is imx233 dead? does anyone still use them?

[drspastic]

i just dug mine out the junk pile and it still works. well, as well as i ever got it working.

i need a very low power computer with audio in and out and a composite video plug. it will be doing a job that my ancient htc windows mobile 5 phone does but on a bigger screen. its to decode rtty transmissions.

did anyone ever get together an os that doesnt lose the first 2 charachters on the left, and bottom 2 rows?

at the moment it has arch, which i hate. i never managed to get it to do anything remotely useful. in fact apart from the a/v capability is it even as powerful as an esp32?

[LubOlimex]

People still use them for various reasons (because it was used in their original project, because they copy another design with iMX233, because the chip has good documentation and so on) but admittedly there are more powerful ARM chips nowadays and I wound's pick that chip if I start a new project. These are different chips when compared to ESP32, with different goals so it is hard to compare them. iMX is more powerful and has audio and video capabilities but it is harder to use than ESP32.

We haven't released updates for the Linux images of iMX233 images for quite a few years and the software is provided "as is" but maybe there are unofficial images that can be used? Make sure to search online for such.

If you want to change the board altogether I am not sure if I can recommend a board that can run Windows Mobile 5 but maybe consider Allwinner A20 boards, the Linux support is much better there. Something like A20-OLinuXino-LIME2:

https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-LIME2/open-source-hardware