice. My main concern had been that fan - which in operation turns out to be almost imperceptible.. Big relief. The device feels good in the hand, looks elegant and is well-made. Windows 10 setup went off without a hitch, and I've uninstalled a few bloat items from ASUS which leaves me with about 17.9gb to play with. That's after adding Netflix, YouTube and a bare-bones Kodi. There's a 64gb Samsung Fit in my drawer waiting to be added to storage after I've tried booting Ubuntu on this stick with it.

To my mind, this is a rather better product that Intel Compute 2, with a sharper design and sturdier build.

[trebor]

Big relief. The device feels good in the hand, looks elegant and is well-made.

Hope we can get to see a few happy snaps of the device, inside look would be interesting if possible
Cheers

[Zahir]

Loving the video quality (smooth, razor sharp 1080p) in Netflix, Kodi and YouTube. Not a speed demon, but operation is deft, and I don't miss my Intel i7 desktop for daily stuff. Fan continues to be unobtrusive. wi-fi (wireless AC) is healthy. BIOS is a mini-size version of a regular ASUS bios, a relief after the Pipos and Voyos...

[Zahir]

Has anyone developed, or found patches for, an Ubuntu distro that gets HDMI audio on Cherry Trail working? Not the fine-but-limited-to-Intel-Compute stick images from Ian Morrison which only work on those devices, but one that could be used on the Vivostick or other Cherry Trail mini pcs?

After some research, I have found and inserted the latest Qualcom wi-fi drivers (QCA9377) required by the Vivostick into the standard 16.04 distro, and wifi now works(!). Sound still eludes me.

[bluesmanuk]

Has anyone developed, or found patches for, an Ubuntu distro that gets HDMI audio on Cherry Trail working? Not the fine-but-limited-to-Intel-Compute stick images from Ian Morrison which only work on those devices, but one that could be used on the Vivostick or other Cherry Trail mini pcs?

After some research, I have found and inserted the latest Qualcom wi-fi drivers (QCA9377) required by the Vivostick into the standard 16.04 distro, and wifi now works(!). Sound still eludes me.

Yes this.

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=231955

The drivers to enable audio through HDMi are posted towards the back end of the thread but I have it working on my X5.

No form of dolby or DTS passthrough yet though and to my knowledge has not yet been achieved anywhere in the Linux sphere.

I think (but worth checking) that some recent Openelec/librelec builds have incorporated the HDMi audio patch.

[Zahir]

bluesmanuk, thank you very much for that pointer to the drivers, you're a gem.

I guess I need to install both the latest header and image files on a 16.4 distro? I'll get cooking and post my results.

And yes, both Librelec Alpha and the 7.0 development distro of Openelec will produce sound over HDMI on Cherry Trail. But neither has Atheros wifi drivers for the latest QCA9377 chipset in the Vivostick, and it's more straightforward to integrate those into Ubuntu than Openelec.

[Zahir]

bluesmanuk, Ace! Those .debs did the trick and I have sound over HDMI in Ubuntu 16.04. And from previous research, wireless ac too! So we have generated something that Asus told me it has no plans to release - a fully working Ubuntu image for the Cherry Trail Vivostick.

Thank you (and Fritz of course) so much.

[bluesmanuk]

Great stuff.

It works so well too.

We just hope that Intel might get around to producing some drivers to enable passthrough.

[Zahir]

Yes, it runs faster and, in many respects, better (no lag) than Windows on the Vivostick, with only 2gb of RAM to work with. I'm running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS desktop from a Samsung Fit USB 3 drive, and things are quite snappy. Need to be sure about the stability of 16.04 before I nuke Win 10 and move it to emmc. I did have a couple of freezes in Chrome running a 4k video in YouTube. Oddly, when I was running Lubuntu 16.04 that didn't happen. But I found LXDE and some other things too limiting and so went back to Ubuntu.

Definitely a better platform for Kodi, while Netflix 1080p is as good as it is in Windows.

[bluesmanuk]

I run it via the 16.04 server, so have not tried the desktop version yet, although I may give it a try as there is only one annoying issue that I have found and that is with regard to external drives.

I have not yet found a reliable method of automatically mounting external drives and have them r/w without dropping to a command line to mount and unmount manually and set the appropriate rights.

I tend to run most things through a NAS now though, so it's ;less of a problem.

You can easily image the Win10 install, as I did with Macrium to give you a quick option to go back to.

[Zahir]

bluesmanuk, this is interesting. I fished out my cheapo non-powered usb hub, attached the Samsung Fit and a 320gb usb-powered Seagate portable and booted Ubuntu to the desktop. My expectations were low - I doubted the drive would even spin given the modest juice at my disposal. Instead, it not only powered on but Ubuntu saw it immediately, and put an icon on the Dash for me. I could access it straightaway in Nautilus with no special mounts and I was able to cut and paste to and from the drive without problems. Apparently, the desktop distro has something the server doesn't...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0gaVG3Z-hmHN3ZGbGFBb2tBZHc/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0gaVG3Z-hmHS3hZTGRBUTIzV0U