The Banana Pi BPI-M7 single board computer is equipped with up to 32GB RAM and 128GB eMMC flash, and features an M.2 2280 socket for one NVMe SSD, three display interfaces (HDMI, USB-C, MIPI DSI), two camera connectors, dual 2.5GbE, WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2, a few USB ports, and a 40-pin GPIO header for expansion.
This is not true
https://roboticsbackend.com/enable-ssh-on-raspberry-pi-raspbian/
The workarounds are either using their tool and/or fiddling on the SD card. Other SBCs do the reasonable thing and have it enabled by default. This simply pushes people into using their tool.
The extra menu in the flasher does the magic on the sd-card. I’ve been setting up headless pi’s since before 3b came out, and the same options are available today.
The idea that ssh being enabled by default is reasonable is just like your opinion. Did you know you have to enable it during installation on both Debian and canonicals derivative? Maybe it’s still on by default on fedora (with root login enabled to help you!)
If editing your config is fiddling then I struggle to see your use of an sbc.
The difference is that Debian requires you to install with a screen/keyboard and/or use something generic like cloud-init not a proprietary tool that pushes people into telemetry and whatnot. Also a Pi is a lot less critical than a full system and almost always used by hobbyists. Professional users would change passwords / use keys so, yes, it makes absolutely no sense.
The Debian installer can be pre-seeded and be automated. You can use cloud-init for non cloud installs but why would you? Preseed or use fai and let your config system handle the rest.
I get that you love this board and think that “the establishment” is evil. But you come off as someone not having the knowledge to back your assumptions.
Sometimes this will be the right board, sometimes a Pi is better. And sometimes 2-3 microcontrollers are a better fit. But the choice should not be based on telemetry in an optional imager, or the fact that your headless setup requires editing of config files.
How is a pi (or other single-board computers) less critical than “a full system”? Do you have any idea how many pi’s are out there running serious stuff? Where I work I bump into them all over - including in security systems and door-access.
This one has two 2.5gb ports, 8 to 32gb ram. This is serious stuff for an sbc, clearly overkill for your pihole install. What’s not equally serious with banana pi is support. I went to their wiki, it lists Android and Debian (previous version) “images” but no download links, so it’s hard for me to verify that this board boots with sshd running or not. Like I said Debian does not, and for a good reason. Raspberry pi os pulls from raspbian, and they pull from Debian.
You can run Ubuntu LTS, fedora or others on your pi.
The telemetry is bad news - soon we will be out of food because someone knows what size of sd-cards you use, and the number of installs you do. So better go buys a silly board, track down some ancient image of an install someone did at some point where they managed to compile the nic drivers and include the binary blob. Because nobody gets to force you to add an empty file to your sd-card!