Author: Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments on MAIWO K2024 USB4 M.2 enclosure takes up to four M.2 NVMe SSD, serves as a 1-to-3 SSD duplicator

MAIWO K2024 USB4 M.2 enclosure takes up to four M.2 NVMe SSD, serves as a 1-to-3 SSD duplicator

MAIWO K2024 four bay M.2 enclosure

There are many M.2 USB4 or Thunderbolt enclosures on the market, but the MAIWO K2024 USB4 enclosure is a little different as it takes up to four M.2 NVMe 2230 to 2280 SSDs and features a button to use the device as 1-to-3 SSD duplicator. Based on the ASMedia ASM2464PDX USB4 controller, the MAIWO K2024 is suitable for people needing lots of NVMe SSD storage with high-performance random I/Os, for instance for video editing, and users needing to duplicate SSDs quickly and easily, e.g. to duplicate a Raspberry Pi OS installation on several SSDs. MAIWO K2024 key features: Chipset – ASMedia ASM2464PDX USB4/Thunderbolt 3 to PCIe/NVMe controller with USB 3.2 and USB 2.0 backward compatibility Storage Up to 4x M.2 NVMe M-Key SSDs 2230/2242/2260/2280 sizes supported Up to 32TB storage when using 4x 8TB SSDs Transfer rate of 16 Gbps with one SSD (PCIe Gen4 x1), 10 Gbps each with […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on Queclink WR310 – A compact 5G and WiFi 6 industrial cellular router with four GbE ports, GNSS, and RS232 and RS485 interfaces

Queclink WR310 – A compact 5G and WiFi 6 industrial cellular router with four GbE ports, GNSS, and RS232 and RS485 interfaces

Queclink WR310 5G industrial cellular gateway

Queclink WR310 5G and WiFi 6 industrial cellular router features four gigabit Ethernet ports, a USB Type-A port, a terminal block with RS232 and RS485, and a wide 8 to 32V DC input suitable for smart manufacturing, industrial IoT (IIoT), and edge computing applications. It looks to be a more compact and cost-optimized version of the Queclink WR300 5G industrial router introduced in 2023 with global 5G coverage. The WR310 has many of the same features, but comes with less memory and storage, one less gigabit Ethernet port, and is available in three models depending on the region of operation: WR310FEU for EMEA, AP, and Brazil regions WR310FAU for LATAM markets WR310FNA for North America Queclink WR310 specifications: SoC – Unspecified Qualcomm dual-core Arm 64-bit Cortex-A53 @ 1.0GHz; likely the Qualcomm IPQ5018 or similar (Note the Qualcomm IPQ8072 quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 @ 2.2 GHz was used in the WR300 5G […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Toradex launches its first SMARC modules with NXP SoCs for improved compatibility and supply chain

Toradex launches its first SMARC modules with NXP SoCs for improved compatibility and supply chain

Toradex SMARC modules with NXP i.MX 8MPlus and i.MX 95

Toradex has introduced its first SMARC-compliant system-on-modules (SoMs) with the SMARC iMX8M Plus and SMARC iMX95 SoMs based on NXP i.MX 8M Plus and NXP i.MX 95 SoC respectively. The company has made proprietary system-on-modules for years with the Colibri, Apalis, Aquila, and Verdin families. Those typically are cost-optimized and use most or all I/Os from the selected SoC, but customers are tied to one supplier: Toradex. To offer more flexibility, the company decided to introduce its first standardized system-on-modules by selecting the SMARC 2.2 standard for compatibility with existing SMARC-compliant carrier boards and adding the Swiss company as an alternative supplier. Highlights of the SMARC iMX8M Plus module: SoC – NXP i.MX 8M Plus CPU Quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 application processor @ 1.6 GHz Arm Cortex-M7 real-time core @ 800 MHz GPU – Vivante GC380 2D GPU and GC7000UL 3D GPU VPU – 1080p60 video decoder & encoder AI accelerator […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments on PCIe3.0 to Dual M.2 HAT+ for Raspberry Pi 5 features ASMedia ASM2806 PCIe 3.0 switch

PCIe3.0 to Dual M.2 HAT+ for Raspberry Pi 5 features ASMedia ASM2806 PCIe 3.0 switch

PCIe 3.0 to dual M.2 HAT for Raspberry Pi 5

We’ve already covered Raspberry Pi HAT+ boards with multiple M.2 sockets with various keyings including the Geekworm X1004 HAT+, Pineboards HatDrive! AI, and  HatDrive! Dual with two sockets, and the Geekworm X1011 with four M.2 Key-M sockets. So when I saw Seeed Studio introduced a dual M.2 HAT+ board I initially thought it was uninteresting being a very similar board. However, all aforementioned PCIe to M.2 HAT+ boards are based on either the ASMedia ASM1182e or ASM1184e PCIe Gen2 x1 packet switches with 5GT/s shared bandwidth, and Seeed Studio’s PCIe3.0 to Dual M.2 HAT+ for Raspberry Pi 5 features instead an ASMedia ASM2806 PCIe 3.0 switch supporting up to 8GT/s shared bandwidth through the Raspberry Pi 5’s PCIe Gen3 x1 interface. Seeed Studio PCIe 3.0 to Dual M.2 HAT+ key features and specifications: Supported SBC – Raspberry Pi 5 and potentially other SBCs with a PCIe FFC connector like the […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on M5Stack LLM630 Compute Kit features Axera AX630C Edge AI SoC for on-device LLM and computer vision processing

M5Stack LLM630 Compute Kit features Axera AX630C Edge AI SoC for on-device LLM and computer vision processing

M5Stack LLM630 Compute Kit

M5Stack LLM630 Compute Kit is an Edge AI development platform powered by Axera Tech AX630C AI SoC with a 3.2 TOPS NPU designed to run computer vision (CV) and large language model (LLM) tasks at the edge, in other words, on the device itself without access to the cloud. The LLM630 Compute Kit is also equipped with 4GB LPDDR4 and 32GB eMMC flash and supports both wired and wireless connectivity thanks to a JL2101-N040C Gigabit Ethernet chip and an ESP32-C6 module for 2.4GHz WiFi 6 connectivity. You can also connect a display and a camera through MIPI DSI and CSI connectors. M5Stack LLM630 Compute Kit specifications: SoC – Axera Tech (Aixin in China) AX630C CPU – Dual-core Arm Cortex-A53 @ 1.2 GHz; 32KB I-Cache, 32KB D-Cache, 256KB L2 Cache NPU – 12.8 TOPS @ INT4 (max), 3.2 TOPS @ INT8 ISP – 4K @ 30fps Video – Encoding: 4K; Decoding:1080p […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on Linux 6.13 Release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.13 Release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures

Linux 6.13 Changelog

Linus Torvalds has just announced the release of Linux 6.13 on the Linux Kernel Mailing List: So nothing horrible or unexpected happened last week, so I’ve tagged and pushed out the final 6.13 release. It’s mostly some final driver fixes (gpu and networking dominating – normal), with some doc updates too. And various little stuff all over. The shortlog is appended for people who want to see the details (and, as always, it’s just the shortlog for the last week, the full 6.13 log is obviously much too big). With this, the merge window for 6.14 will obviously open tomorrow. I already have two dozen pull requests pending – thank you, you know who you are. Linus Release about two months ago, Linux 6.12 – the new LTS version – brought us real-time “PREEMPT_RT” support that had always required out-of-tree patchsets until now, the completion of the EEVDF (Earliest Eligible […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments on Disabling VT-d improves Intel Arc GPU Linux performance on Meteor Lake and newer SoCs

Disabling VT-d improves Intel Arc GPU Linux performance on Meteor Lake and newer SoCs

Improve Intel Arc GPU performance Linux VT-d disabled

In this post, I’ll check whether disabling VT-d virtualization support may improve the performance of the Intel Arc GPU in recent Meteor Lake or Lunar Lake SoC using a Khadas Mind Maker Kit with an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V CPU with Intel Arc 140V graphics running Ubuntu 24.10. A few days ago, I read a post on Phoronix about Intel publishing tips to improve the performance of Intel GPUs in Linux: Keep the system updated with the latest kernel and Mesa versions. Ensure SoC firmware is up-to-date. These firmware updates currently require installing the Windows graphics driver; firmware updates via fwupd are in progress. Use Wayland where possible, as it supports additional modifiers for better performance. For MTL (Meteor Lake) and newer integrated GPUs, disable VT-d if virtualization is not needed. For discrete GPUs: Enable ReBAR_ Enable ASPM_ I was especially curious about the line about disabling VT-d virtualization […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments on Jack Dorsey talk at FOSDEM 2025 may lead to protest

Jack Dorsey talk at FOSDEM 2025 may lead to protest

FOSDEM 2025 protest

Jack Dorsey, who previously owned Twitter and now runs Block, will be giving a talk at FOSDEM 2025 entitled “Infusing Open Source Culture into Company DNA: A Conversation with Jack Dorsey and Manik Surtani, Block’s head of Open Source” and some people don’t like having a billionaire giving a talk at an open-source event and plan to host a protest. I recently wrote about my own FOSDEM 2025 schedule focusing on embedded systems topics, and while the event is usually non-controversial, I was startled by a tweet by FOSDEM organizers who issued a “statement on planned protests during the upcoming FOSDEM 2025”. I eventually found out that it was related to a post by Drew DeVault who did not appreciate having a billionaire talk during the open-source-focused event. The talk is planned in the Janson venue which is the biggest at the event with a capacity of up to 1,500 […]

Youyeetoo X1 x86 SBC