NOOB to the Pi's - Differences between boards and OS's

papaberean

I am very noob to the whole Pi scene and not very good with linux. I can follow detailed instructions well but am not able to do any programming or writing code on my own.

To the point, I have been reading everything I can find, I can see that each OPi model has its own OS version but I am not seeing that much difference between HW. For example, the HW specs for the OPiPC, OPiPC+, OPi+ and OPi+2E are all pretty much the same HW with minor differences. In my thinking I should be able to use the OS from any of these and use it on any of the others (maybe requiring adition of a driver or two).

Am I correct in my thinking or is the differrences deeper than what I am seeing and they must therefore use only their specified OS for each board?

What I am looking for is a basic, low consumption OS like OPENWRT that I can DL and be up and running easily. I say OpenWRT because it seems to be very lightweight but able to add-on packages with very little thought.

gnasch

They do differ not  only in feature sets, but also in internal components like voltage regulators.
If you are a beginner you should probably take a "complete" model like opi pc+, and use armbian.
That way you can mostly stay away from kernel issues and treat it similar to any debian distro.
Do not expect the richly pampered environment and support of a raspi, but expect to learn.

good luck, gnasch

papaberean

Thanks for the reply, that is the model I ordered (OPiPC+), still in the mail. I have been doing my homework while waiting! Alot of people are saying that the OPiPC and the OPiPC+ are the same but the PC+ has the addition of more ram, emmc, and wifi. Is this true? In theory, I should be able to use any OS made for the OPiPC on the PC+ and I just wont have working wifi if I am seeing things correctly. I ask because I am looking for a light weight OS [like openwrt] that I have some familiarity with, to add asterisk to and use for my home phone system.