Picuntu is a custom version of Ubuntu Linux designed to run on devices with Rockchip processors. That effectively lets you turn a cheap Android TV box into a full-fledged PC capable of running desktop apps such as LibreOffice, GIMP and Firefox.

Now the developer has released a new beta that’s based on recently-released Ubuntu 14.04. It’s called Picuntu 5.1 and it’s optimized for the $60 MarsBoard RK3066 developer board.

MarsBoard RK3066

There are three flavors of Picuntu 5.1. It’s available as a desktop operating system with the light-weight Xfce 4 desktop environment, as a stripped-down basic version, as a server edition with LAMP. All three are available as free downloads and the images come in at under 2GB each.

The MarsBoard RK3066 is basically a single-board computer aimed at developers. It has a Rockchip RK3066 ARM Cortex-A9 dual-core processor, ARM Mali-400 graphics, 1GB of RAM, 4GB of built-in storage, and a microSD card slot for up to 128GB of additional storage.

It also features USB, Ethernet, and HDMI ports, connectors for cameras, LCD screens, and audio and 20 and 50-pin expansion connectors.

Picuntu 5.1 is optimized to make use of the MarsBoard’s hardware, but I suspect you may be able to use the pre-compiled images to load Ubuntu 14.04 on some other Rockchip-powered devices… although some wireless cards and other hardware may not be fully supported.

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,547 other subscribers