Olimex Support Forum

News => New Product Ideas => Topic started by: oeren on May 17, 2026, 05:13:02 PM

Title: can a lime 2 or pico 2 xxl run an open printer in a free software manner?
Post by: oeren on May 17, 2026, 05:13:02 PM
https://www.crowdsupply.com/open-tools/open-printer

In the following I am assuming that the software which is running the open printer is free software.
Unfortunately the open printer people decided to go with a rpi zero w. The rpi zero w requires non free software in order to work. In result free software people do not want to use the open printer. On the other hand should it be possible to replace the rpi zero w with a computer able to run entirely on free software the open printer would get relevant for free software people.
Both lime 2 and pico 2 xxl can run entirely on free software correct? If so can I get to know if the lime 2 and pico 2 xxl are candidates for replacing a rpi zero w?
Please do not provide answers if you are not familiar with what free software is in the context of the free software foundation. Thank you.


 
Title: Re: can a lime 2 or pico 2 xxl run an open printer in a free software manner?
Post by: LubOlimex on May 18, 2026, 02:50:40 PM
All three of the boards that you mentioned can run completely open source software. Yet there is major difference between the Raspberry Pi product and Olimex products - Raspberry Pi Zero W is not open-hardware, while Olimex provides files used to manufacture their products, when it comes to A20-OLinuXino-LIME2 and PICO2-XXL. These are open-hardware products.

About the software - the official Linux image provided by Olimex for A20-OLinuXino-LIME2 is truly open-source software, and contains no binary blobs. This is mentioned in the Olimage guide here:

https://github.com/OLIMEX/OLINUXINO/blob/master/DOCUMENTS/OLIMAGE/Olimage-guide.pdf

PICO2-XXL doesn't come with own software, the software Olimex provides for PICO2-XXL is based on the RPi SDK, so expect similar software as what Raspberry Pi Zero W uses.