# Which small, cheap, low power, system-on-chip computers run Julia?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/which-small-cheap-low-power-system-on-chip-computers-run-julia/31379>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** question\
**Created:** [November 22, 2019, 8:49am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/which-small-cheap-low-power-system-on-chip-computers-run-julia/31379 "2019-11-22T08:49:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![robblackwell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/robblackwell/32/2720_2.png) [@robblackwell](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/robblackwell)\
**Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 8:49am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/which-small-cheap-low-power-system-on-chip-computers-run-julia/31379/1 "2019-11-22T08:49:11Z")

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I’ve been demonstrating some Julia code for scientific data processing  
running on a Raspberry Pi. My message that the same code works on  
both high performance compute clusters and low end embedded systems  
seems powerful and compelling.

What’s the smallest / cheapest / crappiest computer that I could use  
to run Julia code?

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**Author:** ![johnh](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/johnh/32/3615_2.png) [@johnh](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/johnh)\
**Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 10:55am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/which-small-cheap-low-power-system-on-chip-computers-run-julia/31379/2 "2019-11-22T10:55:49Z")

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Nvidia Jetson Nano runs Julia, and has a GPU… I would not call is small and crappy though!  
Pretty mind blowing though that you can run CuArrays on something costing around 100 dollars.  
I think this topic has been debated here before, in the arena of Julia on embedded systems.  
I GUESS the answer is the smallest system which can support an LLVM compiler, though I could be wildly wrong.

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**Author:** ![klaff](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/klaff/32/7637_2.png) [@klaff](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/klaff)\
**Post date:** [November 22, 2019, 10:36pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/which-small-cheap-low-power-system-on-chip-computers-run-julia/31379/3 "2019-11-22T22:36:41Z")

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Have you tried to install DifferentialEquations on the Nano? I tried that on a Raspberry Pi with only 1 GB of RAM, and it was unacceptable in my opinion (I think it ran out of RAM during precompilation). The Nano has 4 GB, so?

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**Author:** ![KajWiik](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kajwiik/32/199_2.png) [@KajWiik](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/KajWiik)\
**Post date:** [November 23, 2019, 11:00am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/which-small-cheap-low-power-system-on-chip-computers-run-julia/31379/4 "2019-11-23T11:00:37Z")

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I have started testing Olimex Lime2 for some instrument controlling applications:

> **[A20-OLinuXino-LIME2 - Open Source Hardware Board](https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-LIME2/open-source-hardware)**
>
> Olimex A20-OLinuXino-LIME2 Open Source Hardware embedded ARM Linux Android computer with Allwinner Dual Core Cortex-A7 A20 1GB RAM and 1000Mb Ethernet 16GB eMMC 16MB SPI Flash Industrial grade -40+85C

Julia starts fine:  
 ![lime2](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/c/5/c5ec44c4ae8a966135f33e5d9edf061c487c64ae.png)  
Building and precompiling is of course (painfully) slow and 1GB RAM seems to be the bottleneck. E.g. when I am trying to load Mux and Interact, I get stack overflow error:

```julia
julia> using Interact
julia> using Mux
┌ Warning: Error requiring WebSockets from WebIO:
│ LoadError: LoadError: StackOverflowError:

```

Maybe more than 2 GB is needed for any practical use…

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ImreSamu](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/imresamu/32/20677_2.png) [@ImreSamu](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ImreSamu)\
**Post date:** [November 23, 2019, 4:19pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/which-small-cheap-low-power-system-on-chip-computers-run-julia/31379/5 "2019-11-23T16:19:14Z")

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> [@robblackwell](#):
>
> What’s the smallest / cheapest / crappiest computer that I could use  
> to run Julia code?

- any Android phone ( with ~2GB RAM ) should work;

- or Android SmartWatch/Wear + termux ?

- or any [http://linuxgizmos.com/](http://linuxgizmos.com/) with Linux + \>=2GB RAM.

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**Author:** ![anon92994695](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@anon92994695](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/anon92994695)\
**Post date:** [November 3, 2020, 9:54pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/which-small-cheap-low-power-system-on-chip-computers-run-julia/31379/6 "2020-11-03T21:54:52Z")

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Just saw a posting for this: [Raspberry Pi 400 and Accessories](https://www.canakit.com/raspberry-pi-400.html?cid=usd&src=raspberrypi)

It’s a raspberry pi bundled into a keyboard. Maybe not best for system on a chip but the thing is so neat I had to share it somewhere.