In the readme it states that Open Balena supports a subset of devices:
Supported devices: Raspberry Pi family, the Intel NUC, the NVIDIA Jetson TX2, and the balenaFin
What is exactly the limitation? Is this just to encourage people using the paid version or is there a technical impediment? Since the project is open source, how would one add more supported devices?
Similar questions:
Good question. The device information appears to be stored in the device types table and populated by open-balena-api migrations like src/migrations/00013-add-device-types.sql. The table contains many more devices, and I have seen openBalena expend considerable effort loading the massive contract column that appears to contain the device definitions:
select name, slug, length(contract) from "device type" order by name;
name | slug | length
--------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+--------
Aetina N310 TX2 | n310-tx2 | 2875
Aetina N510 TX2 | n510-tx2 | 2875
AIO 3288C | aio-3288c | 11455
AM571X EVM | am571x-evm | 13522
Apalis iMX6q | apalis-imx6q | 7695
Asus Tinker Board | asus-tinker-board | 4929
Asus Tinker Board S | asus-tinker-board-s | 6066
ASUS Tinker Edge T | asus-tinker-edge-t | 4902
Auvidea CNX100 Xavier NX | cnx100-xavier-nx | 5903
Auvidea JN30B Nano | jn30b-nano | 7305
Balena Fin (CM3) | fincm3 | 4028
BananaPi-M1+ | bananapi-m1-plus | 10028
BeagleBoard-XM | beagleboard-xm | 9096
BeagleBone Black | beaglebone-black | 10482
BeagleBone Green | beaglebone-green | 11926
BeagleBone Green Gateway | beaglebone-green-gateway | 20456
BeagleBone Green Wireless | beaglebone-green-wifi | 20451
Colibri iMX6dl | colibri-imx6dl | 7799
Compulab IOT-gate-imx8 | iot-gate-imx8 | 5128
Compulab MX8M | cl-som-imx8 | 6643
Coral Dev Board | coral-dev | 1369
CTI Astro TX2 G+ | astro-tx2 | 4346
CTI Orbitty TX2 | orbitty-tx2 | 4353
CTI Photon Nano | photon-nano | 5844
CTI Photon TX2 NX | photon-tx2-nx | 5844
CTI Photon Xavier NX | photon-xavier-nx | 5723
CTI Spacely TX2 | spacely-tx2 | 4353
Cybertan ZE250 | cybertan-ze250 | 8285
Digi ConnectCore 8X SBC Pro | ccimx8x-sbc-pro | 28709
Edge Device Builder | edge | 1172
Etcher Pro | etcher-pro | 4905
FireFly rk3288 | firefly-rk3288 | 11470
Floyd Nano BB02A eMMC | floyd-nano | 3220
Generic | generic | 1178
Generic AARCH64 | generic-aarch64 | 3164
Generic AMD64 (x86-64) | generic-amd64 | 1789
Generic AMD64 (x86-64) with disk encryption | generic-amd64-fde | 1802
Generic ARMv7-a HF | generic-armv7ahf | 2233
Generic x86_64 | genericx86-64-ext | 6276
Hummingboard | hummingboard | 3729
Intel Edison | intel-edison | 4912
Intel NUC | intel-nuc | 4927
I-Pi SMARC PX30 SD-CARD | smarc-px30 | 3162
Microsoft Surface 6 | surface-pro-6 | 1831
Microsoft Surface Go | surface-go | 1827
NanoPC-T4 | nanopc-t4 | 4750
Nanopi Neo Air | nanopi-neo-air | 3054
NanoPi R2C | nanopi-r2c | 12933
NanoPi R2S | nanopi-r2s | 2025
Nitrogen 6x | nitrogen6x | 5048
Nitrogen 6X Quad 2GB | nitrogen6xq2g | 5063
Nitrogen8M Mini SBC | nitrogen8mm | 6818
NPE X500 M3 | npe-x500-m3 | 17425
Nvidia blackboard TX2 | blackboard-tx2 | 2513
Nvidia Jetson Nano 2GB Devkit SD | jetson-nano-2gb-devkit | 3258
Nvidia Jetson Nano eMMC | jetson-nano-emmc | 3234
Nvidia Jetson Nano SD-CARD | jetson-nano | 3231
Nvidia Jetson TX1 | jetson-tx1 | 2321
Nvidia Jetson TX2 | jetson-tx2 | 2881
Nvidia Jetson TX2 NX (with Xavier NX Devkit) | jetson-tx2-nx-devkit | 2925
Nvidia Jetson Xavier | jetson-xavier | 3121
Nvidia Jetson Xavier NX Devkit eMMC | jetson-xavier-nx-devkit-emmc | 3166
Nvidia Jetson Xavier NX Devkit SD-CARD | jetson-xavier-nx-devkit | 3161
Nvidia Jetson Xavier NX Devkit SD Seeed ReSpeaker-2Mic | jetson-xavier-nx-devkit-seeed-2mic-hat | 3207
ODROID-C1+ | odroid-c1 | 16182
ODROID-XU4 | odroid-xu4 | 15810
Orange Pi Lite | orange-pi-lite | 11459
Orange Pi One | orange-pi-one | 12093
Orange Pi Plus2 | orangepi-plus2 | 13052
Orange Pi Zero | orange-pi-zero | 12096
Parallella | parallella | 84688
PocketBeagle | beaglebone-pocket | 12577
QEMU X86 32bit | qemux86 | 15723
QEMU X86 64bit | qemux86-64 | 18858
Radxa Zero | radxa-zero | 1358
Raspberry Pi 2 | raspberry-pi2 | 6833
Raspberry Pi 3 | raspberrypi3 | 7182
Raspberry Pi 3 (using 64bit OS) | raspberrypi3-64 | 7497
Raspberry Pi 400 | raspberrypi400-64 | 8242
Raspberry Pi 4 (using 64bit OS) | raspberrypi4-64 | 6393
Raspberry Pi CM4 IO Board | raspberrypicm4-ioboard | 6401
Raspberry Pi (v1 / Zero / Zero W) | raspberry-pi | 5787
Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W (64bit) | raspberrypi0-2w-64 | 5785
Revolution Pi Connect | revpi-connect | 4601
Revolution Pi Core 3 | revpi-core-3 | 12102
ROCK Pi 4B | rockpi-4b-rk3399 | 1373
ROCKPro64 | rockpro64 | 3101
Rocktech ISG 503 | isg-503 | 6856
RushUp Kitra 520 | kitra520 | 1777
RushUp Kitra 710 | kitra710 | 1371
Samsung Artik 10 | artik10 | 4091
Samsung Artik 520 | artik5 | 3844
Samsung Artik 530 | artik530 | 6449
Samsung Artik 530s 1G | artik533s | 6723
Samsung Artik 710 | artik710 | 2420
Seeed ODYSSEY-X86 | odyssey-x86 | 3869
Siemens IOT2000 | iot2000 | 7201
Technologic TS-4900 | ts4900 | 13765
UP Board | up-board | 1597
UP Core | up-core | 6373
UP Core Plus | up-core-plus | 6509
UP Squared | up-squared | 5436
Variscite DART-6UL | imx6ul-var-dart | 6528
Variscite DART-MX8M | imx8m-var-dart | 3310
Variscite DART-MX8M Mini | imx8mm-var-dart | 4379
Variscite VAR-SOM-MX6 | var-som-mx6 | 5447
Variscite VAR-SOM-MX7 | imx7-var-som | 3785
VIA VAB 820-quad | via-vab820-quad | 1964
Zynq ZC702 | zc702-zynq7 | 104609
The contract contains most of the parts that I would consider critical:
{"slug":"imx7-var-som","version":"1","type":"hw.device-type","aliases":["imx7-var-som"],"name":"Variscite VAR-SOM-MX7","assets":{"logo":{"url":"d
ata:image/svg+xml;base64,PD94bWwgdmVyc2lvbj0<LONG_STRING>3ZnPgo=","name":"logo"}},"data":{"arch":"armv7hf","hdmi":false,"le
d":true,"connectivity":{"bluetooth":true,"wifi":true},"storage":{"internal":true},"media":{"installation":"sdcard"},"is_private":false}}
If there is some fundamental limitation on the openBalena side, I would expect it to involve architecture or maybe some limitation of the devices’ BalenaOS images.
Just to layer in here - we have included the ability to add and manage custom device types in open-balena-admin. Just be aware that for openbalena to accept apps for this device type, you need to also add a “device type slug” if you are using a more recent version of openbalena (also possible to do with open-balena-admin). We have been pushing apps for custom device types to our openbalena server for a while and it works great!
Got the following answer on the github issue about the same topic:
There’s no limitation – in theory openBalena supports the same set of devices balenaCloud does. In practice, we cannot advertise support for all of them because it’s currently impractical to test them all out like we do for balenaCloud. This will hopefully change in the future. What device are you interested in?
how would one add more supported devices?
Adding support for new devices is non-trivial – irrespective of whether it’s for openBalena or balenaCloud. The first step would be to get balenaOS running on the device and the quickest way to do that is to start from a balenaOS variant that appears to be most compatible to the device you want to add support for. You can get quite far by masquerading as a device that is currently supported as it trivially solves the problem of connecting your custom balenaOS to the backend. That’s all off the top my head. For more information, the best approach is to use the forums where you can get hold of the OS team to help you along the way.