Do you know of some decent SBCs that …
- are available in Germany (directly from EU is usually fine, I'm used to ordering from NL; no imports from far away that come with long delivery times, tariffs/fees/extra taxes, …)
- are not too pricey
- run mainline linux (target OSes being Arch, Debian, LixOS); preferrably bootable via EFI; x86_65, aarch64, or riscv (though likely impractical?)
- have low power demands and run efficiently (want to run it (nearly) always on, with a small battery or powerbank attached)
- have at least gigabit ethernet & being powerful enough for at least 100M consistent forwarding via WireGuard
- have an option for expanding storage in some way (SATA, M.2 (NVMe?), PCIe, USB ports, … maybe even an SD card slot could be okay)
- are not manufactured by a kinda shitty company (like Raspberry Pis)

Use case: backup VPN access for home lab, monitoring for a few services (not too involved), small home automation tasks, maybe print&scan, etc.

@xayomer @mira You‘ll want to look at the N100 (or N97) boards/boxes. Those fill all the requirements. I had good experiences with a „MeLe“ branded one, but the various no-name boxes are worth a shot as well.

Pick one with the storage and ethernet options that fit your application best, stay clear of 2.5GbE Intel NICs and have fun :)

@xayomer @mira As for aarch64, the only good options are RK3399 or RK3588-based, but getting EFI to work properly is a challenge, even for experienced embedded folks, so I don‘t think I‘d recommend them (if you‘re not looking for a challenge)

Will be more power efficient, though :)

@manawyrm I am aware of Intel N100 — have seen them in router boards many times. But I was asking for specific boards … especially ones available from somewhat reputable sources.
(And ones that don't need too many bells and whistles, therefore the other criteria.)

For EFI boot on aarch64 … labelling EFI as "preferably" instead of "must have" was intentional.
Small and capable boards without EFI tend to still be preferable over less capable ones. This was done with non-x86 in mind.

@xayomer If you can live without EFI, https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0BLGS4BN7 is an excellent choice.

for x86, both https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0BZVBZSJ5 and https://www.amazon.de/MeLE-L%C3%BCfterloser-Mikrocomputer-Gigabit-Ethernet-automatisches/dp/B0C7TPWSC1 work well for me.

@manawyrm thanks ^^

But I'd rather stay away from Amazon, if possible. (Being aware it won't always be an option.)
And FriendlyElc is the only manufacturer I've yet heard of.

Sadly, all all way over budget for my purpose. (And come with more features than necessary.)

@xayomer I'm sure you can find your own sellers...

If the budget is this tight, you can find excellent hardware in the form of second-hand Thin Clients.
Used HP ProDesk/EliteDesk are cheap, powerful and not super powerhungry (nowhere near a good arm64 board, ofc).

@manawyrm @xayomer Hope it's okay for me to butt in

Radxa ships their boards with EFI-capable U-Boot OOTB (although it doesn't work correctly with mainline, you need to build U-Boot from upstream for it).

As for Intel 2.5GbE NICs - I225 was the faulty one (have one in NUC 12 Pro, massive headache), I226 in my firewall works just fine :)

If you go with N100 - it's a really nice, power-efficient and fast SoC (faster than FX-6300!). AFAIK doesn't support BootGuard, so you can very easily port coreboot too if you want (HP also doesn't use BG as I found recently). I agree with @manawyrm that used thinclient or chromebox will likely suit your needs perfectly and in some cases can be powered from a power bank without hacks.

@elly @manawyrm @xayomer RK3588 U-Boot with EFI is quite easy to set up, Rock 5B is a solid choice for a good performing board with upstream kernel and U-Boot

@adrianyyy @elly @xayomer u-boot efi with device tree, then?

@manawyrm @elly @xayomer yep

@elly @manawyrm @xayomer librecomputer board also ship with an EFI-capable u-boot OOTB (and it actually works)

@fun oh, a neat little board :3

sadly hard to find with shipping to DE and okay-ish prices (even more comparing rk3399 to rk3588) ):

@manawyrm @elly

@xayomer @manawyrm @elly s/board/boards on my message

there are multiple boards available, which do you mean?

@fun ah, okay.

Based on other recommendations in this thread, I was referring to the rk3399 one (Renegade Elite).

But last night I tried finding sellers for a few more of the EFI-capable boards with 1G ethernet as well and didn't have luck. ):

And they'd compete against ~60€ for an (more powerful) rk3588(S2) board from Radxa.