manuti

About point #3, your Orange PI PC is not stuck at kernel 3.0.
H3 chip is not the fastest nor the newest, but currently is one of the best supported in mainline kernel. There is an enduring work-in-progress for hardware decoding on mainline kernel which is progressing nicely.
It looks like LibreElec will soon include some official H3 support. All the main peripherals are working well and 3D acceleration is available.
As for desktop replacement, the problem with the H3 is the lacking of the thermal driver, so frequencies of the SoC are set in a conservative fashion in armbian. The experience may suffer from this.
You may think to use a small heatsink and drive the SoC to its rated 1.4Ghz and see if it satisfactory for you. IMHO it is not powerful enough for a decent desktop replacement, but you may try and see if it suits your needs.

I've got a pocket C.H.I.P. and its just such a neat device---I still haven'
t thought of a good use for it.   The Next Thing guys had a lot of style.. 
 

I really like both generation Opi Ones.  a lot of bang for buck.....both slighty lacking in the USB department tho... just one more port would have been great.  (OTG doesnt count)

That makes me think about the fact I also bought a Tinker Board for a friend with 7" display and rii i8 mini keyboard. I guess it has never been used, since he never asked how to do anything with it.
That's 3 of those horrible Tinker Boards I wasted my money on, and they're so expensive...

And also a rpi3B for my nephew with RetroPie installed and 128GB of games. No need to say he loved it. Until he got a Playstation(I don't know which number).

OrangePi Zero: My very first SBC. I do not really remember why I bought it but it started with DietPi. It served Pihole for my network. Then Dietpi dropped their support for OrangePi boards and Pihole dropped their support for older Debian distributions. So a new OS was needed and that is the reason I landed her and I have to tell I learned a LOT about all the things thanks to Armbian OrangePi One Plus: Well the main reason were the quite interesting specifications and the low price. Even though this board (or Allwinner H6 at all) is poorly designed I am not that disappointed about it. It very rarly failed on me, worked most of the time really nice. It serves data sharing, another One Plus is for testing purpose of new images and features. OrangePi One: As a nice replacement for the OrangePi Zero. Better voltage regulator and no crappy wireless onboard for the same price.Two of those I prepared with Armbian and Pihole and gave them away to friends. In the meantime I have another pair of Ones to prepare and give them away somewhen in the future as well. Kind a to spread the word about SBCs, Pihole and last but not least Armbian. Well... that's it. Quite a short list but much text ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  A board I always wanted to have but did not have a chance yet is the OrangePi Zero Plus. GBe and Allwinner H5 SoC. Maybe sometime in the future...

Many of then barely used ... but always searching for the definitive SBC:
Raspberry Pi B everything stars here.  Raspberry Pi B+ : Solving many issues from the previous version. Raspberry Pi A+ : Really low power consumption, this will be a good starting point to something with dual core balancing power & consumption.  Raspberry Pi 2B the Good Raspberry Pi 3B the Ugly Raspberry Pi Zero :  Main Kodi OSMC board, really, I don't need more. Raspberry Pi Zero W : Used as a CCTV. Raspberry Pi 3B+ the Bad ODROID-U3 : The best SBC I have with eMMC and 2GB. But today without updates from hardkernel. ODROID-C1 : Many problems before C1+ arrive ... good board but not better than U3. UG802 RK3066 : Reconverted Android TV with Picuntu, used on a weekly basis sharing more than 1000 small torrents and waiting for a death that never arrives. Banana Pi PRO : main home NAS with last armbian and OMV, Plex and Torrents. SATA & Gigabit marks the difference. Orange Pi One : When I know this board has armbian support I decided to buy only because is cheap and not hopping so much ... but is a really good board for the price. Orange Pi Lite : After having OPi One I want to try this with Wi-Fi and more USB. Used with Lakka as Retrogame platform. Orange Pi PC : Looking for a substitute or back-up of my Banana Pi PRO or the Lakka. Good CPU performance but never used a lot. Orange Pi PC2 : Again looking for a second NAS board. Good performance and net bandwidth. With SSD and UASP can be a good and cheap board to be used as NAS or light server. Beelink X2 : after the success, in my opinion, I'm always searching for good Android TV box to be converted in a cheap Linux PC. This was a good one, difficult to have the Wi-Fi up and running in the beginning. This board shows me also the TV box root problem: same name but different hardware (Wi-Fi, NAND, eMMC, RAM, ...). MXQ PRO+ 4k : received to test it. Appreciate the @balbes150 effort but many boards with different hardware and I never have the Wi-Fi on my unit working (with many hours spent on this). DragonBoard 410c : I wined on a raffled!!! Really good board. With the last Linaro Debian Buster it feels like a light PC but without a proper case, I can use normally. NanoPi Neo2 : Another try to have a small NAS. Good board overall but the position of cables is not the better to be used as a server. Please, FriendlyCore thinks on having power, network and 1 x USB in one side. Sunvell R69 : I like small boards and small TV boxes. The case of Android TV boxes is one of my main reasons to love this piece of cr*p. A pity this one is more or less good but the Wi-Fi is a real sh*t only capable of keeping SSH connexions.  La Frite: last addition to the crew. Only booted once. I'm thinking in use as my new Kodi center when the OS or LibreElec will be released. C.H.I.P. the $9 computer: I bought with a lot of hopes in my time and projects. I like the Chrome use to flash the board but when the company disappears I know this is the wrong approach. Good ideas in this board: the female GPIO with pinout printed, the built-in battery control, ... Omega2 : is another kind of devices I only used sometimes to be a Wi-Fi Gateway. I think is a really good device for IoT projects.

Many of then barely used ... but always searching for the definitive SBC:
Raspberry Pi B everything stars here.  Raspberry Pi B+ : Solving many issues from the previous version. Raspberry Pi A+ : Really low power consumption, this will be a good starting point to something with dual core balancing power & consumption.  Raspberry Pi 2B the Good Raspberry Pi 3B the Ugly Raspberry Pi Zero :  Main Kodi OSMC board, really, I don't need more. Raspberry Pi Zero W : Used as a CCTV. Raspberry Pi 3B+ the Bad ODROID-U3 : The best SBC I have with eMMC and 2GB. But today without updates from hardkernel. ODROID-C1 : Many problems before C1+ arrive ... good board but not better than U3. UG802 RK3066 : Reconverted Android TV with Picuntu, used on a weekly basis sharing more than 1000 small torrents and waiting for a death that never arrives. Banana Pi PRO : main home NAS with last armbian and OMV, Plex and Torrents. SATA & Gigabit marks the difference. Orange Pi One : When I know this board has armbian support I decided to buy only because is cheap and not hopping so much ... but is a really good board for the price. Orange Pi Lite : After having OPi One I want to try this with Wi-Fi and more USB. Used with Lakka as Retrogame platform. Orange Pi PC : Looking for a substitute or back-up of my Banana Pi PRO or the Lakka. Good CPU performance but never used a lot. Orange Pi PC2 : Again looking for a second NAS board. Good performance and net bandwidth. With SSD and UASP can be a good and cheap board to be used as NAS or light server. Beelink X2 : after the success, in my opinion, I'm always searching for good Android TV box to be converted in a cheap Linux PC. This was a good one, difficult to have the Wi-Fi up and running in the beginning. This board shows me also the TV box root problem: same name but different hardware (Wi-Fi, NAND, eMMC, RAM, ...). MXQ PRO+ 4k : received to test it. Appreciate the @balbes150 effort but many boards with different hardware and I never have the Wi-Fi on my unit working (with many hours spent on this). DragonBoard 410c : I wined on a raffled!!! Really good board. With the last Linaro Debian Buster it feels like a light PC but without a proper case, I can use normally. NanoPi Neo2 : Another try to have a small NAS. Good board overall but the position of cables is not the better to be used as a server. Please, FriendlyCore thinks on having power, network and 1 x USB in one side. Sunvell R69 : I like small boards and small TV boxes. The case of Android TV boxes is one of my main reasons to love this piece of cr*p. A pity this one is more or less good but the Wi-Fi is a real sh*t only capable of keeping SSH connexions.  La Frite: last addition to the crew. Only booted once. I'm thinking in use as my new Kodi center when the OS or LibreElec will be released. C.H.I.P. the $9 computer: I bought with a lot of hopes in my time and projects. I like the Chrome use to flash the board but when the company disappears I know this is the wrong approach. Good ideas in this board: the female GPIO with pinout printed, the built-in battery control, ... Omega2 : is another kind of devices I only used sometimes to be a Wi-Fi Gateway. I think is a really good device for IoT projects.

I'll for sure forget some of them.
It all started with the Raspberry Pi2B(4 years ago now) ... and then ...
Odroid C2                         (For 3 years my favorite. Clocked at 1.75Ghz, with 128Ghz eMMC and ram OC it's amazingly fast. Low power consumption, good video playback(low display resolution), great gaming on it. Still use it as my SBC laptop, but the VIM3'll replace it Raspberry Pi3B                 (Not better than the pervious model. Dissapointed by it) Raspberry Pi Zero (+ 2 x Zero W)  (was handy, had build a Pi0Camera with it and an audio recorder, got in dissuse) Orange Pi+2                     (hated it, I still believed the 1.6Ghz bs, afterwards started to love it for what it is) Tinker Board (x2)             (Worst buy ever, too expensive for what it's. First broke, I was so stupid to buy another one without using it much) Khadas VIM2 Max           (Too slow for what it is. Otherwise a good designed board when used for what it's good) Odroid XU4                     (Loved it. It was my 2nd desktop with a HDMI-hub so I could switch to it when my PC was bussy. Amazing performance and great games. But a lot of issue's too) Rock64                            (a lot of issue's, nice on paper but doesn't deliver it's promises) Banana Pi M2 Zero          (nice little board, runs too hot to be useful, but had a lot of fun with it) NanoPC T3+                    (Love it a lot. Amazing for Blender renders, at a low power consumption. But single core performance is too low, should be default overclocked to 1.6Ghz in my opinion. It can handle it and cooling solution is sufficient) Raspberry Pi 3B+            (What a garbage board. DDR2 with a ok SoC is a bad combination. Bad power delivery, not very useable) NanoPi M4                      (My favorite until the VIM3 came, all-round a great board. Too bad there's a lack of Linux drivers for great gaming on it) Rock Pi 4B                       (First impression was great. But that went away after a while. Many software issues. I hate that I can't reach my eMMC with the big heatsink on) NanoPi DUO2                 (Still need to review it, but my first impression wasn't too good. Bad thermals, no hardware video encoding for the camera. This should be fixed by now, maybe a next video someday...) Orange Pi 3                    (Ok SoC, badly designed board) Pine H64 model b          (Ok SoC better designed board, it's their second try tho) Odroid N2                      (Great board, amazing performance and no fan needed. But runs at 12V so I can't run it on my power banks. I use it headless with VNC to do render jobs together with the NanoPC T3+) Nitrogen8M Mini           (I don't know yet, no HDMI and all proprietary connectors for everything. It is an industrial board for KIOSK's, but I'd like to see HDMI to set it up easily. It does have great audio assets, amplifier, audio in-out)
Khadas VIM3                 (My newest favorite. What a performance for such low consumption at 5V. I've got the Basic, so much want the Pro... It's perfect to take with me to do heavy video render tasks. I love it...) Raspberry Pi4B             (My biggest surprise ever. Not thinking too much of it. But it's a lot more than I thought. Performs amazing.  But still has its faults. I think that's it. In chronological order I bought them.
The first 2 were great boards that I still use a lot. But then I bought a lot of them that never delivered what they promissed. Only the XU4 and NanoPC T3+ were great.
I started to get them for free to review starting with the NanoPi M4, and those were again very good.  Only bought the Odroid N2 after that.
Good I review SBC's, I'm saving myself a lot of money now I've spend enough in the past on them.
Cheers
 

My list of arm boards was too long to make it a tasteful signature so here's some highlights:
 
My List of geek Stuff
3xOpi Plus2e - hashi cluster servers Opi Prime - main work area (screen, ssh vim, git) OrangePiOne plus - hashi cluster worker Le Potato - tester Atomic PI - desktop Tritium-h5 - tester Opi PC2 - tester Opi3 - tester Espressobin - tester Helios 4 - 2ndary NAS Orange Pi R1 - tuyaconvert Opi Lite - retrorangepi R69 retrorange pi Opi One - root cause of my SBC and Armbian addiction Frankendell i7-2600 - garage computer and build box Dual Xeon E5-2650 v3 - new build server Synology 1815+ Primary NAS Edge Router Lite - Router
   
Do you want to share highlights of your Arm empire?

Yes, I flashed from the USB into the eMMC using an included utility with this command:
 
$ sudo lc_distro_transfer libre-computer/aml-s805x-ac /dev/mmcblk0

OK GPU is working actually, had to input this command to get it to work. Part of it is in the readme.php in the repository where the images have been uploaded by the guys @ LoveRPi.com
 
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/local/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/mali mali /opt/libre-computer/model/aml-s805x-ac/mali/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/gl4es 100
 
then using sudo update-alternatives --config mali chose the gl4es entry just added
after that glxinfo and glxgears worked! FPS counter and everything.
 
Video: 
 
 
 
 
Debian images README: http://share.loverpi.com/board/libre-computer-project/libre-computer-board/image/debian/README.php
 
Total Linux noob by the way but I like to tinker. README.php has no indication of this gl4es entry, although it is included in the image.

Samsung SSD 840 Pro 256 GB @ Cubietruck iozone -e -I -a -s 100M -r 4k -r 16k -r 512k -r 1024k -r 16384k -i 0 -i 1 -i 2 Kernel 3.4.y random random reclen write rewrite read reread read write 102400 4 10714 15285 31921 32280 16328 14767 102400 16 21757 25767 57812 58010 45695 25201 102400 512 33403 32429 128245 116062 109591 33595 102400 1024 34846 35240 129965 131121 129515 35227 102400 16384 37895 37918 207564 204627 204340 38019 Kernel 4.19.y with SATA improvement patch 102400 4 22876 32704 37686 39143 22571 30990 102400 16 54254 69325 94749 97225 61354 68529 102400 512 110670 113325 190346 163677 186012 112679 102400 1024 113971 115928 206044 207406 184936 115069 102400 16384 127084 127588 243400 253305 252148 127611 without 102400 4 18053 22336 45249 46338 24860 22292 102400 16 30692 32188 106052 106577 71526 32746 102400 512 39632 39978 186433 185444 178097 39939 102400 1024 39860 40163 189900 191076 188446 40098 102400 16384 38875 41508 241939 244088 243405 41314  

As in so many other cases, the board I'd recommend for this task is Odroid XU4, specially since it is selling for $50 right now. You already have fully working GPU drivers for a recent 4.14 kernel, and even a distro focused on gaming (see this video from @NicoD)

Right, I forgot to mention that one With the RK3399's the most powerful one. 

THE MEDIA SCRIPT IS DEPRECATED, IN FAVOR OF THE LEGACY MULTIMEDIA INTEGRATION. PLEASE REFER TO THIS TOPIC:
 
So finally we have the first version of:
The UN-official, UN-supported, etc...
RK3399 MEDIA TESTING SCRIPT
 
This is the first release of the RK3399 media testing script. The script provides a functionality similar to its RK3288 equivalent:
Installing all the libraries and system configurations necessary for GPU accelerated X desktop, Chromium WebGL, full VPU video play acceleration up to 4k@60 10-bit HEVC (the maximum supported by the SoC), and GLES 3.2 / OpenCL 1.2 support. Three video players supporting full VPU acceleration (RKMPP) and KMS display (GBM or a X11 DRM "hack", as described by the authors), namely: MPV, Gstreamer and Kodi. Two example programs using the OpenCL functionality: Examples form the Arm Compute Library, and a GPU crypto miner (an old version, but small and simple). A library that will act as an OpenGL to OpenGL-ES wrapper, allowing you to run programs that use OpenGL 1.5-2.0. Two additional features, that have no big interest from the Armbian development prospective, but I find them interesting to play with:  Chromium browser with support for Flash and DRM-protected commercial web video streaming (tested with Amazon Prime, should also work with Netflix, Hulu, etc.), and a simple Pulseaudio GTK equalizer using LADSPA.  
Here is a more thorough documentation:
 
>>> DOWNLOAD LINK <<<
 
Prerequisites:
You need a fresh Armbian Bionic desktop image with legacy kernel installed.  
Instructions:
Download the file above Untar it: tar xvf media-rk3399_*.txz cd media-script ./media-rk3399.sh  
Notes:
This script is not officially supported by the Armbian project. It is just a community effort to help the development of the main build, by experimenting with a possible implementation of the media capabilities of this particular SoC. Therefore, questions about the script should not be laid out as support requests, but as commentaries or community peer-to-peer assistance. That being said, all commentaries/suggestions/corrections are very welcome. In the same way, I will do my best to help solve any difficulty that may arise regarding the script.  
Enjoy!

You can use the Media Scipt from JMCC for imporvements in video playback, and making opengl possible.
Please read the radme file for more info.

I'm having the same issue as well. I had to stick a small fan on the case for now.
Under load, the frequency never drops below 1104MHz.
I'm a bit of a noob but I've been trying to investigate (so let me know if I'm way off).
houldsg@orangepipc2:~$ uname -a Linux orangepipc2 4.19.20-sunxi64 #5.75 SMP Fri Feb 8 10:29:25 CET 2019 aarch64 aarch64 aarch64 GNU/Linux houldsg@orangepipc2:~$ cat /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone0/ available_policies cdev0_weight k_d k_pu policy subsystem/ trip_point_0_hyst trip_point_1_hyst type cdev0/ emul_temp k_i mode power/ sustainable_power trip_point_0_temp trip_point_1_temp uevent cdev0_trip_point integral_cutoff k_po offset slope temp trip_point_0_type trip_point_1_type houldsg@orangepipc2:~$ cat /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone0/trip_point_0_temp 65000 houldsg@orangepipc2:~$ cat /sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone0/trip_point_1_temp 90000 65 degrees is when the frequency drop to 1104. Does trip point 0 trigger a particular frequency (1104)? Should there be more trip points or is the throttling handled by another mechanism?
 

Install Armbian to eMMC.
1. Be sure to activate multi-boot using the new image. If multiboot previously activated is required to repeat activation using files in a new image.
2. Run Armbian from external media, run "ddbr" and create full backup eMMC.
3. Execute script “/boot/create-mbr-linux.sh”
3.  install Armbian on eMMC execute script “/root/install.sh”.
 
Please note, this is a test installation, which was tested only on a few models. Possible errors (Armbian will not boot) when you are working on unverified models which used non-standard distribution of partitions in the eMMC. Therefore, be sure to back up the "ddbr" utility before running the scripts.

Sorry to pick up that old thread, but I want to add another resolution.
Yesterday I got from @martinayotte the hint, that `sudo systemctl start armbian-resize-filesystem` is working ( I checked it with Armbian 5.70 and it works).

apt update && apt -y upgrade  
1. armbian-config -> software -> softy
 
Home Assistant smart home suite (https://www.home-assistant.io/hassio) OpenHAB2 smart home suite (https://www.openhab.org)  
Bug fixes:
 
Syncthing ZSH Internet detection also works behind proxy
Cosmetical fixes:
 
UrBackup Transmission  
Removed:
 
Exagear (EOL)  
2. armbian-config -> personal -> mirror
 
New mirror http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/armbian-apt/ & http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/armbian-dl/

My default workstation. Soon it will be deserted on those small notebooks for summer time.
 
Usually there is, little but not much, random clutter around: papers, cables and boards. Core testing and debugging infrastructure is on the right side. Under the table I have two fix mounted and easy accessible USB powered hubs, which serves as powering and debug. Half ports have secured 1.5A per port. 14 ports in total, connected to server and shared around the network. Powering via extended USB3 hub proved to be enough in most cases, for rest and for special cases I use their original power supplies. which are somewhere below, differentiated with colours. Than there are 15 gigabit and 5 fast Ethernet ports and 2.4G AP. Since I am software developer first and tinkerer second, 40" of property is central point of interest. Sometimes it also get too small and also to avoid more cables, I have another fixed 19" in debug section. On the top of folder shelves I got an extremely low noise build server and another cabinet of electronics stuff. Lower left cabinet is place for small desktop computer and printer, while right side is filled with various parts, from cables, bigger boards, soldering equipment, hard drives, etc. Most of cables are hidden / embedded, to make this mess manageable. When I don't play with boards, I move cabinets in upper level and make use of whole table (minus keyboard and mouse).

In case someone is looking to add an Emby media server to their Nextcloudpi with hardware accelerated transcoding, I made a step-by-step guide here: 
 

A good read.
I've learned something. I didn't know the ethernet and usb share the same line. The thing is even crappier than I thought.
I would also have complained (a lot) about their ancient ddr2 RAM chips. I find this the biggest flaw in the design of the 3B+. The SoC is so bottlenecked by this that even at OC of 1.5Ghz, it performs very badly on ram dependend tasks. 

The thing is just one collection of design flaws. I don't know what was going on while they were designing the 3B/3B+. They were clearly not concentrating on their work.
Either they don't have good testers, or they just don't listen to their concerns. All these issues should have been fixed after the first tests.

I still love my 2B, and still use it often. That's got advantages towards other sbc's(power efficient, no throttling, much more stable, ...) I still hope they're going to do better with the next one. But for now I'm going to use my RK3399's and dream of the Odroid N2.
Great job, thanks.

I agree.  The 2B is the one I use when I have to, the 3A+ at least represents the SoC's physical reality.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!! Thanks it works !!

One of the more honest Raspberry Pi ... today I think the RPi 3A+ is more decent, honest and humble with the user.
I complaint about the bottle neck longtime ago  https://raspberryparatorpes.net/dudas/el-cuello-de-botella-de-la-raspberry-pi/ in Spanish of course.